Well, the boy is in his cot and relatively quiet, TLL is out at a prayer meeting and I’ve caught up on my daily bible readings.  I’ve got some time to do a bit of bloggery, so here goes.

It’s been ages since I posted anything and that’s because I’ve been busy doing all sorts, including flirting with other blogs.  I never said this would be an exclusive blog relationship, I’m sorry if you thought it would be.  I didn’t mean to deceive you…

Anyway, there are some fun things happening and I’ll start with family life.  The boy is now well and truly established as a one year old.  He marked his birthday by taking his first unassisted steps (in crèche at church), He’s also started at the child-minders, got over another tummy bug, become even more willful than he was before, and is astoundingly, astoundingly cute.

His talking is coming along at an incredible pace, I keep getting surprised at how much he understands.  He’s doing all sorts of things like “hi” and “bye” complete with waves, he’ll say “down down” when he’s had enough cuddles, “more” with an approximate appropriate Makaton sign for when he’s still hungry (which is a lot of the time). That’s just some of it, I guess I’m being a standard Dad in thinking that he’s amazing, but He’s Amazing.  I can’t believe how much of  a little person he’s becoming!

It’s still not easy though.  Sleep can be an issue in that he refuses to go to sleep sometimes, in the day and at night. Once he is down he’s out for the count at night now and we’re getting 11 or 12 hour stretches, that lessens if he decides to shout for an hour though!  TLL is trying to adjust to working three days a week – I’m trying to adjust to looking after him for one day a week (three for the next couple of weeks as the CM is on holiday), which brings me to…

Daddy Days.  I’ve had this boy on my own for monday and today and will have him tomorrow too.  He’s been really good, a pickle at times, but good fun.  We’ve not quite got the hang of doing fun stuff yet, it’s been a couple of trips to town and some playing in the lounge mostly but he seems to have enjoyed himself.  I wondered how I’d cope with it all, so I spent some time praying about it. I got the feeling that God has allowed me to have this opportunity and that it’s something a lot of Dad’s aren’t able to do, so I’m trying to chill out and enjoy it.  So far that’s almost working. I got a bit stressy when he wouldn’t go to sleep on monday afternoon, but then decided ‘what can I do about it? nothing’ so just got on with it. I’d still really appreciate any prayers people can send up for us all.  Being the family that God wants us to be is foremost in my mind at the moment.  I think we’re falling short of the mark in some areas (mostly me) and I’d like to allow God to change that.  thanks

It’s good this Dad lark, we get to hang out as boys and laugh when one of us farts.  Brilliant! Sadly he poo-ed and was stinky so I missed what happened at the end of ZIngzillas.  They were going to catch a boat from the island and go on tour, but Tang didn’t want to go.  He went to the glade (accompanied by Alan ‘DJ Loose’ Sugar) and listened to a guy playing bottleneck blues.  That’s as far as I got. Did they do the big zing on the island at coconut number four? or did they go on tour? can anyone enlighten me?

Moving on.  I’ve not become entirely mental, I do still have a grown up life.  Street Pastors has continued apace. Although we’ve not really had any major incidents while on shift there have been numerous encouraging conversations with people.  It’s still really obvious that God is using the teams as a total blessing for people, whether or not they remember the conversations in any detail.  It’s all planting seeds, which someone else can harvest.

I was asked to be a teamleader too, which was exciting.  I prayed about it and felt that God was saying ‘go for it’.  I did the training last week and will be hitting the streets in my TL capacity tomorrow night.  The biggest blessing is that I get to stay with my existing brilliant team.  We’re supposed to have two TLs on each shift and we’ve been operating with just one.  I’ll be stepping up tot fill the other spot, which is reassuring because our current TL is great.  She’s got the right heart for this, and I only hope I can emulate her in that respect. We’ll no doubt do things differently, and with God’s help that will be complimentary.

 

That’ll do for now.  more updates over the weekend with a writeup of friday night’s antics.  There might be a few A levellers out, unless they’re all out tonight.

