The Open Door: Providing Clothing, Comfort and Care | Trinity Talks Podcast

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity Talks. This week we are here at the

Open Door, which is in the Square One Mall in Mississauga. And I'm super happy to be

joined by Lynn and Krista, who are the director and assistant executive director of the Open

Door. Thanks for joining me, ladies.

Wonderful to have you guys here.

So maybe you could just start by telling us a little bit about what is the Open Door?

The Open Door is actually the churches of Mississauga, and the community is involved

as well. So we actually started off with 12 churches. Trinity was one of the founding

churches. That was 50 years ago. So many churches participate now in so many different ways.

Everyone is welcome that comes here. We're obviously Christ-centred, but we believe we'll

raise a child of God. So everybody is loved the same and served the same. And I think

some of the important things to know about us is that everything here is absolutely free.

God has kept us somehow. We don't have any government grants or anything like that because

we want to be able to say we are the churches in the community. So that's why. But somehow,

like 50 years, we're here. Moved quite a few times, different locations.

Yeah, so at this time, the Open Door has operated as a food bank in the past in different ways.

But at this point, we've kind of reshaped and we're focusing in as a clothing bank.

And we also do a lot of meals, hot meals for people through the week. And those are our

two kind of ministry vehicles that we use the most.

And then there's, of course, other things we'll show in the way, like we do backpacks

and take care of all the Christmas families that you're a part of and other programs.

So there's other programs as well. But also, the main thing is just being it's just anybody

that can come for any reason. So some people, there's all different people in all different

kinds of crises. We have like homeless people, we have new people new to the country. We

have moms going through real difficulties, maybe six kids and all kinds of stuff. So

and some people are just lonely. So people can come here for any reason. So a lot of

our main focuses is, like, for instance, when we do clothing, it's not just about giving

away clothes, right? It's, you know, meeting the people, befriending them, what more can

we do for you? So just tell you one little quick story right now, give you a little bit

of an illustration of that. So we have a beautiful family. The father is blind, and the mother

has health problems. And then they have three children as well. So they come for various

things such as clothing, back to school backpacks, they come for meals here together and lots

of loving. And we will be taking care of them for Christmas as well. But if we this is a

family that we will be journeying through for a period of time. Part of what's happened

right now is that he's just spent this last year having a really rough time. Because the

reason he's blind is because he had a brain tumor years ago. And he's been fine. And

then all of a sudden he started having seizures and everything. So of course, he's terrified

that this brain tumor is back. So probably our main ministry at that point is praying,

right? Yeah, praying with people and just journeying with them. So they're not alone

with whatever circumstances are going through. You know, so many people in this world don't

have someone to just listen to them with compassion. But also to be able to offer prayer in a very

safe way is just been such a really important part of the ministry and ways that we journey

with people. It's huge. So if we walk you through, we can tell you more on the way.

So we're going to take you to the chapel first. You're going to see as you go by our

Nativity displays and things like that, that we do here. And Krista, you should be talking

about the chapel because you spend most of your time in here. But anyway, just if you

want to see what it's like, here's our little chapel. And in another, it's humble,

but it's well loved and well used. So every day that we're open and everything, we would

have people in here that we'd be praying with them. And but a lot of it to his privacy

to talk about all their difficulties and stuff like that. So, you know, so we spend we spend

every day like praying with people all the time and just talking with people about different

things. And then as a staff and whatever, every morning when we come in, we always start

with prayer here with staff and volunteers and basically just really the main part of

it is just like asking God to equip us to to welcome the people that are coming in to

be his hands and his feet. And so they would end up they'll feel his presence in this

place when they come here for help. So that's a lot of what it's about. And then also,

our volunteers and people, they also have some real things going on in their lives,

too. And so we also can pray for each other and stuff like that in the morning. But then

this one is intercessory prayer now every Thursday morning. And that started more than

