DAY TWO OF URBAN PLUNGE
Also, at Vineyard we (the girls) slept all in a jumble upstairs in the nursery. What a mess. There was a bathroom attached to it though…however the stalls didn’t have doors on them. Yah, we got close with one another quite quickly. My small group and I got placed with a church (it’s more of an outreach center) called Walls of Freedom. We went around the core “high risk” inner city regions and handed out flyers and put them in people’s doors. At first all of us said to ourselves, “Oh we are just handing out flyers”. The flyers said dates and times for community gatherings and other outreach events that are always held in local gyms in the area, which makes their “services” so much easier to attend. Throughout the day we realized the meaning of the flyers, it was much more than just handing out flyers. Jim and Jackie (wrong spelling of her name…I just can’t remember how!) are a married couple who ran the mission and they were the most generous friendly people I’ve ever met. They told us stories about how much impact the flyers have had on the community. One man received a flyer and came to one of the events (which are almost completely geared for community, they are potlucks, with sports for all ages, crafts for kids, and other forms of childcare. There is a church service aspect, but no one is forced to listen or to attend that part of the gathering) and accepted the Lord. About a month later he suddenly tragically died of a heart attack. His girlfriend spoke at his funeral and couldn’t stress enough how thankful she was that he accepted the Lord. One flyer saved one life. Beautiful. We got to meet so many neat people on the streets, and I uncovered something amazing about the inner city. It is crazy how open people are to flyers. That may sound dumb, but if we went to Polo Park (Winnipeg Shopping Mall) and tried to hand out flyers there would be close to no response. Or if we went door to door, (like we did) but in the more suburban areas richer regions of the city, people wouldn’t respond. People came right up to us and asked whom we were and what we were doing, people genuinely wanted to come to the events, and were excited about them! It was amazing, and very eye opening. I also have begun a love for inner city missions and outreach; I can make a difference in my own community. I don’t have to go across the world to change the world; there is enough pain and suffering in my own backyard. DAY THREE OF URBAN PLUNGE
On the third day we got to choose where we wanted to go, and I raced at the option to go the law courts. I thought it would be a really cool experience, I watch so many crime dramas on TV and I’ve been in a actual court room….so I wanted to! So we found ourselves in a small courtroom with two lawyers, a judge, the accused a police officer guarding them, and some other woman sitting at a desk probably recording the whole dealio. The first court we sat in on was a young man, around my age that had a number charges against him. I can’t recall them all, assault was one, stealing someone’s prescription medication, and the biggest one, stabbing. His lawyer made it very clear that it was not this client that did these things but he was with his good friend who did all those things. The judge seemed pretty peeved at the prosecutor, probably because he barely had his poop in a group. The defense lawyer (as a disclaimer, I have no vocabulary when it comes to this stuff…I hardly know a thing) was really young, and also seemed a little unprepared. Later we were taking to the man who was escorting us for the day, and he said that most often the appointed lawyers who represent people who cannot afford regular lawyers, hardly see the case before they enter the courtroom. Sometimes they receive the case five minutes before they have to defend the person. The defendant was completely at the mercy of his lawyer, he just had to sit there and watch the whole thing unfold. Powerless. We sat in on other courts later on that day, and one larger one that consisted completely of just pushing back court dates. For nearly a hour we sat there and watched pretty much one lawyer with tons of cases, ask for two weeks for pretty much just talking. Sometimes it was a month, 3 weeks, 2 months. It was all very ridiculous, it just seemed like they were just procrastinating. 
We then went and looked at different areas of the city, and most of it I had seen before. However, we reached a few regions I had never seen before. More troubled part of town that I had never seen. I pretty much live in Winnipeg, (I don’t…but still) and I didn’t know these places existed. That day was eye opening for sure. We recapped in the evening and shared stories (which we did every night…I just didn’t mention) and then we headed “home” or to Camp Arnes. Whichever way you want to flip it.
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