STOP PRESS: The boy’s asleep. <phew>

Rain was coming down in a steady stream as i left the house for my street pastors’ shift, the waterproof trousers were definitely going to be required!

The rain came and went and came back again throughout the night and we all got a good soaking at some point, but there were a remarkably large amount of people out in town, possibly due to A levels coming to an end.  We had numerous encounters with people and each those encounters seemed to take a long time.  There were the two girls who were very worse for wear, one of whom had fallen over while “getting  aquainted” with an even more drunken gent.  They both knocked their heads against a lamppost, but were both unharmed. The other guys on the shift talked to the two girls, while one of them sat on the kerb, and  vommited into the drain.

The precarious nature of their, and the other street pastors’ position prompted me to position myself a bit further down the road to warn taxi drivers and other road users about the danger.  Everyone ended up safe, thank God, when the girls convinced a taxi driver to take them home.

The night wore on and it continued in  similar vein,  nothing momentous happened other than a chp who wanted a big argument about theology.  Fortunately by this time we’d got all six of us out, so he didn’t monopolise all of us. Water and flip-flops (snazzy SP branded ones, no less) were given out to grateful people, and we helped sort out a situation where two girls (sisters?) we fighting.  Their dad came to came to collect them after the taxi marshals intervened.

All in all a busier night than we expected but everyone did a jolly good job.

Another Friday night street pastoring in town didn’t bring about any major incidents, but it did give us time to have some interesting conversations. Some of them were quite involved and a subset were thought provoking and have made me ponder over the last few days.  It occurred to me that some were opposites, but shared common themes.

The team was slightly depleted due to illness, so the five Street Pastors hit the town as a posse, this meant that we had to be a bit cautious about not appearing to be too much of a gang as we went around.

We were crossing the beer gardens when one of the team spotted a Blackberry on the floor.  We wondered what to do with it and were in the process of dialing a likely number when the phone rang.  It turned out that a young person had lost it in the park and one of their friends was calling to see if it had been found.  It was one of us who spotted to it first so an RV was arranged for a few minutes later.  While the other trio went to find the owner, we got into a conversation with a young man just a few yards away.  He’d met with SPs previously and had been telling his friends about them.  He explained to us that they had been hanging around the gardens because they were too young to get “in” anywhere and the police were paying them unwanted attention.  After speaking to us he promised he’d tell his friends that we were nothing to do with the police and if they needed help they could call on us.

Now we come to the first set of contrasts.  We’d taken a slightly unusual route and checked out an area we don’t usually go to. As we were walking back towards town we met a gentleman who was eager to find out what we were doing, and why.  He told us that he’d been a reiki practitioner for over twenty years – he believed that it was Jesus practiced reiki in order to heal people.  As we spoke he told us that he was a spiritual man who believed that “love” was the most powerful force in the world an that was his view of what god was.  He was looking for some way to volunteer and make a difference to people’s lives.  He’d been offered an opportunity to go overseas  and build an orphanage.  From the things he said, he was basically looking for someone to tell him what decision to make, to give him some direction. We said we weren’t able to provide that, but we knew someone who could.

He then told us that his wife was (or had been) a Christian.  Her father had been a church warden and had abused her when she was a child.  He said that he was unable to use the name of Jesus in connection with his beliefs because of that, because of what people had done and used his name.  As Rob Bell says in Love Wins, he’d met a Jesus that wasn’t the one i know.  We spoke for a while longer and he was grateful for it.  He said how much he appreciated what we did, and wished us well.  We prayed as we walked away that he would come to know the Real Jesus.