50 years ago. Yeah. And but we've kept that faithful to that. Yeah. You know, with the

chapel, we you know, we do a lot of praying, but because we're working with people from

all different backgrounds and all different walks of life that so much of what we do here

is just very gentle of getting to know people and helping them to be safe with us and start

to share more themselves. So this is also just our quiet, safe spot. Because often your

journey with someone for a very long time before you would ever pray with some of our

guys, you know, we can know for almost a year just loving them and just being with them

and humor and connection. And then they start unpacking and and start revealing. So we've

been able to really go deep and journey with a lot of vulnerable people that wouldn't

normally be open to that, which has been really special. So it's it's our special spot. We

do a lot of prayer in the hallway, too. But that's ground zero. It's nice to have that

dedicated space where you can just sort of get away from things and build those relationships

with each other and with God at the same time. Yeah, absolutely. Some of these wonderful

part of this is some of these people have actually journeyed into faith. You know, just

as Christa said, it's taking time, but it's just it's just amazing to see how God touches

people in the most wonderful ways here all the time. Yeah. Yeah. And it's often it's

just the little things, right, that God does to show people he sees them. I'm with you.

And that makes all the difference because we find if people just know there is a God

and sees him and he cares and that we care, people care, churches care, they could get

through anything. Yeah. The bottom line, like no matter what's going on in your life, right.

So a lot of things they might not change, but everything changes when they know that

they're not alone, that God is with them. So that's a very important part of our ministry.

And I think, too, is letting people be safe to be who they are and to journey towards

that because we have, you know, some of our guys are are outspoken atheists and they love

a good debate and conversation. And they know that that's just fine. And they're safe with

that and that they're just loved where they're at. And I think there's no defense for pure

love that doesn't have an agenda. And so when we're just here loving, it just slowly, slowly

opens up hearts and slowly brings that healing. And it's amazing the directions that that

can go. You know, but it just starts with that that love, just that slow soaking of

love. It's incredible. You know, there's so much loneliness and so many people go without

touch, without safe touch. And to actually come into a place where you're safe to let

someone embrace you and hold you, especially when you're feeling vulnerable or you're

hurting is just a powerful thing. And so, you know, a lot of places are very alarmed

about hugging. And we're definitely very careful about boundaries here. And we always ask before

hugging, we never just go in and reach. But hugging seems to be just such a powerful

thing that's developed here because of that. It's nonverbal, right? And so many of our

people are just so starved for wholesome touch and for the safety of a hug. And that's been

really just been noted and craved and asked for by a lot of our clients.

I think some people like everything just, you know, always reverberates with scripture

in your mind, right? But I think so much about the fact that some of these people, they feel

like lepers. Like, nobody would like, you know, go near them and everything. And it

just reminds me again how Jesus reached out and he touched the lepers. You know what I

mean? And so I think that's one of the reasons it's so powerful because people really feel

like that. They're so isolated. So like, you know, yeah, so it's interesting, isn't it?

Yeah. So let's turn it on. We can peek. I don't know if you want to peek in here. I

think I mentioned that that's just back to school stuff. We do backpacks and stuff, backpacks

and everything for about, I don't know, 150 kids. But even during the year now, like people

still need school supplies and stuff like that. So that's just a little sidebar. And

then an important part is in here, there's two rooms. And this is where we serve our

meals. And free meals is really an incredibly important thing here that we find. We just

find that this is this is something that's been growing and growing more and more. So

we've always had meals at the open door for like, basically, 50 years. And but as we decided

to phase out the food cupboard, because we found the need was more for clothing, and

then also for the fellowship and meals. We're really good this ministry, right. So even

the people that come to get their clothing now, which is about well, we give away about

100 bags. Yesterday, Wednesday, another 100 on Thursday. Okay. And then Saturday, we don't

count it. We just give it away. And of course, when people come in and they don't have whatever,

right? Yeah, this is bone grab stuff. But basically, that's the numbers for that little

bit of an idea for how many people like that. And when people come in for something, that's

a symptom that something's going wrong in their life. So we befriend them. And then

we invite anybody that wants to come and stay for lunch. They're welcome to join in with

all the people that are already coming for various other reasons. Right. So how often

do you do meals here? Tuesday, Wednesday, every other Saturday. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. And

there's beautiful stories like to be told for all that I can just say about one person

that when she was being bombed in Syria, her son, who is just a beautiful guy, we've met

him to he would cover her with his body. And she was a no son. You need to be safe, you

need to be safe. But he refused and he would cover his mom to protect her. So they managed

to escape to here as an incredible story of how they got here. But she was afraid when

they first got here, she was afraid to even go outside of the apartment. So her son would

bring her here, she would said to us, it was so beautifully said, This is my safe place.

