So he says.....who's the king of peace and i said jesus.....he said - you're looking at him!

Again apologies for disappearing in a virtual sense. In reality I'm alive and kicking and currently beginning the dissent from the summit of my year in London. Perhaps my lack of Blogging reflects my state of mind. I'm now thinking about the future and this means i spend less time reflecting on my current position. I'll try my up most to keep blogging right until the end.

I faced a very difficult situation today when one of the homeless guys well known to the church began to be disruptive in the coffee shop. In the absence of the leadership team i got a call from the cafe staff asking if i could go up and assess the situation. When i got upstairs this guy was preach-shouting (a mixture of shouting and preaching) at the staff. We find that many of our visitors to the coffee shop like to tell us about the love of God as if preaching to the unconverted.

I knew the homeless guy in the coffee shop quite well and on more sober days he and I have looked at getting him permanent accommodation. When he saw me he smiled and opened his arms to go for the hug......not only that he went to kiss my neck!! A little surprised i stepped back and told him that a hand shake was appropriate but a kiss wasn't.....at that he accused me of calling him gay and i quickly rushed to reassure him that i was not saying this. Prior to engaging with him i had thought that maybe i could ask him politely to calm down and perhaps usher him to sit outside but it became apparent very quickly that he had no intention of leaving the building. Things became worse when two well built black guys came in looking very drugged up. As i listened to our homeless friend i watched as the two guys walked straight up to a group of customers and began begging for food. The two girls working in the coffee shop were busy serving customers and so i was left with the dilemma of which person to deal with first. I thought that the two other guys coming in gave me an opportunity to ask the homeless guy to move on (saying i had other work to do and would he be kind to allow me space to do the work) but he told me that he was fine and would hang around in case i needed any back up - he then proceeded to talk about his twenty years in prison and the action he had taken to gain respect on the streets.....

I left him for a moment and went over to the other two men, one of whom was sitting on the table eating some rice. The other was asking a customer for food. I asked the one on the table to sit on a seat and he looked blankly at me. Luckily his friend told him to move and the customer said he would buy them both a coffee. For the moment i was assured that the customer was happy to have them there and i could go back to dealing with my homeless friend. By this time he was beginning to talk quite aggressively about how he would sort the other two guys out if they did anything to disrespect the church.....difficult situation. The last thing i wanted was three drugged up men fighting in the middle of the coffee shop.

Eventually the two men left because they felt they had to wait too long for their coffee and the homeless guy left after about twenty minutes of telling me about his past in Jail. Probably one of the most intimidating situations I've been in this year because of my vulnerability around confrontational people who i knew nothing about. But there is part of me that thrives on that crisis intervention. It's always difficult to assess whether the easiest situation would be just to call the police or to deal with the situation yourself. Ultimately my decision in the end was down to my respecting people......i mean i knew that eventually the homeless guy would leave as long as i gave him the time to listen to his story. The other two guys i wasn't so sure of but they never behaved in a manner that warranted calling the police. Others might disagree and say that i put myself at risk......but i suppose the term 'risk' identifies a situation that people won't go into and at times most people wont even talk to a homeless person. You'll never catch me sky-diving but I'll always be prepared to work with the people who others might not because that's the risk i enjoy.