I compare that encounter to one later in the evening.  We were called over to a group of three girls and two guys, one of the girls wanted a pair of flip-flops. One of the guys then started quizzing us,  asking if we believed in God, and if we did, could we name all the books of the Bible?  During the conversation that followed he told us that he had been a criminal since he was twelve years old and claimed that at some point he had broken into a vicarage, where he found porn mags.  “How do you explain that, street pastors?”   We said that people are all human, and we all make mistakes.  I thought at the time “maybe you’ve met the wrong Jesus”

The guy continued to question us, he said that he had a faith and could name all of the books in his holy literature, he was confrontational and at times abusive and rude, to my eyes he was trying to belittle us in front of the girls (who incidentally were trying to stop him being rude to us, so i don’t think it was working), and also to provoke a reaction from us.  He wanted to test our knowledge of the bible, and asked us what the passage about it being “harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of the needle”.  As it happens i was reading my son a story just hours earlier which explained that the “eye of the needle” was a gate in a city’s wall, and told this guy as much  The guy on the street said he was impressed with us knowing that.

He was clearly an intelligent young man, he was articulate and seemed to have a good reserve of knowledge. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, he was confrontational and abusive.  Nevertheless, we pray that he encounters the Real Jesus. Hopefully our conduct and restraint will have made an impression on a young man with potential.

As we walked away he was shouting after us that he was a drug dealer and he made a great deal of money every day, he pulled something out of his pocket to prove this fact, it may have been a wad of notes, but from where i stood it looked like receipts.  Perhaps the dealing world has got more professional of late… i don’t know how much of what he told us was true, how much he actually believed and how much was front.  It doesn’t matter, God was with us, and he helped us find answers. We pray that they were the right ones.

Later in the night we saw our next two contrasts.  One young lady was clearly distressed and was being talked to by a group of guys.  We went over to see if we could help.  It turned out that she had lost her iPhone and her world had ended as a result.  She was acting very distressed and cast the contents of her bag asunder a couple of times.  The guys were gentlemanly and helped get all her stuff back together, cash, cards, etc.  We saw that she had enough money for a fairly lengthy taxi ride if required.  We asked if there was anything we could do to help, she ranted and raved and said there was nothing anyone could do because she’d lost her phone and everything was finished.  Was there anyone we could ring to come and help her out? She shouted a name a couple of times, but wasn’t able to give us the number.  We established that her phone had been insured and could be replaced the next day, she had enough money to get home, and she wasn’t in so bad a condition as to be unable to remember where that was.

We had a conflab with the other SPs, during which the girl tore off and threw back a cardigan to one of the guys.  She wasn’t wearing a great deal underneath it, but apparently that’s how she’d started the evening.  Ultimately she refused our help and went off in a taxi with the guys – she knew one of their sisters, it transpired.  Our offers to help were thrown back at us, and she was quite rude at times.  i was uneasy at the time about the way it panned out, but looking back i feel that she was possibly attention seeking.  A lost phone had caused a lot of grief. i pray she got home safely and without anything to regret.

The contrast to this was another young lady we met at nearly 0400.  She was with friends, and again not wearing a great deal.  The other crew engaged her and spent some time searching through her bag and belongings.  We went over because there was a call on the radio that a passport had been left at a fast food joint, we thought it might be hers.  It wasn’t, she’d lost her bank card.  Much searching ensued, we revisted the cashpoint she’d been to earlier to no avail, and started to hunt up and down the high street.  She was upset, but it was getting to the point where we could probably help her no more.  We suggested that she cancel her card when she got home and order a new one.

A group of guys stopped us to say that they thought we were doing a great job and we should keep it up.  High fives all round. At that very point i looked down and there, directly at my feet was a cashcard.  Praise God! We checked with the young lady, and she gave us the right name from the card.  We returned it to much thanks, God made a difference in that girl’s life that night.  We pray that she doesn’t forget.

People meet Jesus at different times and in different ways.  Sometimes it’s really Him, but other times it’s not the Jesus I’d recognise.  This street pastors shift has reinforced to me that you never really know where someone is with God, and that’s fine.  We shouldn’t treat people any differently regardless.  Whether they’re peaceful or abusive, appreciative or dismissive, God loves them all.  I pray that i am able to too.