You love me. You're with me. And she's just a really beautiful Christian woman. And so

again, we would pray for her a lot. But then she would pray for she prays for us. Right.

I remember when you know, she was first here, not long after she was first here, the fire

alarms go off in here all the time. But she was actually sitting right about over here.

And when the fire alarm went off, and she started shaking so hard, she almost like and

she was looking up at the ceiling like this. And I went and put my arms around her and

said, Habibi, you're safe. It's okay. You're in Canada like this. Just see the incredible

trauma that these people carry inside them. It's neat how community builds as well because

with with that particular lady being her her her English has improved over the time and

she's been able to communicate more and share more of her own heart. But she's ended up

reaching out to different clients that have come in where the different countries but

the trauma resonates in similar situations. And so someone else was breaking. And there

she was and just really understood in a very powerful way and came alongside and prayed

in another language while we were praying in English. And it was just beautiful how

the community builds in that way too. And people are there for each other, which is

lovely. So we have on those days when we have those meals, we have we're kind of got up

to around 80 people now at each meal, many of them new because we invite as I said, the

people that are there getting close, they can come too. They don't sit here, right?

So come with me. So this room is full as well. So that room full and this room full. We've

always dealt with a lot of people who are not housed, but they've been in shelter situations

or a lot of our newcomers who come to use the clothing, they are in hotel situations

and different precarious situations. But what we've seen growing this year is a community

of people who are not housed in any way. And so they're not able to get into the shelters

even. So we have a community of over 17 people right now, two women, the rest are all men.

And they are currently living out and about. And so they're sleeping in stairwells, we

give out tents and sleeping bags. And they are living makeshift. And so it's been a very

hard year for homelessness where we have people not just homeless and precariously living

in shelters alone about but literally trying to survive outside, which is just a horrible

increase to see in Mississauga. But this has been a real lifeline. The meals were one more

spot in the city. And we try to spread out so that there's something going on all the

time. But especially that weekend meal, so many things are shut down on the weekend.

And so this is a warm safe place. Some of our people we let in a little bit early, most

days we'll let them in at 11 and put their head down and just relax. But one of the hardest

things is never being safe, never getting that full sleep. And we know how that affects

our mental health so quickly. So you can imagine if you're already struggling, and then you've

got all these things. You know, one of those really hard things is just that lack of safety

and lack of sleep. So we just try to be aware of that and be a safe place. But there's a

real community here that's built and we have a couple of our guys that are sort of unofficial

outreach workers. And they're just constantly bringing in more, but also then, or when somebody

presents themselves, they come alongside and will sort of say, do you know about this place?

Do you know about this place? And just kind of help each other to find what they're needing

and support each other through that time. So yeah, now these are people basically that

have lived, worked in Canada all their life. And then through different circumstances of

different kinds, illnesses, all kinds of things, they end up finding themselves on the street.

So we work very hard trying to connect with all the resources that we can to get help

for them to different places, like calling around trying to get them in different places

and stuff like that.

We've seen four that we were journeying with since May, I think that they were out on the

street and journeying and really watching the decline happen physically and mentally

and emotionally. And they are now placed. It's one by one and it's been really interesting.

Quite a journey.

Yeah, quite a journey.

With God's help.

Yeah, to see what God does. But it's neat to see the camaraderie and the community.

Sometimes it gets territorial, but for the most part, yeah, and that's all ages, which

I find really interesting. So there are people in their 20s that are struggling and homeless

and then right up to I think Michael's 75. And he is now housed. But yeah, the age range

and the cultural backgrounds are across the board.

Yeah, we had two elderly gentlemen in their 80s. And so they would come here for lunch

every Thursday and Thursday. Yes. And so one of them was going blind. And the other one

was a real jolly kind of fellow and everything. But he had health problems as well. They both

had health problems extensively like that. And again, this was like their family became

like a family for them. But they needed the food. They also needed things like even and

you'll see down the other storage room, they needed like adult diapers. We provide them

every time they come in, they take some more home because some people can't even go outside

of their apartments without help. Right. And they came for a long time. We're so thankful

we had them last Christmas actually, because we didn't realize it was their last Christmas.

He fell, his head ended up in the hospital, then he died. And so the healthy ones gone.

