Agape volunteers look back on their experiences
The B.C. Catholic
Delta
Individuals touched by an outreach group over two decades gathered to celebrate, and to examine how their lives have been affected.
Agape Street Ministry celebrated its 20th anniversary May 28 at Immaculate Conception Church in Delta. During the reception after Mass, several volunteers were invited to speak about their experiences with the group.
“I remember that I saw something falling from the sky, and whatever that was, I couldn’t take my gaze from it,” recounted Shelly Elder, a volunteer. “It landed on me … and it was a picture of a woman looking up to the sky, thanking the Lord Jesus for hearing her prayers.”
The picture was one of the prayer cards Agape Street Ministry handed out to women on the streets, which included contact information for Sancta Maria House, a women’s recovery shelter for addicts who are ready to accept help.
A recovering drug addict herself, Elder lived in despair at the time. “I was in a state of just being lost, with no hope in my addiction. I realized that if I didn’t go through with this, I was going to die.” She decided to call Sancta Maria House, and eight months later she checked in.
Her experience at the house “was what was missing in my life, and it filled the hole in my heart that I tried to fill with substances,” she said. “God was in my heart. Nine months at the house, and I learned so much, gained new friends, and found Jesus.” Elder was baptized a Catholic soon after.
Now she dedicates her Friday nights “to allow Jesus to use me as an instrument to go out (to the Downtown Eastside) and give glory to God.”
Elder gives out candy bags, and prayer cards like the one that saved her, to women of the streets. “God is working amazing miracles with each and every one of these women.”
“It’s a gift for me to go out there,” said Elder. “The women steal my heart each and every time.”
Other volunteers said Agape Street Ministry is a way to give back to the community and thank God.
“I was looking for a way to take the gifts God has given me and to share them with people who may not be as fortunate or may be vulnerable,” said Steve Ralphs.
“What I realized from (volunteering) was it is more of a two-way conversation than a monologue. (The women) are teaching us as much as we teach them, if not more.”
“The big thing that caught me was just how much love there was out there already. Some of these women don’t have immediate family, they don’t have loved ones to go home to, wherever they may be,” he said. Agape “meets them right where they’re at, like how Christ meets them.”
In engaging the women on the street, Ralphs noted the intimacy allowed them to really show the love of Christ. “We give them birthday bags just to show that these women are people, a child of Christ, and that they have value and are appreciated. By giving things like that, they open up and realize we’re vulnerable, and it opens them up to be vulnerable.”
“That’s where the real sharing and love is able to transform people.”
