Camae (Shayna Jones) with Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. (Kwesi Ameyaw). Kathryn Nickford Photography

The last play of Pacific Theatre’s Covid-reduced season will end next week. But there are still tickets for The Mountaintop by Katori Hall – and the reviews are positive.

The outline of the play:

April 3, 1968. Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. (Kwesi Ameyaw) retires to the Lorraine Motel, desperate for a pack of smokes and a good night’s sleep after exhorting America to ‘be true to what you said on paper’.

Enter Camae (Shayna Jones), an enigmatic hotel maid with a great deal of information about Doctor King’s future – and the future of the movement he champions.

Writing in The Province, Jerry Wasserman said:

This dramatic and often surprisingly funny two-hander attempts to make sense of a complicated character who lives somewhere between those two definitions. Just 90 minutes long, it can only begin to scratch the surface of the real Dr. King, who has become something of a myth.

But director Omari Newton’s tidy Pacific Theatre production succeeds in delivering a rounded portrait of a man fighting enormous battles on issues that continue to haunt American culture. . . .

The play ends with King’s moving vision of the promised land he can see from the mountaintop, and his insistence on love as the only means to that end. The audible sobs from the audience attest to the ongoing power of his vision and accomplishments, the effectiveness of Ameyaw’s straightforward, unadorned portrayal, and the loss we all suffered with Martin Luther King’s awful death at the age of only 39.

PT is offering a “curated reading list from Christophe at Iron Dog Books to complement the play, including The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin), Why We Can’t Wait (Martin Luther King Jr.) and The Radical King (Cornel West).

Evicted while hospitalized

A May 30 article in The Tyee profiled unjust practices which leave some vulnerable people homeless and also highlighted Union Gospel Mission’s role as a social safety net.

In December 2021, Athanios Collias collapsed at a SkyTrain station in New Westminster. The 78-year-old would spend the next three months at Royal Columbian Hospital recovering from a painful pinched nerve.

But while Collias was in hospital learning how to walk again, his landlords – a family in Burnaby he rented a room from – sold their house. Because Service Canada didn’t know where to reach him, Collias’s Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement benefits had also been cut off.

“These people, they brought all my things into hospital, they evict me from the place. They told me they sold the house,” said Collias, who immigrated to Canada from Greece in 1962 and spent his working life employed in restaurants in Calgary and Vancouver.

“So when I get out from that hospital, I have no place to go.” . . .

Nicole Mucci, a communications manager for Union Gospel Mission, said the social services organization is noticing that people coming in to stay at their East Hastings Street shelter are increasingly older. Another trend is people being discharged from hospital and being sent to UGM’s shelter.

For many seniors, the path to homelessness starts with a period of being hospitalized. Like Collias, Steve Kirk was evicted while he was in hospital for several months in downtown Vancouver. After the 70-year-old was discharged, he spent the rest of his savings — around $7,000 — staying in a hotel while he looked for a new place. But when his money ran out, Kirk also ended up at UGM’s shelter.

Go here for the full story.

Fong Dickman: minister, editor

Rev. Fong Dickman, spouse Jane, and three of their children, about 1908. Anna is seated on her mother’s knee. Yucho Chow Studio, Vancouver

I appreciated this brief reflection in honour of Asian History Month on the Pacific Mountain Regional Council of the United Church of Canada website.

The Fong family is well-known in the early history of Chinese-Canadian communities in BC. Rev. Fong Dickman arrived in Vancouver from Nanaimo, to minister to the Chinese Methodist congregation in Chinatown, 1906.

That same year, Fong became founder and editor of Wa-Ying Yat-Po 华英日报 (Chinese-English Daily Newspaper), Canada’s first Chinese daily newspaper (1906).

Another first: daughter Anna Lam (née Fong Dickman) became the first nurse of Chinese descent to be registered in B.C., 1929.

The PMRC Archives holds the Fong Dickman papers. Our description of those materials – our very first bilingual (English/Chinese) description – can be found on our online catalogue.