Right. These gentlemen have been together for 68 years. And so you can just imagine

the grief and the loss. And so we're still really walking with the other gentleman. He

was here on Saturday for Christmas lunch, and he sobbed through part of it. But that

was okay. And he was safe to do that. And we held them just to walk with them through

the grief and help them to process it. And it's just really neat how God brought them

here for such a time because now we're in place enough relationship that we can really

walk alongside them. Two weeks ago, he's just started to pack up and process some of his

partner's things and he's been bringing those in. So those are like sacred donations. When

someone comes in, it's part of their grief, it's part of their process. And, and it's

been a big thing in his life to be able to give it. So you're really you're really journeying

with people, right? Not providing this stuff, but providing like, absolutely, relationship

and comfort and all that. Absolutely. There are people that come through that are just

for a time and they are they're just wanting a few meals and you know, pass them on to

resources and they find what they're needing and move on or they they come in for clothing,

you know, once in a while and it's just light. And then there's those ones that we really

journey with. And so it's just always watching for that, you know, that opportunity to go

deeper with people. Right? So if you were here, what you were looking in this room,

you'd see little babies, lots of little kids, and people of all ages coming for various

reasons. You'd see people in their mobile chairs, you'd see like people in all different

kind of difficult circumstances, they come in here and then kind of extend together.

And so some people like they've, they've had their own business. That was another one where

the father, he developed brain cancer, right? And then the wife had a heart attack. And

now all of a sudden, they've got kids and now all of a sudden, there's no business,

no nothing. There's mortgages. There's half of us, all of us walking back down the hallway.

And then there's a room off to the side here where you have all the clothes. Yes, but also

in here, there's walkers, canes, all kinds of stuff like that, too. But you're able to

give away. Yeah, like one of our homeless guys, he was just so like he he was in the

hospital twice for falling. All right. We kept offering him a walker, but he'd no way. And

after his second time in hospital, he decided he'd like the walker. Yeah, what happens in

here? So this is the clothing bank. And the great joy is that everything that is donated

can go back out free. And that is such a beautiful freedom to be able to provide. It is so used

in the community. We get referrals from schools, from the hospital, social workers, a lot of

word of mouth. This year in particular, there's been a real influx of foreign students as

well that are in really hard positions and not having coats, not having footwear. And

so that has really increased in this past year, where we've been also seeing that clientele

coming in. We had a lot of from the Ukraine and then we had a lot from Nigeria. And that

made the numbers just really go up in terms of needs for the clothing. We often see so

many interesting things, too. So this is a pastor from one of our churches that volunteers

every week. But this particular week, she was not feeling well, so she almost didn't

come in. So the amazing thing that happened was if you can imagine how many people we

have here and then all the people there for lunch, she went and sat down with someone

just to chat with them and everything. She said when she was in Kenya that she'd gone

to a school that she'd been taken in when she was a young girl and went through the

school and now she'd gone to university and graduated and just come to Canada. And

then she said about this couple, this lady that started the school, and Pastor Bev went,

that's my mom. That's my mom and dad. So it turned out that she, it was actually,

that's exactly who it was. She almost didn't come in. Of all these people, she sits down

and talks to this lady. She was just so willing to get in touch with the mom and the dad and

everything, who moved up north now. So Bev put them together and all the rest of it.

It was just lovely, right? But we see things like this all the time. It's just incredible.

We call them God incidences instead of circumstances. And then here, we also have high school students

that do their hours here afterwards, but also we have large groups. So we just had 30 students

from one school that were from their religion class. It was a spiritual day for them really,

but they came in to serve, but just to get their eyes opened about it. We were having

on hands-on like that. And hands-on is important. And that's one of the things we didn't mention

when we were talking about the dinners in there. So all our dinners are brought in by

churches. We have a roster of all different churches. Trinity has actually been a part

of that in the past too with some of your life groups and things like that. So they

come in and bring the food and then they get to serve all the people as well. So our churches

love it because they get hands-on, as I said, and to be very visible here in this big city,

right? We're here to love you and care for you as a church. Again, it's people having

an opportunity to have hands-on coming in to really experience and to be able to see

God at work in people's lives and touching people's lives in such beautiful ways.

