Mar 10 2010
Vancouver Chronicles: The Great Room
When we flew out, we really didn’t know where we’d be performing. But we were excited to learn that besides churches and a large theatre, we’d be going into Vancouver’s Skid Row area to minister at a beautiful women’s day shelter called “The Great Room.” This article talks about the Great Room and the wonderful women who work there.
Here’s an excerpt:
VANCOUVER, Canada — Meet the thirteen “radical hostesses” — women who have journeyed through hard times, and often life on the streets, and who are now reaching out to share their growth and healing with other women. Throughout the Olympics, these hostesses have given tours of their community – the Downtown Eastside, welcomed and served visitors in the sacred space of the Great Room, and gathered women from the street to enjoy some of the creative artists that perform almost daily.
Hands down, the Great Room was for us the most powerful place to minister. We performed full-length versions of “Street Lullaby” (a call into God’s peace) and “Dream” (a story of sin and deliverance), and the ladies responded afterward by telling us how much both pieces met them where they were. We prayed with them and worshiped with them.
It really struck me that we could come from such different backgrounds, yet our plight of fallenness and need for redemption is the same. I told the ladies before we did “Dream” that it’s a story they might recognize as their own, and it’s also my story, and Carolyn’s. And it was really special to see how well these truths could be communicated through poetry, storytelling, and dance — through the beauty and the power in these art forms God has given us.
The article also includes a few pictures from our visit and this recap from their point of view:
Yesterday afternoon Rachel Starr Thomson and Carolyn Currey of Soli Deo Gloria Ballet — a poet and a ballet dancer — came to the Great Room to share their gifts with us, and it was absolutely beautiful. Combining music, spoken word and dance, they shared an amazing message about the journey of life, full of joys and sorrows, despair and hope, and ultimately healing and freedom. During the performance, the poet asked, “Are these chains on my soul? I cannot crack this death. I cannot find the way.” The dancer twirled and leapt as these words and music filled the Great Room in response, “My chains are gone, I’ve been set free. My God my Saviour has ransomed me. And like a flood, His mercy reigns, unending love, amazing grace”.
Amazing indeed.
