From one of our local projects...

From one of our local projects...

Dear Street Angels,

Maybe its because the rain is lashing against the windows that I write this email with a feeling of deep reflection as to events on last night's patrol.

I know there are times when we are on duty that we pass many hours of monotony but I always say that that doesn't matter - if we help just one person a night, a month, a year, then we are fulfilling what we are called to do - to show some love and kindness to someone who needs help.

Last night was such an occasion - at about 02.00 hrs, a woman approached one of our teams and with desperation in her eyes asked to be taken to A & E. In talking to her, her life story as it is at this moment unravelled and the team members clearly realised she needed urgent help as her mental anguish was such that she needed professional help. So the team took her to A & E and safely delivered her to professional care.

Driving home I reflected that if Street Angels weren't there, if there was no friendly face outside Amadeus to turn to, what would have happened?

So this email is to encourage you and thank you all for the incredible work you do, for the time you give freely and the love you give unconditionally.

Last week I had the great pleasure of talking about Street Angels to the a local church 20s - 30s Life Group members. Part of the study included a reflection on a poem called 'Shadows' by a poet called Naomi Shihab Nye. The poem reads as follows:

'A man crosses the street in rain
stepping gently, looking two times north and south:
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.
No car must splash him.
No car drive too near his shadow.

This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo
but he's not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy's dream
deep inside him.
We're not going to be able 
to live in this world 
if we're not willing to do what he's doing
with one another

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.'

This poem goes to the heart of what we are about - there are lots of 'sensitive cargoes' out there and we never know when they are going to need to be carried.