A couple of Saturdays ago, we had two hockey teams come and it was so much fun. They brought

so much energy. They were roughhousing and all over each other, but then they had gone

around and they collected a lot of clothing and they were able to sort of unpack some

of that, be putting it out. And it's just, it's really beautiful to be able to be a

part of people having those experiences sometimes for the first time. It was fun because they're

a younger hockey team, right? And they were like rolling over the clothes, doing stuff

like that before they started to do this, right? They'd say, okay, bottom lines guys,

no checking, no taking anybody into the boards. No like this, right? Okay, now you can help

do the clothes. And the coach goes...

How often do you accept people to come in to get clothing?

So we make appointments now for that. And we just do that in order to kind of make sure

that we don't have too many coming at once. And so we make appointments and they can come

on Wednesdays and Thursdays that we book those. And today we have a smaller group coming in

because we're still recovering from our Christmas lunch and we're doing our Christmas family.

So we have a smaller group today, but normally, yeah, it'll be about a hundred bags that go

out from this room in one setting. And then like we said, on the Saturdays, we don't book

anything in. We tend to do that more in-house. And so that's where we're looking after the

needs of some of our regular community, especially that some of that homeless population we were

talking about. That's a quieter private time where we can just make sure that they've got

sleeping bags and warm coats. So we just hit emergencies more at that time. And yeah, we

don't bother making appointments for that. We do make appointments, but we also have

a lot of mercy because people are coming. So we just assess every situation. There's

always mercy. That's just our framework of making appointments. So it's not a madhouse.

No, it is mercy, but you can imagine if you have more than a hundred bags going up, like

it's too...

Yeah, it can be a lot.

Yeah. And plus, which because we have deliveries coming down, which we use grocery carts and

we have to run upstairs and meet people at the curb, bring them down the elevator, one

elevator, right? And then we also have all the people coming down. And then we have the

people going up with the big bags, because they're garbage bags when we say bags, right?

But just in here, you can probably see, probably you've already seen, so there's shoes and

boots and all the different clothes and coats. We have toys and stuff like that for kids

too. So...

A large collection of books too, which is really special. Yeah. A lot of books that

go out.

So this, we have to have people sorting clothes. Yes. If you imagine a hundred bags going out

today, and coats, and you've got that many people again the next day, you have to have...

And you've got deliveries coming in, you've got to have lots of volunteers to be unpacking

and sorting and restocking by the next day. So that's all going on behind the scenes.

And in here, excuse our mess, but it's actually fairly organized considering the turnover

we have, right? So as we mentioned earlier, this is adult diapers, which are really important.

And we have feminine supplies. And then we have all the babies, because we do diapers.

So you can see all the babies are there. And then if you go that way, Alex, you'll see...

Well, first of all, there's cupboards over here that we're sorting in the middle of sorting.

Yeah.

Bags coming in over here. And then here, you'll see we do toiletries as well. And also we

do cleaning supplies. You'll see on the bottom there's... Especially things like dish detergent

are really in demand. And hand wash is incredibly important.

Because if you've got three or four kids, a bar of soap isn't such a good idea, you

know, passing it around. So you really need to get a lot of liquid hand cleaners for that.

And then up top you saw there was... There's sleeping bags, there's blankets, and we've

got people that knit for us, and beautiful new baby outfits, and also knits and gloves,

all that kind of stuff.

It's probably important to note that it really is a ministry of volunteers. And so there's

two and a half staff, and the rest, all of this, is just a labor of love. It is all volunteers.

It's from our churches. There are people who come regularly, and this is their... They

put in many hours every week, and then there's people that come in in groups and do hits

and pieces. But it is a labor of love in the community, because each piece of clothing

is personally donated, and all of these things. This isn't large company donations. This is

the community coming forward for each other. So it's beautiful.

So as you know, you've just met two staff. So we're the two full-time, Krista and I.

And then we have Annette is our part-time office administrator. She's actually training

from Trinity as well, too. So yeah, that's it. As Krista said, it's all volunteers.

It's volunteers, and it's part of the beauty of the place. It's part of the strength of

the place, and it's neat because it is all the different churches coming together. And

so that's kind of a powerful witness, too, to see that cooperation happening. And yeah,

it's beautiful.

We had one of our ladies that will be here probably today. She started volunteering with

us for quite a while. Now she's actually a pastor's wife, and it was her first day in.

