Why I Help People Take Drugs (Dr. Meera Grover)

Today, I’m talking with Doctor Meera Grover who works in Calgary, Alberta extensively in the field of addiction medicine.

Working in Vancouver’s notorious downtown eastside to pay for her theological education at Regent College, Meera Grover was faced with questions about whether or not providing people who use drugs with sterile supplies and a place to inject contravened her faith. She knew she wanted to care for people with addiction but did not know how to do so in a way that fit with her own moral code.

She wrestled with these questions over the years and through her transition, from nursing to becoming a fully licensed physician who specializes in addiction medicine.[1]

Meera has written a book entitled “Why I Help People Take Drugs”. In this interview we delve into the often contested practice of harm reduction and the importance of the human connection in addressing addiction issues.

Link:

Dr. Meera Bai Grover

https://meeragrover.ca/

[1] Benjamin Perrin, flyleaf of ‘Why I Help People Take Drugs’

More Of The Maury Story (Maury Blair interview)

This is part two of my interview with Maury Blair as we revisit his traumatized childhood in Paris Ontario and the journey to wholeness through coming to faith in Christ.

If you have not yet listened to part one, go to https://www.sidewalkskylinepodcast.com/sidewalkskylinepodcast/revisiting-child-of-woe-maury-blair-interview

Links:

Breakthrough Ministries

https://overcomingabuse.ca/

Revisiting Child of Woe (Maury Blair interview)

Years ago I read Maury Blair’s autobiography ‘Child Of Woe’. I was shocked at the severity of the child abuse he suffered from his step-father. How could a man be so filled with contempt for an innocent child and more miraculously, how could a child of violence grow up to be so compassionate and well-balanced?

In this episode I visited Maury at his kitchen table in Cambridge, Ontario as we revisited his faith journey and ministry. We walked on the streets of Paris, Ontario to see the old homestead, the church and the streets he lived on.

This is part one of two episodes.

Link:

Breakthrough Ministries

https://overcomingabuse.ca/

Back To The Shack (Bobby Reaume interview)

Bobby Reaume is the lead operator with Feeding Windsor-Essex’s Soup Shack. Every night from 7-9 pm he ensures that up to 140 people are served with food, snacks, clothing and personal care items. The food is prepared in the kitchens of Feeding Windsor-Essex, a charitable department of New Song Church.

This interview at the Our City Windsor 2024 Conference is filled with stories of hope and the continuing miracle of Bobby’s journey to recovery.

As an update, Bobby and some interested parties are attempting to start a charity of their own to provide a greater platform of services to Windsor’s homeless and street-affiliated population. The Soup Shack would be enhanced by a building where more than food would be served.

In the meantime, donations to help fund current operations can be sent to Feeding Windsor-Essex. Find out how at admin@feedingwindsoressex.ca

Links:

Feeding Windsor-Essex

https://www.feedingwindsoressex.ca/

From Fentanyl To The Soup Shack (Season Four, Episode 18)

https://www.sidewalkskylinepodcast.com/sidewalkskylinepodcast/from-fentanyl-to-the-soup-shack-bobby-reaume-interview

Youth At The West Edmonton Mall (Braden Brodeur)

Braden Brodeur is a youth worker at Marketplace Chapel at the West Edmonton Mall. The chapel is staffed by Christians and provides spiritual and religious care to shoppers, employees, and wanderers. He is in process to become a Mission Canada urban worker.

The West Edmonton Mall is the 2nd largest mall in North America at 5.3 million square feet.

West Edmonton Mall has over 800 stores and services including nine attractions, two hotels and over 100 dining venues in the complex, and parking for more than 20,000 vehicles. More than 24,000 people are employed at the property. The mall receives about 32 million visitors per year; it attracts between 90,000 and 200,000 shoppers daily, depending on the day and season.

 Braden currently interacts with 100 youth on a weekly basis.

Links:

Marketplace Chapel

https://www.lovedmonton.com/

West Edmonton Mall

https://www.wem.ca/

Mission Canada Profile

https://www.paoc.org/canada/workers/bradenbrodeur

Bring Back The Village (Sileen Phillips)

Rev. Sileen Phillips is the children’s minister at The Church of St. Peter and St. Simon The Apostle Anglican Church in Toronto. In this session at ‘Our City Toronto 2023’ she brings her insights from working with the vulnerable sector in government institutions and the community.

Links:

The Church of St Peter and St Simon-The-Apostle

https://stpeterstsimon.ca/

Our City Toronto

https://www.ourcitytoronto.ca/

Intensity: In Tent City

Bill Reilly and I shadow the team of Street Level Advocacy in Peterborough, Ontario. Scott Couper, Leigh-Ann Davidson, Chris and a growing number of people are spending their days on the streets, in the Overflow tent city, shelters and agencies that work with street affiliated people.

You will meet Joe, the Aboriginal man run over by a snow plow and Will the bicycle recycler. Join us as we find God at work in desperate places.

Links:

YouTube version:

https://youtu.be/BD7j0NqRwgo

Scott Couper Interview - Season 2, Episode 24

https://www.sidewalkskylinepodcast.com/sidewalkskylinepodcast/scott-couper-is-a-bridge

Scott Couper Profile

https://paoc.org/canada/workers/scottcouper

News:

https://www.ptbocanada.com/journal/street-level-advocacy-partners-with-starbucks-and-second-harvest-feed-vulnerable-population

Sex Trafficking and Courage For Freedom (Kelly Franklin part 2)

This is part 2 of my interview with Kelly Tallon Franklin.

As a young Torontonian living in an upscale neighbourhood, Kelly lived with the secrecy of sexual abuse. Fuelled by her insecurities she took to the street with a vengeance. Her associations would eventually lead to her being trafficked.

Today Kelly Franklin leads Courage For Freedom, an organization committed to ending trafficking in Canada and helping its victims find a new life of healing and recovery.

Learn more at www.courageforfreedom.org

Kelly is available to speak and can be reached through office@courageforfreedom.org

Longevity In Urban Ministry (with Michael Krause)

Dr. Michael Krause has a broad range of ministerial experience in an urban context in churches, social service agencies and educational institutions.  He was the director of Evergreen, Yonge Street Mission’s outreach to street-involved youth, supervising 20 staff overseeing a thriving menu of programs including health care, housing support, employment training, drop-in and meal programs, and a broad range of advocacy support.

He was the youth pastor at Flemingdon Park Church, the assistant pastor at the Stone Church in downtown Toronto and the senior pastor at Church on the Street, an experimental church reaching out to street youth in the urban core. He has been active as a church planter in other contexts, pioneering Hills Church, an innovative, house church network based in Thornhill. 

Before joining the faculty of Tyndale in 2014, he functioned as the Staff Care director at Yonge Street Mission where he provided leadership development, ministry coaching and counselling to staff members working with the urban poor. He has been teaching courses with the TIM Centre Diploma program since its inception in 2010. He also has a private practice as a leadership coach and church consultant. Michael is ordained with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. (description from Tyndale faculty page)

In this session from the Our City Conference (2019) in Toronto, he shares principles of longevity. How do you prepare and maintain a ministry life for the long haul?

Links:

Tyndale University

https://www.tyndale.ca/faculty/michael-krause

Yonge Street Mission

https://www.ysm.ca/

Church On The Street Reunion

Michael & Ejay Tupe