Starting November 1st.

Simply put, this is the plight of the poor and homeless in our city. Our city. Host of the 2010 Olympic Games, Vancouver is consistently ranked one of the three most livable cities in the world. We love our city; but our city has a problem.

Homelessness is on the rise in the Metro Vancouver area with the official count of homeless persons almost doubling from 1,121 in 2002 to 2,174 in 2005. That number continues to rise each day.

It's about time Vancouver took responsibility for its homeless problem.

It's about time the church went beyond its own walls and into the streets.

It's about time teenagers looked outside consumer culture and started serving.

It's about time for a city wide campaign.

Thanks for your willingness to support the Dollar A Day Campaign, a city wide capital campaign to raise funds to fight urban poverty. This campaign was birthed September of 2007 by a group of high school students at Coquitlam Alliance Church who shared a conviction to do something significant with their lives and follow the call of Jesus to love the poor.

Donations to Dollar A Day will be processed through the site www.dollaraday.givemeaning.com and funds will be dispersed to our four strategically selected ministries: Union Gospel Mission, Hope For Freedom Society, Potters Place Mission and Night Shift Ministries.

Inbox (-4)

There used to be something there.
Deep and intimate relationship.
Accountabilty.
Trust.
Someone to talk to.
A loving embrace.

Used to.

Oh well...

What you did to me made me
See myself something different
Though I try to talk sense to myself
But I just won't listen

Won't you go away
Turned yourself in
You're no good at confession
Before the image that you burned me in
Tries to teach you a lesson

What you did to me made me see myself somethin' awful
A voice once stentorian is now again meek and muffled
It took me such a long time to get back up the first time you did it
I spent all I had to get it back, and now it seems I've been outbidded

My peace and quiet was stolen from me
When I was looking with calm affection
You were searching out my imperfections

Though other songs may try to drown it out,

we will shout out loud

We love you

We love you

We love you

We love you

Another Urgent Situation - so I will copy and paste todays email/prayer request.

There is a little girl in peril right now.
Just recently, she's moved from a house was half devoted to growing marjuana. Her mum neglects her, and her daddy beats her. In other places, places that also should've been safe, she's been exploited, doing things to herself that fill me with tears.
This little girl is cutting herself. She cuts deeply, so that she bleeds. Dipping her fingers into the drops of blood, she writes on her dressers

"HELL. I'M LIVING IN HELL."

This girl is ten years old!
No one should EVER feel the way she does, and certainly not a little girl. Her childhood has been stolen. She should be playing with dolls, and running around barefoot, and twirling in dresses, hearing the answer to hear question "am I lovely?" be answered warmly with "Yes. Darling, you are lovely."

This little darling didn't tell me herself, it was a relative of hers. So I can pray, knowing that God will hear me...but physically it's a challenge.

In talking with a friend today, I've found that there is something I can do. So, tonight I called a crisis line, telling them some of what's been happening. The woman on the other end of the phone told me that if I can get a full name, the name of a school, an address...some peice of information, that they can begin to investigate.

I cannot leave this family like this. I won't do it.

Please pray for this little girl, and her sisters aswell.

And please, do not let your hearts grow in anger towards her parents. They are broken.
I know that personally, I've had to learn this, many times. But you have to see, that people aren't just mean. Something has happened to make it this way, and so I challenge you to look on them with broken hearts, asking "what could have possibly happened to you to make you act this way? What has hurt you so badly?"
Pray for her parents too.

Thank you, beloved friends.

I surrender.

"I am finding out that maybe I was wrong.

That I've fallen down,

and I can't do this alone.

Stay with me...

this is what I need,

please."

This heart, it beats, beats for only You.