Bit of a comedy mishearing for the title, but it’ll do.

a few days back i went to hear Rob Bell speak. It was pretty much a tour to promote his new book “Love Wins“, but it actually turned out to be a pretty decent talk even without reading the book yet.

If you look carefully you can see me, or more precisely my bright orange tee-shirt.

Anyway, i initially thought i’d write a few of my thoughts about what Rob said, and the answers he gave to the questions he was asked, but i’ve changed my mind. Yet.

Basically Mr. Bell gave a simple gospel message, all the controversy has been a bit unfounded. He wasn’t saying anything that hasn’t been said before. Importantly he’s had the grace to admit that he, the ‘great Rob Bell’ doesn’t have all the answers! shock, horror, awe.

We could, as Christians, do with a bit more of that i think. We’ve got access to the Truth, but we don’t necessarily all have the right idea about what that truth is. The powerful part of what Christ taught is that it’s His love that makes the difference, not our efforts, or any complicated theological shizzle.

I shall be hunting down a copy of the book soon, and will then report back in more detail!

Firstly, i apologise for the smell.  The boy has just produced the most stinky poo of his short life, and believe me, he’s done some bad ones.  goodness knows what caused it, but it weren’t nice!

Anyway, back on script.  Friday night’s street pastor shift was a fairly uneventful one – sorry sp drama fans.  We formed up as a full team of six, four out at a time with two back at base, and a chap who had come along to observe as part of his youth worker training.

we patrolled round the town and despite there being quite a few people about, some of whom were in high spirits, we had few incidents to deal with. The police seemed relatively busy breaking up fights etc. but there was nothing much for us to do.  We spent our time chatting to people who were out and about and everyone was positive about what we were doing.  I pray that some of those meetings will lead to people thinking a bit more about their own faith.

sorry, not a massively thrilling blog this time round, but that’s a good thing overall!

Right, I’ve got a bit of time, TLL’s out with some friends, the boy is asleep and I’ve finished a rubbish book, so I can do a street pastor’s update.

I’d had to do a shift swap because of a trip to Scotland for a wedding – kilts are remarkably liberating, don’t you know! – so it was a rare outing on a Saturday night for me.  It proved to be somewhat interesting!

We formed up at HQ and ‘troduced ourselves, once again I was amazed at the different people who are prepared to give up their night to go and show God’s love on the street.  We hit the streets and started a patrol.

Before long we came across a chap who claimed to have been released from prison that day.  He seemed fairly unstable, both physically and possibly mentally, but he was pleased with the light, space blanket and water we could offer him.  He made some fairly educated guesses and seemed to be able to give some fairly coherent answers at times about going to church/mass when he was inside.  Now that he was out he didn’t really want to be involved in organised religion any more, he claimed to be more interested in some sort of universal consciousness.

At that point a chap and a lady appeared, the lady had seen us and was really keen to talk to us about what we were doing.  We had a good chat and eventually had to turn down the offer of money from the fella, but we gave them a card and said donations would be welcome on the website.  We also spoke to some partiers who were getting cash from the machines.  It was a productive corner as the other half of the crew were talking to a lady who had just split from her husband  Right place, right time.

We continued through town and met a few people, had our photos taken with a hen do, and picked up bottles in the one of the parks.  As we headed back to base, we saw Stephen K Amos coming out from a gig, fortunately we didn’t get to speak to him as it’s probably inappropriate for someone in an SP uniform to tell comedians what they thought of their TV series!

Back to base to switch one of the pairs and out onto the streets again.  We went up to the top of town and through another of the parks/gardens.  At the top of town we got a call on the radios that there was a couple in a bad way at the taxi rank.  We hotfooted it down there, having a couple of brief chats on the way, but always on the move. At the taxi rank we met the couple in question, both were deaf and autistic, and more than a little tipsy!  After talking with the taxi marshalls and walking the lass (who was by far the worse for wear) u and down a few times it became clear that none of the drivers were going to take them.  What to do?  After a few hasty prayers and some typing on a mobile, we decided to walk them home to the edge of town.  Ten minutes, no problem!

