Seeing the Neighborhood with New Eyes

Jarin Ten Hove says the Serve ministry project on which he volunteered in early July was not far from his home in Edmonton, Alberta.

In fact, the project group drove past many familiar streets and landmarks on the way to Avenue Church, the Serve project site.

Even so, Avenue Church, and the historic neighborhood in which it sits, could have been a world away.

“I got to see people who don’t have as much wealth as we have. We had the chance to meet the working poor and people who are homeless,” said Ten Hove, a member of Inglewood CRC, Edmonton.

Ten Hove is one of hundreds of young people from more than 120 churches involved in nearly 30 Serve projects this summer. Serve is a program of Youth Unlimited, a ministry recommended for support by the Christian Reformed Church.

Starting in late June and running through early August, Serve sends middle- or high-school-age students, along with youth leaders, out on five- to seven-day mission trips to communities across North America.

On Serve projects they paint houses, clean yards and alleys, take part in small renovation jobs, provide recreation for children, spend time learning about different cultures, attend worship, share the gospel, and more.

In Edmonton this summer, Ten Hove helped clean and stock and serve meals at two food pantries in the Alberta Avenue neighborhood. He also joined other Serve volunteers who helped to put on an AveFest in a neighborhood park.

“Serve was a great experience. I was able to see that part of the city in a whole new light,” said Ten Hove. “We had the chance to show the love of God to the people we met, and they did the same thing back to us.”

Avenue Church is a CRC located in a coffee house on 118 Avenue in an urban area developed in the World War I era. Although it is undergoing revival, the area still shows scars of blight and poverty, says Aaron Au, the pastor.

He says the building was once home to the Great Western Garment Company and the Norwood Foundry.

During the 1970s, the local Alberta Avenue neighborhood, once the main commercial strip, had fallen on hard times and had become home to drug dealers, prostitutes, and many homeless people.

But a few years ago the neighborhood embarked on an initiative and is now Edmonton’s pioneer neighborhood revitalization project, he says.

“Our church is part of this initiative,” says Au, who was first violinist with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra for 10 years before being sent out in 2014 by Mosaic House CRC in Edmonton to help plant Avenue Church.

“The people around here are taking back the neighborhood,” says Au. “This is once again becoming a desirable place to live. God is doing some amazing work of redemption here.”

Au says he was pleased the young people from Serve could see firsthand the new life sprouting in the area, while at the same time working with area residents who continue to struggle with challenges.

“It was a huge blessing for us at Avenue Church to help host these kids who love Jesus so openly,” said the pastor. First CRC of Edmonton was also a host church for the Serve project.

 “I think these kids appreciated the chance to be here too. I heard of one girl who said that in working with the people around here, she ‘was sucker-punched by God’s grace’.”

Au says a highlight for the youth seemed to be the AveFest, which drew people of different races and cultures from all over the neighborhood for a day of fun, food, and games.

“It gave the kids a real glimpse into the kingdom of heaven,” said Au.

Geoff Vande Kuyt, youth leader at Inglewood CRC, says his church experiences some of the same urban challenges as Avenue Church does.

But taking kids such as Jarin Ten Hove from his church to Avenue Church, where they joined young people from all over Alberta, offered them a chance to see their own part of the city with new eyes.

Last year, Vande Kuyt took young people on a Serve project to California. He says traveling that far was an adventure.

“Truthfully, I find it easier to get kids to sign up for service experiences that are far away, and to be honest the idea of sticking close to home for service isn’t a big draw for me as well,” he says.

“I think the familiarity with the local context doesn’t have the excitement anyone is looking for.”

But, he says, “Serve the Avenue” — as the project was called — surprised him in how his students got engaged.

“They often forgot ‘where they were,’ and it had the same sort of feel as being out of town, but every so often they would be reminded of this local experience by recognizable streets and landmarks.”

Along with this “came a realization of the local need and opportunities that are often overlooked and unrealized,”
he said.

Hopefully these needs came into focus not only for the week of Serve, he said, but also in “moving forward into the coming year.”