(l-r) Claire Chen, Jacqueline Brower (co-director/mark teacher), Justin Yuen (VUP director), Mike Bennett (co-director/mark teacher), Mike Louws (pictured above Mike Bennett -absent from Markwest but present on VUP), Esther Kong, Rachelle Castelino, Sarah Wong, Farisia Thang, Anika Barlow, Klara Salter, Aloka Kumarage.
Our team of 12 began the Vancouver Urban Partnership with the 7 day Mark West Pacific retreat at Pioneer Pacific Camp on beautiful Thetis Island. We studied the gospel of Mark for 6 hours per day. Our Mark study focused on chapters 8 to 16 of Mark which is full of Jesus giving the difficult call to discipleship "Pick up your cross and follow me", "Give up your life to find my life", "Deny self...". I was blessed and encouraged at how our our team shared vulnerably together, I could feel God's Spirit present teaching us.
"One thing" from Mark really landed with our team during a teaching time. It was the impact of Jesus calling God "Abba Father". He prays to God in this way at his darkest hour in the garden of Gethsemene, we were really challenged with the idea that Jesus was facing his own temptation to fall away. We came to the conclusion that what fueled his submission to God's redemptive plan and allowed him to pray "not my will, but yours be done" was his own intimate bond to Father God as "Abba"; best translated as Daddy. A couple girls in the room smiled as they recounted the tender names with which they call their dads. Several others averted their eyes with the pain of wishing the could echo the same intimacy with their dads. This yearning we have to know and be known by our parents is the one thing that God our father wants to fill us with - intimate knowing. Only as we experience God in this way will we, like Jesus, take up the cross of discipleship with tears of joy. This was just one example of how the Spirit lifted words off the page to apply them deep in our hearts through the week of scripture teaching.
On April 30th, we spent the night experiencing and contemplating the Jesus' last supper in the upper room. Following a time of communion, songs, and prayer, we carried a wooden cross through the dark to a rocky outdoor chapel at the camp. On the cross we'd attached injustices that break our hearts (child abuse, the greed of rich unwilling to share, sex trafficking, child soldiers, etc). Acknowledging the broken relationships and world systems that result from human sin became a main focus of our bible study time. After holding a short candle light vigil of "watching, waiting, and praying", we extinguished candles and left Jesus' cross in the dark and cold of the night.
In the morning we returned to contemplate Jesus' resurrection at the foot of an empty cross topped with flowers which had replaced the injustices of the night before.
The smiles you see came out of genuine joy and hope. Approaching the pain of life through the hope of Jesus' resurrection was the conclusion we reached. The team expressed some tangible fears on this last morning as we prepared to travel directly from the serenity of the Mark West camp directly into the uncertainty of Vancouver's downtown East side.
Pray along with us "Lord have Mercy". We want to lean on the hope of his mercy and grace as we face our fears to love and serve among the poor in Vancouver.
Outside of our VUP team preparation 80 other students were also experiencing Mark West. The joy of Mark west was capped off by witnessing 4 students choose baptism and one girl from China accept Jesus for the first time. It was a week of transformation!
Thank you for your prayers and support.
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