How M2/W2 Changed My Life

Bruce Sawers

 

Having been a volunteer for over three decades with the M2/W2, it has greatly changed my life and for the better. It has humbled me and helped me to grow more spiritually.

 

We try with God’s help to use the psychology of our Lord Jesus in re-directing their lives. I have had a number of minuses, but I feel I have more pluses.

 

Over a period of time our friends get to know that they can trust us and I have had a number of them tell me of their growing-up years. Some stories have been heart-breaking. One fellow I was with for a time was sent out on the streets prostituting himself at the age of eight to bring in money to pay for drugs for his parents. I was with him for a period of time and felt I was getting through to him, but he continued to go back to his former life. He was not getting the professional help he needed and I was unable with all my prayers to help him. He was always trying to get back to Alberta to a special institution he felt would help him. Eventually that did happen.

 

Before he left he sent me a beautiful poem about where do we go to cry. It had been written years ago by a young United Church student studying theology in a College in Nova Scotia. I had the poem for a time but lost it years ago.

 

Another fellow I visited along with Jim Wilson for over ten years. We both found that whenever we tried to talk to him about anything spiritual he always kept a wall between us. He had been in the prison system for over twenty-five years and finally passed away at the age of seventy-one years. He was unable to completely break away from his addiction problems.

 

Another young man that I escorted years ago upon returning him back to the Institution, said to me, “You know Mr. Sawers, I have a gun and I could shoot you and take off in the Van”. He said to me, “Aren’t you afraid?” I said no to him because I trusted him. He never spoke another word until I got back with him and he just said, “Thank-you Mr. Sawers.” My Lord was obviously with me. He was eventually paroled and was able to get a steady job. For a number of years he would always phone me at Christmas long-distance and wish me and my family a Merry Christmas.

 

There are three former inmates that I am still keeping in touch with by long-distance phone calls. One is living in Penticton, and he has been here in Abbotsford for visits on three different occasions; and on two occasions I have taken him out to lunch and had a very meaningful visit. We were away on the other occasion. When he arrived here and couldn’t get in touch with me, he phoned Sister Aldona who was one of the former Chaplains at Matsqui Institution. Sister Aldona picked him up and took him out to lunch. He is just getting part-time employment and wants to go back to Quebec, his home now and where he was born.

 

Another Chinese friend, upon release from Matsqui, was picked up by Wayne Northey and myself at the gate. Wayne asked him if he still had any restrictions added to his Parole and he informed us that there weren’t any. Just to be sure Wayne phoned the Institution and they confirmed it. We then proceeded to take him to Aldergrove to his accommodations where he could cook his own meals. Marius De Groot, an M2 volunteer, had promised him a job at his bakery where he was to start the next day. We then returned to the M2 office where he had left his personal things. Upon returning to the office there were two RCMP officers waiting and they immediately arrested him, and took him into Vancouver where he was kept in a cell overnight. He was to report to a Judge in Vancouver as he did have a restriction upon release and it was that he was not allowed in Vancouver for one year.

 

His English language skills were very limited. When I would visit him in Matsqui, some of my M2 friends wondered how I was able to understand him. Somehow I managed to get by. His parole was for one year and I would drive over every month and talk to the Parole officer in Langley. I still get over about every two months and take him to lunch where he is now living in Surrey, “retired”.

 

Another friend I have kept in touch with for ten or eleven years lives in Marpole and has a steady job at a moving company in Vancouver. He had been in prison for a number of years. From Matsqui he was transferred to Elbow Lake Institution (now Kwikwexwelhp Healing Village) and from there to a halfway house on Pender St. in Vancouver. Having had training in cooking and getting a Grade Three certificate, he would be called to a fancy restaurant from time to time to take a shift. On several occasions he was not paid and not having resources to hire anyone to help him recover the lost wages, he just stopped cooking and sought other employment.

 

Having been in an institution for a number of years and with the changes that take place especially in our ever-rising cost of living, he found it very difficult to pay his rent. His Parole Officer told him she could put him back into a half-way house to ease financial burdens. He told the Parole Officer that he would rather starve to death on the streets than go back to that environment again. My wife and I offered to help hem but he flatly refused. That of course was a no-no on my part. We came up with the idea that we would send him a gift certificate for the Safeway that he was within walking distance of. Since then his Parole Officer was able to get him in to a seniors living quarters as he had reached past the age of 55 years.

 

Over the years that I have served, I have met a number of the sponsors and found a great Christian bond of brotherhood, which I greatly treasure. Wouldn’t the world be wonderful if the bond circled the Globe?

 

Wayne and Bernie asked me to ask this last fellow if he would be willing to give a witness to what M2/W2 meant to him and he said that he didn’t think that he was up to it, as he has never talked in front of a large number of people. Not more than two minutes later he phoned me and said he would do it, but in the form of a letter which he wrote and read to the dinner guests and was given a great applause. He said so many great things about the M2/W2 and how he has always been able to get the caring support from my wife and me, and that he knows he can count on us.

 

God Bless to all

 

A Brother in Christ Jesus