The chap was fantastic, he coaxed an cajoled his girlfriend every step of the way, and with prayer support and actual support we managed to get her to where they needed to be, despite protestations and slumping. I was glad of Mr Tumble and the rudimentary Makaton that I’d learned from him as it helped a little with the communication (although I couldn’t think of a way to bring spotty bags into the conversation). On arriving at their flats we realised that there was no way we were going to get an increasingly floppy and uncooperative lady up four flights of stairs.  The guy went and got the warden who sorted it all out.  It had been over an hour of fairly hard work.  We went back to HQ and i put my coat and fleece on the radiator and lay on the floor for a bit. I’ve discovered that the SP’s big jackets are fantastically warm but aren’t very breathable!

N.B. A couple of days later we were passed a really nice email from the guy, thanking us for the help we’d given.  We’d have done it without the thanks, but it does make you smile!  Praise God that we were able to help.

The other pairs went on the next rotations while me and my partner had a nice cup of tea and a sit down.  An hour and a half later we were off out again for the last patrol of the night.  It was relatively uneventful for the large part, water and flip-flops were given out and space blankets seemed to be the must have accessory of the night.  we bumped into a girl who we’d seen earlier in the evening and helped people where we could.  While sweeping up broken glass from the edge of the road i became aware of a car, blocking the road to protect us.  It was an unmarked police car and the officers inside were clearly looking after us.  Good on ‘em.

After more glass clearing and helping a chap sort out being reunited with his lost mobile we headed back to base.  It’s funny how God sometimes points you to where you need to be.  We walked down a street and were merrily chatting about this and that, when we spotted a guy slumped in a corner of a garage doorway.    “oh look, there’s a chap over there”

He was conscious but unresponsive, and had scratches on his arms and head, after some deliberation our team leader called an ambulance.  A paramedic car came in double quick time and started to attend to the young, slumped man.  A police car came soon and said they’d stay to make sure nothing untoward happened to the lone female paramedic.  At that point our work was done, so we headed back.  We were clearly led to that street and clearly led to the course of action we took, because as we walked off the guy was up on his feet and acting fairly irrationally.  We would have struggled to handle the situation but with a paramedic and two policemen on scene he was in safe hands.  aAlthough it wasn’t a freezing night, it would have been a bad idea for him to be in that doorway all night, and goodness knows whether there was a concussion or anything to go with the big bump on his head?

The journey back was then a simple matter of sweeping some glass out of the middle of the ring road and then job done.

It’s amazing to think how God looks after people.  He looked after us as we were doing His work, and He looks after people who were going about their business possibly oblivious to Him.

i got home and TLL was awake.  The boy had just fed and fell asleep after giving me a smile.  Not a bad way to finish the day!

i was playing about on twitter a little bit earlier, and was really surprised to see #robbell trending. “the NOOMA guy?” i thought, “nah, must be another one, someone touring with justin beiber or something.

Turns out it was the NOOMA guy, but the trending wasn’t for good, or for awesome.  Turns out that rob bell has a new book coming out: http://goo.gl/Pp0Mb and it’s managed to cause a bit of kerfuffle.

People have read the jacket words and taken exception to the “universalism” – which to you and me is the idea that a loving God wouldn’t let people go to hell.

Fans flock to his Facebook page, his NOOMA videos have been viewed by millions, and his Sunday sermons are attended by 10,000 parishioners—with a downloadable podcast reaching 50,000 more. An electrifying, unconventional pastor whom Time magazine calls “a singular rock star in the church world,” Rob Bell is the most vibrant, central religious leader of the millennial generation. Now, in Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Bell addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith—the afterlife—arguing that a loving God would never sentence human souls to eternal suffering. With searing insight, Bell puts hell on trial, and his message is decidedly optimistic—eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins

Now, first up is the obvious fact that this is a description and it can’t give away the main conclusion of the book, so how can we start drawing conclusions about the man’s theology when no-one, and i mean no-one, tweeting has read it?  Heck, we’re looking at a dust cover.  if you could know everything there was to know about a book from the jacket then i’d have got much better marks in my english GCSEs!

