Monday moments

This past Monday, during our staff check-in before drop-in, we as a team acknowledged that we were feeling tired. There are a number of folks at The Dale whose lives are particularly tumultuous at the moment, a trend that we often see during the hot summer months. Between intense mental health struggles, housing (or lack…

What we all need

The Dale’s Tuesday night Bible study is always an adventure. We are currently reading through the book of Acts, which tells the story of the early church. This week we read about the way that the members of the early church shared everything in common; those who had resources shared with those who had less,…

Planting bulbs

For the first time ever, I have planted bulbs in the garden in front of the place I call home. I grew up seeing my mom trundle out into the chilly/dreary/sunny/rainy October weather to dig into the earth and deposit dry, dead-looking little items which she would then cover up and forget about. And then-…

Camp

This past weekend about thirty of us from The Dale went up to Camp Koinonia. It was an adventure, from start to finish! This year we had a number of strong personalities on the trip, and a couple of folks with significant mental health struggles. The combination of these factors led to some tension on…

John

This week has been a tough one. Just days after having Nicole’s death confirmed, we learned that our friend John had also died. John was a genuine kind of guy. A couple of years ago he was quite a constant presence at The Dale. He was going through a very difficult time, and would come…

Nicole

Nicole was special. The first time I met her was at our Wednesday morning art and breakfast drop in a few years ago. She sat in the corner, quietly creating beautiful pen and marker drawings. She would eat breakfast, continue drawing, and then slip out. It took a number of weeks before we had a…

The spice of life

If variety is the spice of life, yesterday was a flavourful day! We met in the morning to do some admin work at our new “office”, the kitchen of a baptist church in Chinatown that has graciously offered us space, access to wifi, and a coffee maker 🙂 We talked through some logistics, answered emails,…

Resurrection hope

Back in December, Erinn and I heard through the grapevine that a dear Dale friend had passed away. We sought out confirmation, but neither the hospital, the police, nor the coroner’s office had any news for us. So we held onto hope that we would see him around the neighbourhood…but the days turned into weeks,…

The word of the day…and of life

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted here, as there’s been rather a lot going on within my life outside The Dale; housing changes, family changes, community and individual relationship changes. Most of these changes have been good, and also tiring… as change often is. But I have a story that I’ve been meaning…

Salty and bright

I was reading the Gospel of Matthew a couple of days ago, and read the passage where Jesus says “You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world.” (Matt 5:13, 14) Somehow I had always associated those words with the end of Jesus’ ministry, and assumed he was talking to…