The Multi-Faith Centre

Monday morning saw me back on duty, and back at the bus stop in the pouring rain as I headed into the Athletes' Village for another early shift. The routine once there was much the same as usual, a combination of being in the Multi-Faith Centre in case anyone called by, and of being out and about visiting around the Village, and talking to people wherever they might be. Today was actually a busy day in the Multi-Faith Centre and I think we had the most visitors we've had in one day. These included

• a person who'd been to a Prayer and Bible Study session earlier on in the Paralympics who wanted to talk again (she later came back again to attend the evening Bible Study and Prayer session led by one of the other chaplains);
• people involved in another future major event who wanted to familiarise themselves with they might do about 'Religious Services Provision' when planning their event (people from London 2012 and Sochi 2014 have already been round);
• someone who is a lay pastor of his church alongside his Monday to Friday job who wanted to make contact;
• someone who wanted us to pray for his work colleague;
• an athlete who wanted to share something and ask for prayer;
• people we'd visited in various places who came to see what our place was like

I've realised that I've never really described the Multi-Faith Centre, so here goes:
Sadly, we're at the end of a very long corridor which might put some people off, but it has been decorated with pictures and hangings to make it less stark. At the end of the corridor, we have a comfortable foyer with easy chairs, a television, tea & coffee making facilities, and a table with computer etc for our administrator - he shares with the chaplains the role of greeting visitors. Chaplains often sit here when they're in the Centre, and if anyone just wants a chat rather than a confidential conversation this is a nice place for it to happen. Leading off the foyer we have several other rooms. There is a small prayer room, often used by the Hindus and Buddhists but available for other faiths too; a larger prayer room, mostly used by the Christians for larger gatherings and for Roman Catholic Mass, but also available to other faiths if they need a large room (eg for Muslim Friday prayers); a Muslim Prayer Room for men; a smaller prayer room which was used as the Muslim Prayer Room for women during the Olympics, but is now also used as a smaller prayer room for whichever faith wants to use it; a nicely furnished room to be used as a counselling room or for any confidential conversations; and an office-type room, which can also be used for private conversations with people who call in; a storeroom; and two toilets. The design of the Centre provides both challenge and opportunity - a challenge to have such multi-use rooms and provide spaces for all major faiths whilst still enabling each to keep their own integrity, and an opportunity to demonstrate practical interfaith cooperation. Several people have commented that it'd be good if more of the world could cooperate as we do here.....

Learning from each other

In the early hours of Sunday morning, Canada changed its clocks to daylight saving time, so we all lost an hour's sleep. However, as I'd swapped shifts to help another chaplain who wanted to work today rather than next weekend, Sunday became another day off for me, and so I didn't have such an early start as I might have done. This meant I could attend church in the morning with my host family. They go to a Community Church in the Pentecostal tradition, and so the service was quite different both to my church at home and to the one I attended last Sunday. I enjoyed it though and, amongst other things, was especially impressed by the ministry of welcome. My hosts had gone on ahead as they had responsibilities in church, and so I walked to church and arrived alone. I was greeted very warmly and sensitively, and then invited to share in tea or coffee plus cake before the service began. Although I slightly missed the pattern of a set liturgy, it was good to sing some of the same worship songs as we do at St Michael's, West Andover. Besides some fresh aspects to the ministry of welcome, there were also several other ideas that I wish to take back to the UK with me; as there are from last week's service at a very different church; as there are from some of the conversations I've had with other chaplains. This is part of the joy of belonging to a worldwide church: there are things that we can learn from each other and apply and adapt to our own context.
In the afternoon, we went into the centre of Vancouver and visited a couple of the exhibition pavilions set up for the Paralympics. The queues for a couple of others were much too long to join - the wait in the queue for one attraction was said to be 4 hours but this was short compared to the 8 hours that I was told was the case sometimes during the Olympics!! One sadness connected to these exhibitions is that there are far fewer of them for the Paralympics than for the Olympics. Whilst I realise that there is a smaller number of both athletes and spectators, plus acknowledge the financial implications of them all staying open for both events, I do wonder what some of the Paralympians thought when they arrived to find so many things already being dismantled. With this and other factors in mind, it was interesting to hear the debate in the Vancouver media last week as to whether the Paralympics should perhaps precede the Olympics or even run concurrently..... The numbers of athletes would almost certainly be too big for a Summer Olympics and Paralympics to run concurrently, but this is certainly an interesting issue to ponder - balancing the positives that each event could give to the other with the loss of more narrowly defined and specific focus for each event.