Pictured are Rev. Fong Dickman, spouse Jane, and three of their children, ca. 1908. Anna sits on her mother’s knee. Photography by Yucho Chow Studio, Vancouver, B.C.

Blair Galston,
PMRC Archives

May 2022

The Prayer Walk: Burnaby / Ridge Meadows / Abbotsford – May 29, 2022 - June 4, 2022 at All Day

Jun 2022

Jul 2022

Revival Langley Conference – July 1, 2022 - July 3, 2022 at All Day
Voices Together from Sea to Sea – July 1, 2022 at 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Anton Dolfo-Smith: The Long Goodbye – July 4, 2022 - July 9, 2022 at 12:00 am
Christian Climate Observers Program 2022: Application – July 4, 2022 - July 25, 2022 at All Day
Kickers Soccer Camp – July 4, 2022 - July 8, 2022 at 9:00 am - 3:00 pm
FLO Summer Soccer Camp 2022 (two camps) – July 4, 2022 - July 8, 2022 at 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm
Janet Soskice: 'Who am I?' Self-love in the Days of Self-obsession – July 4, 2022 at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Wesley Hill: Reading Romans in a Time of Upheaval – July 4, 2022 at 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
The Growing Season: Book Launch Party – July 5, 2022 at 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Faculty Roundtable: Gender Dynamics in the New Testament – July 6, 2022 at 12:00 pm - 12:45 pm
Jules Martinez-Olivieri: Reconciled to Reconcile – a Visible Witness in a Divided World – July 6, 2022 at 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Gary Hall: Tensions, Disruptions and Incompleteness: Thomas Merton on Sustaining Hope in the Face of Social Crisis – July 7, 2022 at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Bez Open Mike, with Russ Rosen (Thursday evenings) – July 7, 2022 - July 14, 2022 at 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
BC Christian Ashram: Thy Will Be Done – July 8, 2022 - July 10, 2022 at All Day
Lance Odegard – July 8, 2022 at 8:15 am - 10:15 am
July Contemplative Prayer Retreat – July 8, 2022 at 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Perspectives on Truth, Reconciliation and the Catholic Church, with Deacon Rennie Nahanee – July 8, 2022 at 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Adult & Teen Challenge BC Open House – July 9, 2022 at 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
A Rocha's Market Summer Celebration – July 9, 2022 at 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm
C. Stephen Evans: The Fear of the Lord & the Virtue of Accountability – July 11, 2022 at 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Faculty Roundtable: Q & A – The Enduring Relevance of Kierkegaard – July 13, 2022 at 12:00 pm - 12:45 pm
Lynn H. Cohick: God Shows No Favouritism – the Body of Christ & the Household Codes in Ephesians – July 13, 2022 at 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Thomas Oord: Overcoming Obstacles to Love – July 14, 2022 at 7:00 pm - 8:15 pm
Peter Cheng on Laozi's Dao De Jing – July 18, 2022 at 12:00 pm - 1:15 pm
Yohanna Katanacho: Theology of the Land from a Palestinian Perspective – July 18, 2022 at 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Faculty Roundtable: Q & A – Palestinian Christianity – July 20, 2022 at 12:00 pm - 12:45 pm
Susan Phillips: To Make an End is to Make a Beginning – Marking Completion in Perilous Times – July 20, 2022 at 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Chelle Stearns: 'With Sighs Too Deep for Words': Silence, the Holy Spirit & Music in the Processing of Traumatic Experience – July 25, 2022 at 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Bach Festival 2022 – July 26, 2022 - August 6, 2022 at All Day
Dennis R. Edwards: Reimagining Humility – July 27, 2022 at 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Lunchtime Concert: Rebecca Collett – July 28, 2022 at 12:30 am - 1:15 am
GCN Partner Dinner – July 29, 2022 at 5:45 pm - 9:00 pm

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