Around Town: new Women’s Residence, meet the Alongsiders, doctor fined . . .

Loretta Hibbs, founder and president of City Dream Centre welcomed Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke, along with Surrey City Counsellors Rob Stutt and Pardeep Kooner for the opening / ribbon cutting.

City Dream Centre is active on many fronts – and a significant new initiative has just been announced:

The Connections Program is designed to support women as they transition into stability, healing and long-term independence.

This one-year residential program will serve women who are ready for the next step in rebuilding their lives, including women who have completed a recovery program and women leaving traumatic circumstances such as domestic violence or incarceration.

Our heart is to provide a safe, stable and supportive environment where women can heal, grow and move toward lasting independence.

City Dream Centre has been welcomed to a building which has been used by Pacific Life Bible College, on 66A Avenue just west of 152nd Street in Surrey.

Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke took part in the open house and ribbon cutting ceremony September 24; she was joined by City Councillors Pardeep Kooner and Rob Stutt.

Locke said: “Government can never do it alone, but the grace of God can. . . . women’s safety is public safety.”

Loretta Hibbs gave Mayor Brenda Locke and the city councillors a tour of the facilities.

Of Hibbs, she said, “”You’re amazing,” and “thank you for your prayers. You are truly a gift to the City of Surrey.”

Hibbs gave the mayor and councillors a personal tour of the facility, which has undergone a major facelift. Those on a tour of the building were impressed by the comfortable rooms.

Matthew DelBlanc, President of Pacific Life Bible College, said at the ribbon cutting: “I echo the mayor; we need more people like you.”

He added that the vision of those who purchased “this rather unique property” continues to bear fruit. 

The 40-acre piece of land on which the new centre sits is home to Pacific Life Bible College, Regent Christian Academy and Horizon Church (at one time Bible Fellowship). They share facilities though they are separate institutions.

DelBlanc said, “This is an amazing fulfillment of a vision.”

The Connections Program will begin on this spacious site in central Surrey this fall.

City Dream Centre works in a number of other areas as well:

• Adopt a School Program
• Food Security Programs
• Education Program
• Sewing Program
• City Care Dental
• For the Love of Thrifting

I wrote about their August 15 Back to School event here.

Meet the Alongsiders

Craig and Nay Greenfield will speak at several events this weekend.

Many will know them from their time on the Downtown Eastside and others will be aware of their pioneering work with Alongsiders International over the past 20-plus years:

You cannot scale love.

He and Nay could pour themselves into a handful of children. Maybe even a few dozen. But tens of thousands of vulnerable kids across Cambodia had no one. So Craig began to pray for something different: a grassroots volunteer movement rising from within the Cambodian church itself. Young Christians, already embedded in their communities, choosing to walk alongside one child. True discipleship.

It started with 10 young people. And they made plenty of mistakes. But slowly, by grace and grit, they found what made a movement like this take hold – and last.

In 2003, Alongsiders Cambodia was officially born.

Today, hundreds of young Cambodians faithfully walk alongside one vulnerable child each – in their own streets, their own heart language and their own communities. The movement has spread into a dozen provinces.

And those first children – the original ‘little brothers and sisters?’ Most are now in their twenties. Many have become leaders in their churches. Many have become Alongsiders themselves.

Alongsiders have assisted families in Kathmandu whose villages near the Nepal-Tibet border were washed away recently. They are also training hundreds more young Nepali Christians as Alongsiders.

Then the invitations started arriving. From Indonesia. From India. From Rwanda, Pakistan, the Philippines, Kenya. Church networks on different continents asking the same question: Could this work here?

It could. It did.

What began in one slum now spans more than 30 countries. Not because of a headquarters or a massive budget, but because the idea is simple enough to travel and deep enough to last.

The first generation is equipping the next. And the next after that.

Craig and Nay have already spoken once, at Tenth Church Oakridge, but there are still three opportunities to interact with them:

•  Just 58 with Craig & Nay Greenfield, Tenth Church, Vancouver, October 2, 7 – 8:30. Register here.
• Alongsiders Lunch: Reaching the Nations Through Intentional Discipleship, The Bridge Church, North Vancouver, October 3, 11 am – 1 pm. Register here.
• Sunday preaching at Tenth Church Oakridge / East Van / West Side / Mount Pleasant, all in Vancouver, October 4, throughout the day. Go here for a link to locations.

Doctor fined

A Christian doctor, Dr. Henry Ajaero, has been fined for refusing to administer puberty blockers to a child. A September 9 CBC News article begins:

A BC family doctor has been ordered to pay $28,100 after refusing to inject a transgender teen with a prescribed hormone blocker, citing religious and cultural reasons.

Dr. Henry Ajaero, who has run a family practice in Delta since 2014, was ordered to pay the compensation in a September 1 BC Human Rights decision, which found his conduct was discriminatory.

In March 2021, Ajaero told a transgender teen and her mother who made an appointment at his practice that he would not inject a prescribed medication called Lupron, saying “he did not feel comfortable administering it.”

The article continues:

The decision said Ajaero attended medical school in Nigeria, and practised medicine in Nigeria, South Africa and rural BC before opening his clinic in Delta. It says he is Christian and “his religion is an important part of his life.”

Ajaero said he has around 2,800 to 2,900 patients, and works five days per week, seeing about 50 patients per day. The decision notes that at the time of the incident, Ajaero was under particular strain due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“He testified that he had never interacted with a trans person (to his knowledge) or been involved in any ‘gender therapy.’ He had never administered Lupron for any purpose. It was apparent from his evidence that, in all the circumstances, he felt uncomfortable and unprepared,” read the decision.

Go here for the full article.

A comment on the Let Kids Be site, an initiative of ARPA Canada, is critical of the decision and describes its implications:

As a punishment for supposedly discriminating against Q based on her gender identity, [BC Human Rights Tribunal member Devyn] Cousineau ordered Dr. Ajaero to pay $28,000: $8000 to reimburse Q for the costs of bringing a complaint to the Human Rights Tribunal and $20,000 for “injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect.”

These “injuries” include being “publicly misgendered and deadnamed” by Dr. Ajaero’s assistant at his clinic, being denied puberty blockers and feeling “helpless and scared.” These injuries were exacerbated because Q was “uniquely vulnerable,” a child with poor mental health and subject to the “power” of Dr. Ajaero.

(“Family doctors are ‘gatekeepers’ in a publicly funded health care system,” Cousineau commented, so that apparently brings a power dynamic into play. Of course, Q and/or his mother could have bypassed this “gatekeeper” by doing the injection themselves or going to someone else, which they did later the same day.) 

If not appealed and overturned, this case will further discourage doctors from hesitating to provide sex-denying drugs. Cousineau found that Dr. Ajaero acted in good faith and had no intention to discriminate against Q. Yet she still found him guilty of contravening British Columbia’s Human Rights Code because intent to discriminate is not required for a finding of liability. 

Cousineau continues to present “gender-affirming care” as the only caring treatment for gender dysphoria, ignoring the debate raging around the world about the harms caused by a medical gender transition. Furthermore, she also presents medical transitioning as a “right” under provincial human rights law that any person can demand from any medical professional.

Doctors have simply become vending machines. Their conscience and clinical judgment are no longer given significant weight. All of this demonstrates how gender ideology has so deeply captured our health and legal systems in Canada. 

Go here for the full comment. 

Events are listed below, but there is also an Events page and a Jobs page on the Church for Vancouver site.