Whistler

After a long and tiring Friday, it was good that Saturday was my next day off. My host family were going skiing in Whistler, and had invited me to go with them, and I was pleased to be able to accept. The journey up the coast wasn't as picturesque as it could have been due to rain and low cloud, but I did get glimpses of the beauty and splendour of the 'sea to sky' route as it's known.
On arrival in Whistler, my host family went off skiing whilst I headed into the village to meet Carolyn. It was good to catch up with her after a week, and to hear how the chaplaincy is going in the Athletes' Village in Whistler. This is where all the snow-based Paralympians and their support staff are located. As there are more teams and athletes here, it is busier than the Vancouver Village, and a good number of athletes have dropped into the Whistler Multi-Faith Centre, even though attendances at Prayer and Bible Study sessions haven't yet been that great. It was also interesting to note that some things which seem to work well in Vancouver don't work so well in Whistler - which just goes to show that chaplaincy, and indeed all Christian ministry, needs to take account of its context in order best to fulfil its aim.
After Carolyn left to begin her shift at 2pm, I explored Whistler itself, including the Aboriginal (First Nations) Centre and the Austria House. The latter was built on sustainable and energy efficient principles and after the Paralympics will become part of the legacy to the Whistler community. During the Games, it is home to the Austrian Paralympic Committee, and as part of that it offers tasters of Austrian food and hospitality. To do this it is staffed by a lecturer and group of tourism students from Austria and, as such, is an example of how the Games can also provide all sorts of opportunities outside of sport. I also enjoyed a longish walk around one of the cross-country ski trails. Although there is a lot of good snow in and around Whistler, especially at higher altitudes, the cross-country ski trails have closed a few weeks early due to the warm weather last month.
After my host family returned from their skiing, we ate together before going to the medal ceremonies for the day's snow events. At these Paralympics, as with the preceding Olympics, these ceremonies are conducted in the evening to enable more people to attend them. We also visited an exhibition highlighting some of the developments and innovations that have taken place in Paralympic sport over the years, before returning to Vancouver in time for me to conduct a live telephone interview with BBC Radio Solent's Sunday morning programme - it was really strange speaking on a Sunday morning programme whilst it was still Saturday here.....

Opening Ceremony Day

Instead of snow, it was rain that greeted me on Friday as I walked to catch the bus into the Village for another early shift. Despite the weather, there did seem to be more people around in the Village, though, perhaps because Opening Ceremony Day has finally arrived, and so the Tenth Paralympic Winter Games are about to begin.
The shift started as usual with some admin and preparation, followed by an expectant wait to see if anyone would come for the 9am Bible Study, but they didn't. A visit to the Polyclinic followed. However, before that visit there was a telephone called which drastically changed the shape of the day.
Earlier on in the week, one of the other chaplains has heard that there was a shortage of volunteers for the Opening Ceremony, so he, myself and a third chaplain said we'd be willing to help. But we heard nothing. Not long after the beginning of my shift a few phone calls were made and received, ending with a request that the 3 volunteer chaplains be at the stadium for a briefing by 1130am. Apparently, we were to be 'people managers' as "presumably that's what chaplains do a lot of the time".
The short notice was fine for me as it's only a 20minute walk from the Village to the Stadium, and one of the other chaplains wasn't too far away; but the third chaplain was still at home on the edge of Vancouver, so she had quite a dash. Our administrator ably held the fort in the Multi-Faith Centre to ensure cover there. At the briefing, we learned that we would each lead a team of at least 10 other volunteers undertaking various roles in connection with getting spectators into and out of the stadium. However, that plan was shelved when it was realised that we don't wear volunteer uniforms [See: 8th March - Accreditation and all that]; and instead we were assigned to the 'Fast Response Team'. After a familiarisation tour of the stadium, we were given a radio and stationed at the Information Booth to help them with whatever they needed whilst listening out for calls for help and action that might be needed elsewhere. Then the challenges followed......
I got our first call which was "We need you and your team to block off a gents washroom so that the public can't use it. It needs doing but we don't have the resources to do it, make it happen"!! Apart from the incongruity of asking a woman to work in/around a gents' toilet, this was an interesting task, to say the least. It felt a bit like one of those TV programmes where contestants are given apparently impossible tasks. But within 15 minutes myself and one of the other chaplains had sourced barrier posts, tape with 'Danger' written on it, sticky tape, marker pens, paper, and enough French vocabulary to be able to write a sign in both English and French, and the gents toilets were effectively sealed off!! Don't ask exactly how we acquired everything, but it was pleasing to see that our self-made barricade was still in place when we walked past at the end of the evening some 6 hours later.
After this, our tasks were mainly answering people's questions, directing them to places, and taking wheelchairs to collect members of the public from their arrival point and take them to their seats, and vice verse after the ceremony. We were also privileged to be told to take time off and watch the Opening Ceremony. Our duties meant that we missed the first and last 15 minutes, and we watched from some of the few vacant seats very high up in the stadium, but it was a fantastic experience.
Our role in the stadium made for a long day (I'd left my hosts at 7am and didn't get back until 11:45pm) but it was a good one. As well as the privilege of being present at the Opening Ceremony, I felt humbled by some of those I pushed in wheelchairs, was irritated by some of the public who made unjust demands on volunteers, and had a whole lot of new experiences doing something so different from my usual role. Some may question what this had to do with sports chaplaincy, but it was very practical Christian service, not just to the general public, but also to those volunteers we worked alongside. Our hope is that this spoke as much of God as what we normally try and do.

