A faint but steadily growing sound of a siren creeps through the cabin of the car amidst the noises and shouting from the backseats. A quick glance at the rearview mirror confirms your heightened awareness. Instinctively you engaged the turn signal to indicate your intention and pull over on the side of the road. Within seconds, flashes of red and white light reflecting off the cabin. Before you can even catch a glimpse of it on the side mirror, the ambulance speed passes beside you, trailed by the gust of turbulence that gave the car a gentle shake. Leaving behind only a steadily but fading sound of the siren. "An ambulance!", a voice shouted from the backseat. "Yes, dear." You respond, "Let's pray whoever is inside will be okay."
Maybe it is due to our traditional Chinese bias thinking to view white-collar jobs as superior to a trade career, it is a rarity to meet a Chinese first responder in Vancouver. Yet we are intrigued and fascinated by their lives and the stories they tell. I remember watching Martin Scorsese's depiction of a paramedic in Bringing Out the Dead, only to realize it fueled my mysticism towards this unique profession rather than debunk my many misconceptions. As recent local news gets flooded with opioid overdoses and stabbings at Strathcona Park, my appreciation towards these first responders grew further, recognizing their under-appreciated hard work and often overlooked importance.
Nahum Ip has been a paramedic for over twenty-six years. He was the former District Manager for Metro South District at BC Emergency Health Services. He is the first-ever who returned back to full-time frontline duties with BC Ambulance Service from an office position. He was the one who drafted the procedures to support the Canadian repatriation flights from Wuhan, China at the height of the Coronavirus epidemic. Nahum is also a husband, a father, a student, a Christian and a pastor.
What makes Nahum a fascinating person is not only the seemingly contradictory professions of both a pastor and a paramedic but the endless captivating stories he tells. I have the precious opportunity of hearing some of these many stories. Enough to completely redefine my understanding of evangelism and made me realize how encapsulated and limited our church is. To dictate my entire conversation with Nahum in this article would be beyond the capacity of this publication. I can only regurgitate and highlight the most important portions.
Being a first responder, Nahum goes where none of us dares to go. Oppenheimer Park and Strathcona Park are not parks one would leisurely wander into for a stroll. Their infamous fame is something governments on multiple levels have yet the ability to resolve. However, the uniqueness of paramedics allows them to come face-to-face with those inside, those in need, of more than just physical care but the restoration of their human dignity, their human beingness. "No judgement." That is the first thing we say when entering into these dangerous grounds.
"In downtown eastside, food is secondary. Having a roof over your head at night is the number one priority."
"They have learned to defend themselves. It is their means of protection... F-ck You is their way of saying 'Hello', F-ck-off is their 'Goodbye'. If you can see it from that perspective, it is much different."
Nahum's knowledge comes partly from a girl who used to live in the Eastside, let's call her Jackie[1]. Jackie was once the girlfriend of the leader of a local gang group. She was quite resilient until one time when she was caught in the middle of a gang shooting. She ran and left. She started working at a local 7-Eleven. Homeless and with nothing, she began her life in the Eastside. Jackie told me she never went into prostitution. She thought about it. Every night on the street she would get raped, might as well just get paid and have a place to sleep. Do you see how completely different their way of thinking is? Jackie insisted and did not succumb to the thought, She rather willingly went to someone she knows, allow whatever be done to her, and have a good night sleep than to spend a night outside and be raped and abused. It was by chance that Community Social Services found her. She started working at a 7-Eleven and came to know of a retired counsellor who insisted on seeing her without charge. I met Jackie while she was studying to be a paramedic herself. Nahum was one of the examiners and recognized her from her previous volunteering at St. John Ambulance. There was one time she filed a harassment complaint to her superiors. At the time, Nahum was the chaplain at St. John and helped her file the case. Like any harassment complaints, the case never amounted to anything. But during a prayer time he had with her, Nahum heard the Holy Spirit clearly say "You need to take care of her." So he went home and discussed it over with his wife. Making a long story short, as a family, they decided to take her in. At first, it was around four nights a week, she'd come over for dinner, spend time with them as if she is part of Nahum's family."
He brought Jackie to his church. Throughout the entire worship, she would repeatedly scratch her arm. It was not an itch. She was clearly agitated and disturbed yet she cannot recognize the cause. Only after months of counselling from a psychiatrist and psychologist who specializes in PTSD and trauma did we find out the root cause. We discovered her first episode of abuse was at a church by a pastor.
Jackie stayed with Nahum's family for two years. At the end of those two years, she also completed her paramedic training. Then he said to her, "I think my job is done with you. I have offered you all that I can, there is nothing more for me to give you, it is time for you to stand on your own. Surely it was sad, but I feel it is the right thing to do."
My conversation with Nahum has made me realize we as the church have failed to be the church. We have become aristocrats who see themselves as superiors over society and pride themselves on external fascinations. We see the people on the Eastside with shaded lenses. We get offended by their profanity. We are repelled by their grotesque appearance. We instinctively strip away all possibilities of seeing them as human beings. We intentionally disassociate ourselves with them, to give assurance of our own superiority. We have become Pharisees.
We have put Christ's Gospel into a box. Preach it as a box. We forced people to conform to this box. End up the church is unreachable to the outcasts, the poor, the prostitutes, the addicts. Isn't this the exact phenomenon we face? A midsize church in Vancouver would consist mainly of middle-class families living in a townhome with parents working a stable job and a certain level of financial stability. Problems such as homelessness, poverty, addictions are governmental issues unanswerable by the church. I refuse to believe in such an ideology! May the Lord forgive us in our trespasses.
Nahum has shown me what it means to see every person as a child of God. He is a living example of one who lives out his faith. In his profession as a paramedic, he must always be politically correct and cannot preach the gospel. But he lives it out every single day when he interacts with those he has the opportunity to cross paths with.
What makes a person attractive? Is it beauty? Is it intelligence or knowledge? Or is it achievements and accomplishments? Perhaps it is money and wealth, or degrees and accreditations. Or is there something else? Something more. Maybe we all need an atypical pastor in our lives to stimulate us in our Christian journey.
[1] Although both Nahum and VCCSTM had been granted permission from this individual to retell her story, for better protection, the author has changed her name arbitrarily.