i hate my blog

I had a surreal conversation with a man on the downtown eastside this weekend. I believe his name was Shaun, but i could be wrong. I met him as we volunteered at a coffee drop in on Hastings. We started talking when he told me about how he had died twice, clinically, both times from an overdose, both times revived by doctors, both times he went back to what he knew. Its strange talking about drugs and addiction with someone who takes. He started talking about a lady he met at a pentecostal church in Langley. Jackie Pullinger is a missionary in China, who worked with the homeless, addicted and gang members in the notorious "walled city" in Hong Kong. Countless have been healed of addiction from her ministry, which consists of a detox where the volunteer is locked in a room and prayed for, 24/7, until the drug works its way out of their system. Regardless of the questions this raises, there is testimony of hundreds of its effectiveness...so much so that my friend Shaun held her up as almost divine. He said "if only she were here she would heal so many"
I was pumped because Jackie's biography "Chasing the Dragon" is one of my favorites and she's an idol of mine too. So we connected. I asked him "how come that doesn't happen here? how come it can't happen here"
Shaun said "i think its because there isn't the faith in people here. We don't believe it can happen. Here we have everything we need. Over there they have nothing, not even food or anything. They need to rely on God. They have nothing else. Here if we need something we go get it ourselves. If we're sick we go see a doctor. We don't need God. We don't have the faith." - it sure felt like homeless addicted non-Christian (by our standards anyways) knew God more personally than me.
I don't believe that Jackie Pullinger is divine. I don't believe that only she can save people like that. I don't believe that its an exclusive gift, or that God d0esn't want it to happen to the downtown eastside. I don't believe theres any good reason why it can't happen to any of us. I don't believe theres any good reason why i can't do the same.
So i thought to myself "why can't i do this? Why can't i be like Jackie? Why can't God use me here too? Maybe all he's waiting for is for someone to step out in faith"
Shaun gathered his stuff, stood up, and told me it was nice meeting and left. A couple minutes later we left too. I past Shaun as i was leaving. He was sitting on the damp sidewalk, motionless, his mouth wide open and his eyes rolled back into his head so that all that looked at me was the blank whites of his eyes. I didn't pray for Shaun to be healed of drugs. I didn't demand it in the spiritual realms, or take my authority, or rebuke satan or anything like that.
I'm not totally sure what i feel about that stuff, and I don't think i'll learn about it by not stepping out. So why didn't i you might ask?
That is one of the reasons why i love the downtown eastside, because i feel like i fit in. There is no room there for pride, for people of accomplishment, for people with great educations, for people who are confident of their right choices in life. Theres only room for screw-ups.