One Family at a Time | Annual Report 2023–2024

A lot of things in our communities today feel fractured.

Whether because of the opioid epidemic or relational breakdown, people are missing. Families are struggling.

Our neighbours are experiencing gaps: not enough food, not enough affordable housing, not enough access to supportive services like counselling and recovery.

The glue holding everything together is stretching thin.

Through your support, God is reuniting families in our communities.

Each and every day, He is reassembling relationships and paving the way for healing and transformation.

Through welcoming meals, safe shelter, and holistic recovery programming, we are seeing people step out of stories of hardship and into belonging. God is rebuilding family albums, one family at a time.

When we meet with Rebecca, she’s just woken up her toddler from his nap. She’s a knowledgeable mom — the oldest of her six children is 23 — and since April, she’s been parenting in an apartment on the fifth floor of the Women & Families Centre. The new living situation has given her the space to have three of her children live with her, and she’s appreciating the return to routine.

These moments of stability are especially beautiful because Rebecca’s experience of family hasn’t always been easy. She grew up in Mission with a single mom, and their early relationship was rocky. “My mom had me when she was 19, and she liked to drink, so I lived with my grandparents when I was a teenager.”

The family went camping every summer, and Rebecca loved to fish with her papa. But she struggled to balance her own experimentation with alcohol and drugs, and found herself in and out of juvenile detention and foster care.

As an adult, Rebecca looked for connection in romantic relationships. At 19, she followed a boyfriend to California for a year, and when she came back, she met the man who would become the father of four of her children. Becoming pregnant at 22 helped Rebecca prioritize her own health, and she was sober when her daughter was born. “I got pregnant, and I just quit everything. She changed my life for the better. I loved her so much.”

But even as she loved being a mom, Rebecca struggled to navigate her existing coping mechanisms and her codependence. After ending her romantic relationship, she got into another and then, later, a third, both relationships abusive and violent. In 2021, she was the victim of a traumatic head injury that affected her memory. “Being in an abusive relationship was just hard,” she says. “I lost myself for a while.”

It was her most recent pregnancy early in 2023 that ended up connecting her with The Sanctuary, where she was able to enter recovery with her newborn and break ties with her abusive partner. “I’d never been in a program with my child, and it was just better,” she says. “I’ve gained a lot of skills when it comes to coping and how to deal with codependency. I’m working on personal development.”

She’s relieved to be in a season where she can connect and rebuild relationships with the most important people in her life — her kids. Her two oldest are now independent adults, and her middle children are navigating the teen years. “They’ve always been supportive,” she says. “I see my older daughters at least once a week, and we text constantly, sending each other pictures.” She loves to take her younger children to the pool and on walks, and has plans to go skating and tubing this winter.

Thanks to her hard work and the friendships she’s made, Rebecca is building a new foundation for her family — and for herself. “I want to stay on this path,” she says. “I’m getting myself back, if that makes sense.”

When it comes to family, Johnny is all about documentation. He recently got into photography, and for his son’s 13th birthday, he put together an album full of photos of their life together, along with handwritten notes.

A couple of years ago, this wouldn’t have been a creative project Johnny had the capacity to do. Raised in the small community of Fort St. James, Johnny’s own childhood was strained: his family was poor, and Johnny’s mother struggled with alcohol dependence. Johnny spent the majority of his younger years shuffled between foster homes before he went to live with his father at 13 — meeting him for the first time. “When I was living with my dad, I was actually pretty good in school,” he recalls. “I found some good friends, I played a lot of hockey, and I was finally able to feel like a kid.”

Returning to Fort St. James in his later teens set Johnny back: he got into alcohol and drugs, as well as trouble with the law. He spent several years in and out of prison. “I decided to come down to the Lower Mainland because I was tired of that life,” he says. “Growing up, I was always dreaming of the white picket fence, you know, having a family. I graduated, got my GED, and then I met a girl in Abbotsford, and she got pregnant.”

Johnny’s son was born when Johnny was 28, and for a decade, he balanced being a dad and working in construction. In 2018, he came to Vancouver to study metal fabrication, and found his cohort to be heavy drinkers. “I was a functioning alcoholic for a few years after that,” he says. “And then my dad got cancer.” Johnny’s father passed away in 2022, just before Christmas, and in his grief, Johnny disappeared further into drinking. “I just kind of went off the deep end.” He lost his housing, and four months later, the woman he was seeing died suddenly.

It was his darkest time. Johnny had been staying in the UGM Men’s Shelter, and applied for recovery. “I made a strong effort to stay sober in those first few months, and it was pretty hard,” he says. “So I started off small with just trying to make new habits, pick up different hobbies — reading, drawing, anything to calm my mind down. I had to get comfortable in my own company.”

Now sober for a year and a half, Johnny is experiencing some of the good life he once dreamed about. He joined the Men’s Running Club, and enjoys getting out in nature to kayak, hike, and take photographs. And most importantly, he’s able to be the dad he always wanted to be. “The amount of joy I have in my life today, it blows my mind,” he says. “Sometimes I just can’t believe where I’m at right now. I’m actually present now. When I see my son’s face light up, and I see how excited he is to see me, that means the world to me.”

But it’s important to acknowledge that the needs in our communities continue to rise. And so we must rise, too.

This past year, through God’s provision, UGM was able to respond to the needs in our region like never before.

Arrow Home in Saanich is now welcoming women with infants into recovery care and safe community. In Langley, Cedar Haven has opened its doors, and women are experiencing healing in a tranquil rural setting surrounded by peaceful hills.

The New Westminster Mobile Mission and the Greater Victoria Mobile Mission are now providing people living on the margins with survival supplies and connection to essential services.

Every plan for growth at UGM is about reuniting families and restoring lives. Every service we introduce is another building block that leads to reconnection and joy.

Union Gospel Mission will forever continue to press towards accomplishing our mission: to help those in need and to honour the dignity of those who feel unworthy. Our abstinence-focused continuum of care supports individuals in their recovery journeys, and we will continue to look for new ways to expand and enhance our programs to help more people.

The good news of the gospel — that there is hope, redemption, and reconciliation available to everyone — will continue to be demonstrated and shared as we live out the command that Jesus gave us to love one another.

– Dean Kurpjuweit, President