Let it snow.....

I awoke on Thursday to a fairly thick carpet of snow that had fallen during the night. Although forecasted by some, it was a surprise to many. However, it didn't last long thanks to the freezing rain that was falling by the time I arrived at the Village. By mid-morning, the snow had gone and the sun was trying to break through the thick clouds that shrouded the mountains to the north of Vancouver.
What has become my daily routine in the Village wasn't disrupted by the weather, although there did seem to be far fewer people out and about. This might have been due to the weather but also might have been down to it being the last full day of pre-competition training for most athletes in the Vancouver Village. I know that some (if not all) of the curling teams were due to train on the ice at the competition venue today rather than the other rinks they've been using until now.
As usual my day included the 9am Bible Study and Prayer session (although once again no-one came); some time manning the Multi-Faith Centre; some general visiting around the Village; some admin; a visit to the Polyclinic; and a time or prayer and sharing with the other chaplains and our administrator. Having been invited to do so, I also paid another visit to Paralympic GB, taking with me a birthday card signed by all of us in the Multi-Faith Centre today for someone whose birthday it was. When far away from home, things such as birthdays can feel quite strange, so it was good to help this person mark a special day.
Just as I as about to leave, two team assistants from another team called into the Multi-Faith Centre to see what facilities and services we had to offer. It was good to be able to show them around, and then share in discussion with them and the other chaplains as to how best we could serve their team.

Paralympic Torch Relay reaches Vancouver

Wednesday was officially a day off for me, and I was pleased that it coincided with the Paralympic Torch Relay's arrival in Vancouver. This torch relay is different from the Olympic one in that it is not a continuous relay but is more community based. It started in Ottawa on 3rd March with a ceremony that involved torchbearers representing each of Canada's provinces and territories. Unlike the Olympic flame, the Paralympic flame has no 'ancestral home'. On each day of the 2010 relay, the flame is lit by representatives of the First Nation on whose territory the celebration is taking place. Today the flame was lit by elders of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, and its first stop in Vancouver was a local community park.
Although the Paralympic Torch Relay lacks the history and continuity of the Olympic version, it felt like a great celebration of triumph over adversity and the role that sport can play in this. There were 22 torchbearers who took it in turns to run, walk or be pushed around a 400m circuit of the park. People with a wide variety of disabilities were included, and each had a different story to tell. It was also a community celebration, where disabled and able-bodied people, young and old, mingled together in a relaxed and happy way that I have rarely experienced before. I ended up talking with several people during the event, both local people from the community and also disabled athletes who'd come to join in the celebration from slightly further afield, including a Paralympic Gold medallist from Atlanta in 1996 who was so pleased that the Paralympics had come to her city.
After this uplifting celebration of the human spirit, I headed into the centre of Vancouver. Here, among other things, I visited the Olympic and Paralympic countdown clocks (the former having already counted down to zero), and the Olympic Cauldron on the waterfront near Canada Place. This, of course, is currently unlit but a burning flame will soon be shining out from it again, once the Opening Ceremony for this Paralympic Games has taken place.

Settling into a daily routine

Another early start on Tuesday, as I was on the early shift once more. (It seems that I've mostly been allocated this 8am-3pm one.) Once again, I got a lift and so was at the Multi-Faith Centre before 7:30am. My first task was to prepare my Bible Study notes for the 9am prayer and Bible study session. I opted for Psalm 23, and worked on comparisons between the roles of shepherds and coaches/mentors. But the study remains unused for now as no-one came at 9am, so I enjoyed a 'quiet time' on my own with some Christian music playing in the background.
Later in the morning, I visited around the Village. Having introduced myself and the Multi-Faith Centre to the GB team office yesterday, I did the same at the Japanese team office today. Loughborough University, where I'm Visiting Sports Chaplain, has a special relationship with the Japanese Olympic Committee, meaning that during the run-up to 2012 Japanese athletes use the sports facilities on campus when training or competing in Europe. As a result of this, I've been familiarising myself with Japanese culture, especially their religious culture, and so it seemed natural for me to make contact with them here.
This was followed by my daily visit to the Polyclinic; lunch; the chaplains' prayer and sharing session; and some admin - the beginnings of a daily routine being set.
Soon after 3pm, I headed back to my hosts, walking more of the journey than 'usual' as it was a nice day, albeit colder than it has been. It was also earlier than I've been so far, and it was good that I was back in time today to be able to share an evening meal with the family for the first time.