People have drawn some conclusions based on this, and a video which purports to say the same sort of thing – i’m not posting the video because the only place i could find it was on a page full of criticsim of rob, and i don’t want to glorify that sort of behaviour.  This video, as TLL and i see it, says nothing of the sort, but that’s by the by.

What saddens me most is that there are a lot of people taking pot shots at rob bell’s theology, criticising him for being in error.  Hang on, isn’t there a bit of irony there? does that not smack a little of specks and planks in people’s eyes.  Frankly, i don’t know know if the theology s dodgy or not, i wouldn’t know that until i’d read the book.  What i do know is that we’re called to love one another, to build up and not to tear down.

It disappoints me that the only way a Christian can hit the trend is when he’s being pilloried by others.

i’m a long way from perfect, and i acknowledge that fact, i live an untidy life, that’s full of contradictions, confusions and mistakes.  That’s fine, God loves me, and He sent Jesus so that i didn’t have to be perfect.  i guess everyone’s the same in that, and maybe, just maybe, we could be a bit more gracious in our dealings with each other…

As it happens, i’m not a universalist.  i think there has to be a definite point where the Truth is revealed and we come face to face with our creator.  at that point the decisions we’ve made on this earth will be honoured by our Loving God.  To me it seems that a loving God wouldn’t force us to go back on what we’d chosen with the free will He gave us.  If He did, then it wouldn’t be free will.

Perhaps someone would like to take a pop at my theology, and if they do, i’d like to think they’d talk to me about it, so i can learn something, and not smear it all over the twitterverse.

This has been a little while coming, mostly due to laziness on my behalf, but finally i’ll do an update on the last street pastor shift i did.

It was the first proper patrol with my new team, so it was good to get to know the people i’d be out on the streets with.  They seem like a good bunch, willing to serve and ready to do whatever’s needed.

The team leader and i took the first stint back at base, and it went by really quickly, getting to know one another and generally chatting.  The other four returned.  cup of tea and then out.

It was the quietest i’ve ever seen town, perhaps the combination of the drizzly weather and the proximity to Christmas and new year was keeping people away.  That meant for a fairly quiet night for us.  We didn’t attend to any falling down drunk people,rather walked about and chatted to people who were in pretty good moods.  a couple of groups were celebrating birthdays and were in good spirits.

All in all it was uneventful, there were a few fights which the police sorted out before we got on the scene, and we had an encounter with a couple who were being closely watched by the CCTV cameras and later were accused of stealing someone’s wallet.  By 0200 most places were signing off and closing down, so we were back at base before 0400 for debrief and prayer.

It was a stark contrast to the week before, but enjoyable in a different way, even when there are no incidents to deal with people seem pleased to see us and grateful that there’s someone out there looking out for them.

For a shift you can’t get more involved than a new year’s eve, so my first full experience of Street Pastoring promised to be interesting if noting else!

We had enough for two teams, which was good when things really got busy, God was going ahead of us and we had enough people to just about cope with the number of incidents, but more on that later.  The night started fairly sedately with a stroll round town and a few chats to door staff, a sweep through a park where we were the only people and a sweep up and collect of bottles both broken and whole.  The streets were mostly quiet with people in a hurry to get to their venue of choice.

Our first incident occurred well before midnight.  We discovered a youngish chap slumped in the bushes in the corner of a graveyard, he was well hidden but the light of our torches reflected back from his white shirt.  if he’d been wearing something else we might not have spotted him, so concealed was his sleeping place.  He was well out of it and we struggled to rouse him from drink induced slumbers.  Eventually we had to fish his ringing phone out of his pocket because he was incapable of getting it himself.  we spoke to his concerned friend who was guided in to our position, we managed to get the chap on his feet and out onto the street to see his friend  it was obvious that it was home time for these guys even before he vomit hit the floor!  Eventually after cajoling and balancing and some apologising from a still very very drunk chap, his other friend appeared and they found a taxi driver willing to take them home.  one down, many to go.

