Stories from Windsor: Part II

I wanted to capture a descriptive snapshot of two people that I met while I was in Windsor this past weekend, as I mentioned in Part I. There was one lady named Lynne who was considered the neighbourhood mother. She has lived in this community for years and she knows everyone and everything that happens.

During the more temperate seasons, she tends to sit on one corner in the middle of the neighbourhood. This corner has a cement circle with an iron statue commemorating the industrious nature of the people of days gone by. She can be found there at random times starting from early morning until very late evening. She's just looking out for anybody that needs to talk or that needs help.

Lynne's motto is, "You can't schedule a crisis." Everyone knows where she lives and everyone is welcome to knock on her door at any time, night or day. The people in this community prefer to take care of their own problems rather than bring cops in every day.

One man that we met from the church was having problems when he first moved in with a gang of teenagers in the neighbourhood. His car was stolen, the ignition was smashed and the car was beat up. He had a group of young guys surround his car at one after that and jump on it while he was inside.

By general consensus, if he called the cops then (a) they would have been ineffective in locating a random gang of youth and (b) it would have gotten worse for him. Instead, this guy spoke to Lynne. She knew exactly who each of the youth were and she went off to speak to them. The gang of guys never bothered this man again.

Lynne was highly skeptical of the church when it bought the old bar eight years ago. By her estimation, it took her six years before she even considered becoming a Christian. During that time, she became friends with the pastor and people from the church and eventually she became a Christian because of her relationship with these people. To this day, she has only listened to four sermons and she hated them. And yet, she'll join the worship times, is involved with the food services and is constantly at the church.

I have one more story that I want to fit in here. One of the many people that I got to know over the weekend was a guy Mike. He was about my age, in the mid-twenties. He used to go the University of Windsor. He had been in his third year of electrical engineering and had gotten his first job placement at Ontario Hydro. The motto that they use is that "one mistake can kill."

Talk about pressure. Mike was a third-year student still learning the ropes and, from what I understood, he had a nervous breakdown because of the pressure in his life. Apparently he now lives on welfare and he spends his time programming euchre games in java applets so that he can play a friend in China. He said that he just doesn't see the purpose in working hard for the rest of his life. He started visiting New Song Church (that was the church we were visiting) one month ago and he had been showing up there for their Saturday Night Live session every week. It's a casual short service with songs and snacks and he's been gradually developing a few friendships.

So those are two people that I met while I was there. (See Part I.)