One of the boys has stopped coming to the wednesday night club and so me and a colleague decided one evening to go round to his house and check he was okay. I've probably told myself hundreds of times that the best way to engage with a community is to live in it but recently i've struggled with that concept probably becuase i've found this community a bit scary. But on this night when we visited this house i had one of the best expereinces of my year so far.
As we arrived at the high rise building where he lived we noticed he and his brother were standing on the street about 100yds away. Brilliant i thought, now i dont have to climb the hundreds of stairs or get in the lift where guys have unrinated against the buttons...(true story). we got a really warm reception from the boys as we greeted them....Perhaps becuase they saw this visit as special treatment (indeed it was, we visited becuase we cared). I asked why he had stopped coming to club and he explained about one of the other boys annoying him. I explained that if he were to come back i'd keep a close eye on the other boy and try to make sure he left him alone. The boy still didn't seem to keen on coming back to club and so we just chatted for a while and then left. On our way back out of the area we met another boy (named Papa) who is probably one of the nicest kids i've met. Very layed back and always smiling. I asked him about football and how he was getting on.... he explained he was doing fine and might come back to football club at some point (inconsistency is our biggest problem). While we were talking to Papa some other kids came by and asked us who we were....we explained to them that we wroked for the Community Hub at Church.co.uk. They seemed interested. At that point a door opened an a woman looked out. Suspiciously she asked who we were (and why we were talking to her kids) and we explained about Church.co.uk. She also seemed very interested and we chatted for about ten minutes. In the end she offered to promote our work to other mums and she also said that she would send her kids to some of the available clubs..... It was so nice to be in the community engaging with people and getting to know them. Afterall the better we know the community the more relevant our services will be.
The following day it was kids club and the boy we had spoken to was back.....Appeared to have a great time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Ah the youth leader legend Andrew Nelson once again contributes to the community, Nice One
If you are not careful you might get a reputation.
Buy your "WWAD?" wristbands here! ;-)
Great story Mr Nelson. Strangely reminiscent of a story about a shepherd who left the flock to search out a lost sheep....
It's so encouraging to read what you've been doing... We've been running kidz klub at our church in Newcastle for a couple of years now - and visiting the kids and their families every week... it's only now that we're starting to see them really open up and become comfortable sharing stuff in their lives with us, asking us to pray for them, and starting to come to church... so keep up the visiting, building the relationships - it really is worth it...
Yo Nelson! Only just checking out the blog now... sorry! But its great! :) I'm mighty jealous about all the craic you're getting up to, but you know, there's a time and a place for everything :) so I'll just have to keep studying! Keep up the good work! Love Alex :)
You're right mate that's what it's about. Of course the challenge is not to see this community as scary, but to see it as your own. I remember when i first lived in Peckham and I would run down into the worst estates at midnight to give myself an adrenalin rush. I told stories of Peckham as an outsider, glamorising the poverty and crime... I now realise that I tell much less stories about my work in the inner city (Probably a bad thing) but it's also because what used to be stories told by an outsider have now become just a part of my life.
Post a Comment