The lady was in a wheelchair, so she had to have a jacket. You can't have a coat. And

we didn't have the size that she had because when people are on medication, sometimes they're

very oversized, right? And we didn't have it. So we just like said, like we always do,

Lord, this lady really needs this coat. And the next thing that happened is somebody actually

arrived with an oversized coat to say, can you use this? Right? And our volunteer for

the first day, she brought it in. When we got finished, we said we knew that someone

that was a person of faith. So we were able to say, would you like us to pray for you?

And she said, yes, please. And so when we got finished, she said, can I pray for you?

We always say, oh, yes, please. Right. And so now she prayed the most incredible prayer

for us. Right. And this is our volunteer. So I look up and our new volunteers got tears

running down her face. Right. And I thought, oh, she's okay. Right. So after this lady

ran, I went and said, are you okay? To her like that. And she said, it's okay. It's

okay. She said, they're just Holy Spirit tears. So now we nicknamed that. So often

when we see beautiful moving things that we see so often here, we always say Holy Spirit

tears. And many of our volunteers, we didn't mention it to a lot of our volunteers are

actually from Trinity. Right. And of course, some of your groups that come to help. So

what we're doing is we weren't able to have our big dinner anymore because we used to

have 300. Right. But since COVID, every Christmas people would be really sick. So at the last

minute we had to again, transfer them to the smaller one. What we missed so much was a

pageant because we tell people the real meaning of Christmas. And then we would dress up all

the kids and then Dave would tell the Christmas story and they'd act it out impromptu. Right.

And it was sometimes the first time that hurt. So, but God always finds a way no matter what.

But what we do is we've got the costumes over here from Trinity, by the way, you can see

there. So we dress the kids up. They're allowed to pick their costumes that they like. We

found out we have an awful lot of big kids too, because a lot of the adults, they want

to be in the picture with their kids as well. So we dress them and then they can come and

stand over here and they are in the Nativity scene. So the heart of everything is to always

get that message out. So we have coloring sheets and stuff like that and Nativity things

for the kids. And then as you can hear, we try to do, we can incorporate everything that

we can by having everything around. So, so we're really thankful that we can be in this

huge mall in the middle of the city. Right. And we can, the churches can be here. Yeah.

Just showing that, you know, all the different churches and we're here to love and serve

you the people that are coming in here. So that's what it's all about. Yeah. Is there

anything else that you wanted to share with the folks at Trinity? No, just that welcome.

There's a lot of opportunities to be involved. So like we said, we're a ministry of volunteers.

So from sorting to baking to praying to coming in together with a group to do a meal, there's

just so many ways to be involved if you want to be hands on as well. Yeah. And I just want

to, I think on behalf of all of us to just to say an incredible thank you because as

you've heard Trinity's been part of this for 50 years and we're so really deeply grateful

for that. That's for sure. The most important thing we ask above everything else is your

prayers. So just to keep us in prayer is really important to us. And we're so thankful that

we know we have like so many of our churches are praying for the open door as well all

the time too. So it's huge. It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. No, thank you. Thank

you both for taking us through and just sharing so many stories, sharing the impact of this

ministry and yeah, your beautiful heart behind it all. Thanks to God. Yeah. And it's beautiful

that we really truly see God and feel his presence every day here because we really

do see him touching people all the time. So it's an incredible place to be. You know,

and I know people that come in here, that's one of the things they always say is, you

know, when they see it, they're just wow. And just to thank you as we get like all the

time from the people and also people that interesting enough, I told you run by donation,

right? Some of the people that we've helped right in the past, all of a sudden, like literally

10 years later or more, they'll come walking in here and they want to make a big donation

to the open door. And we're like, and they say, my life, you know, is so different if

you hadn't, if I hadn't had the open door to come to and that help. Right. So anyways,

yeah, going on. No, that's all right. Yeah. Well, thank you for tuning into this week's

episode of Trinity Talks. I hope that you've been able to take some learning from this

and some encouragement. And maybe you can find some ways to reach out and serve others

this Christmas, whether it's here through the open door or through financial donations

or donations of clothing or wherever you are. If you can find ways to reach out and love

your neighbor. I'm all year round. All year round. Of course. Yes. Yes. Okay. Well, we'll

see you again next week.