We waited around for a pre-arranged meet with the chief constable of our area and used the time usefully by observing a domestic which was just harsh words but could easily have escalated.

We saw the new year in dealing with a very drunk woman (drunk women was the obvious  theme of the evening) who was with her friend but her friend wasn’t helping too much and seemed more concerned with phoning for a taxi than making sure her friend was ok.  She was a middle aged lady of considerable proportion and the difficult we had was keeping her in a safe position (and retaining some semblance of modesty for her). eventually after much wrestling, pulling, dragging and general struggle we got her onto a space blanket to shield the worst of the floor’s cold.  unfortunately she became immobile and we couldn’t move her into the recovery position.  an ambulance was called and the second team looked after her until it came.

My team headed back to base for a break but were called back to the same road we’d just been on before we could get there.  Outside a couple of clubs there were two women, both on their own, who had collapsed.  We stayed in eye contact and the two pairs of Street Pastors dealt with the drunken women.  the one we dealt with was in a bad way but not keen on being helped, within minutes three of her friends appeared and we helped her on with a space blanket and fed her the bottle of water we provided.  they had a handle on it and there wasn’t much more we could do to assist so headed over to our partners, before we got there we were diverted by the door staff who told us about another woman who was also in a bad way.  All of this was happening with the other team looking after the big girl further up the road and the paramedics in attendance.

She was on her knees and very worse for wear.  she claimed not to have had much to drink, but admitted she wasn’t used to it any more.  she felt very sick.  after much, much cajoling, encouragement and pressure she managed to get sat upright and take some water on board.  She made multiple attempts to be sick, some of which were successful.  she’d tried to contact her friend who was still inside the club but hadn’t got a good answer and was now out of credit.  We asked the staff to put out a shout to her friend in the club, but after a considerable wait there was no sign.  We decided to try and get the lady into a taxi and back home.

The other pair had managed to get their charge onto her feet as well, but she was in a considerably more advanced state than ours. We managed to get both of them to the taxi rank and people very generously let us jump the queue. God bless them.  A few taxi drivers refused to take her, but was did, praise the Lord and she was packed off home.  Not such a positive outcome for the other woman though, she became less and less responsive and the parameds had to be called for her too. I didn’t get the full story because the second team took over and let us head off for our break, but apparently she had to be ressusictated and taken to hospital with some urgency!

After a half hour in the warm, a cup of coffee and some cake we hit the streets again and attended to more people who were the worse for wear, made sure domestics didn’t boil over into violence and picked up a lot of bottles.  We had some good conversations with people, but mostly everyone was in a good mood and heading home.  Door staff were saying that the night was drawing to an end and it had been almost entirely violence free.  By 0300 things were quiet and the night was winding to a close, so by 0345 we had got back to base for a prayer and wrap up.

It was really good to be out there and an eye opener to the state that some people get themselves into.  I’m also surprised to note that some people’s mates can be so uncaring and not willing to cut their night short just because their mate’s on the verge of hospitalisation!

God was definitely going ahead of us, and the other team said that they had another two incidents were the ambulance had to be called.  we pray that the people are all ok in the cold light of day!

got home at 0430 and TLL was awake having just fed the boy.  toast and sleep!

I’m out again on friday night, and will try to get a match report out asap afterwards!

Excitement is in the air in theacres.  the boy has started on solid(ish) food.  baby rice has been the flavour of the week and he’s liked it a lot.  last night saw the introduction of pureed parsnip.  To say that he was pleased would be somewhat of an understatement.  The boy literally shook with delight and every mouthful was greeted with a big hearty “mmmmMMMMMMmmmm”. goodness knows what he’s going to make of carrot!