Reflections of a year gone by

I no longer write on this blog - mainly because my time with Oasis has ended and i no longer stay in London. If you've arrived upon this page then feel free to read about my experiences as a volunteer Charity Worker in South London. The Blog was initially set up so that i could maintain contact with my family and friends whilst away from home.

Some reflections.......Gap years are a great idea - a chance to test out your skills, perhaps decide what you want to do for the rest of your life. I found the experience to be extremely grounding. I think I've developed a better sense of awareness about my limits - how well i cope in different situations, how i respond to crisis and also to being very poor etc.

So, now this Blog will 'float on' around the world wide web - hopefully others will read and be interested in taking opportunities to support the people in their communities. That's why i ventured into this because ultimately i felt my role within society was to help where possible.

The year has ended and now i move on - different job same focus.......

Alan the bouncer

We have a bouncer here at church.co.uk to deal with the difficult people that come through the door....The move to hire Alan came about as a result of my dealings with some intimidating and aggressive individuals. I've never heard of a church that has a bouncer so we must be the first. You might be saying "i thought the aim behind the church is to be inclusive to all people!" but i've come to the realisation that you cant always be inclusive. We don't have the energy to be constantly inclusive to all people because a lot of the people we deal with are very demanding. If i've learned anything this year it's about having good boundaries. I certainly feel determined to change people's lives but there is only so much i can do. Often i've felt a burden to be the answer to all people's problems perhaps because of my open job description. Volunteers don't have a definite position and so i found myself using my skills wherever possible and over time this has taken a strain on me. The result of months of hard graft is i've got little energy for the people i had so much time for in the past. I'm still pleasant to them but i've lost sight of my initial aim to support them.

There is this one homeless guy who's deaf in one ear. I've been working with him to try and get a hearing aid through the NHS but as times gone on I've lost the energy to deal with all the hurdles we need to overcome. Because of his hearing deficiency you have to repeat everything twice and because he's homeless you never know when he's going to turn up at the church. This makes meetings impossible. Alongside him there are lots of other homeless guys all desperate for a listening ear (excuse the unintentional pun) struggling with loneliness and poverty. For a long time i would try and speak to them all because i felt that was my job. I didn't feel there was a commitment in conversation but this led to me identifying need and then wanting to do something about it. This year has been a great training for my journey into Statutory Social Work. I'm well aware of my limits and i realise the importance of joint working whereby people work together to solve issues. I'm not sure i want to work for a church in the future. I've enjoyed the chance to outlive the values of my faith in a church setting but i feel more passionate about professional working. I've struggled at times with the less professional approach of the church (this is not a criticism) and look forward to the more structured approach within professional social work. No doubt i will face other challenges and i approach them with an open mind.

I've discussed with many people that Churches need to become more like efficient businesses. Businesses have a product that is culturally relevant in the sense that people use it. Alongside this they have long term vision and aims.....Church.co.uk is on a journey to run like a business. We offer our services like products and then market them in line with the current marketing campaigns around us. People are essentially interested in the fellowship the church offers but it does us no harm to appear professional. We're also very aware of our mission. We ask the questions about what our niche market is.....is it the homeless or do we have a problem in our community with youth crime. We work to the needs of our community and we try to identify the needs of that particular group. Perhaps the biggest challenge facing me next year when i move to Glasgow is finding a church. I moved to London because of my struggle with Church. I have wonderful christian friends and am grateful of the nurturance my home church has given me. However, Church.co.uk suits my theology perfectly. I do not go to church to receive and i do not go to church to listen to a sermon i cant relate to my daily life. In my eyes a sermon that doesn't offer practical advice is nothing worth hearing. That may be a strong view but Jesus never preached anything that didn't have a practical meaning. I go to church to act upon my faith and i go to church to leave with direction and mission for the week ahead. "your being to picky Andrew!", no I'm not. All church should be like this, and i can assure you that a church like this will not lose most of it's teenage population at age sixteen. It's not just the responsibility of a youth worker to youth work but the responsibility of a whole church - 'working church - a church that works'.

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.

two posts in a row not a common thing

I'm covering for Hannah the greatest administrator in the world (she told me to write that) at the moment and this has provided me with prime time to Blog. I was on the bus earlier and this homeless guy came on. You might ask...how did i know he was homeless? Well, he smelt homeless and he had a big bag which looked like it had his life's contents in it. He was very pleasant. As he had attempted to get on the bus another man walked in front of him and he kindly stepped aside to let him on. As he walked along the bus he was smiling and he seemed very content. I have found that in London many of the homeless people I've worked with are quite content to be homeless. Something someone with a home will never understand but i imagine that homeless people begin to enjoy the process of living for what that day brings. Anyway, this guy on the bus pulled out a bottle of lilt....it was new because of the fizz when he opened it. He took one long drink and then lifted the bottle into the air and toasted himself. Now i found that totally fascinating. It was like he had earned that bottle of lilt or that he was really enjoying the taste of a nice drink. For people who live with the constant supply of nice juice it might be a strange concept that a bottle of lilt could be so satisfying but this man was really enjoying it. When i think about it, i appreciate food more this year than i ever have. Living in London on very little money has been a huge challenge but it's made me appreciate the smaller things much more. I'm certainly not homeless or without the support of caring people but in some ways i can empathise with the guy on the bus. The bottle of lilt is a treat.....daily i have to think about how buying a can of coke will influence the money i have for other things.....
that may sound crazy but a coke is a treat and i feel proud to say that....

Now I'm off to lunch at the Ritz.....caviar anyone?

over and over and over... like a monkey with minature symbols

I realised a long time ago that the kids here are hard to please.....in the past i thought it was about me not understanding the kids but now i realise that they are just difficult to please. However, i love the journey of identifying 'what works' - trying different things in an attempt to find the solution. On Sunday i had to leads kids church (zooped up Sunday School) where the leaders have had real difficulties engaging the kids. To give you an idea of the difficulty - there was a fight last week where one boy just started punching another. I had always felt that i could really affect the kids mood by changing the environment and so i decided to take all the tables and chairs out the room. I then shut all the curtains and put coloured lights in to create a 'cool' atmosphere. I placed cushions on the floor where i hoped the kids would come and chill out. I covered the floor space that was left in paper and put on some music.

The result was incredible....the kids totally relaxed. We played a few games to get their energy out and spent the rest of the morning drawing on the floor. I asked them to do three things: 1) draw the place where they feel the happiest 2) draw the place where they feel most unhappy and 3) to draw their favourite creation. This totally clicked in with their busy imaginations and apart from a few complaints about the music they happily drew and chatted away. We ended the session by eating maltesers and dancing. As the kids left i couldn't believe how well the session had gone. In fact it was perhaps the first time i had felt truly satisfied with the results of a session i had run. So often I've tried different methods of engaging the people we work with and often it's seemed as if we've failed. But on this one occasion i had got it right and i think that shows me how important it is too keep things fresh. In a sense there isn't a certain thing that works but the term 'what works' relates to the ongoing process of locating things that do work. Very often when you do find something that worked the challenge will be to build on it because kids (especially) crave something new and exciting. Doing the thing 'that worked' over and over wont always be successful......

voluntarily volunteering to stop

You would think that volunteering would be easy.....work when you want, take a random day off if you feel like it. After all your not getting paid! It's just not the case here. We work like normal employees who work more hours than normal workers. I've never sat down to do it but i'm sure i work on average a twelve hour day. We've just finished kids club and I'm genuinely finished. Emotionally, physically and mentally. I feel like i couldn't do another kids club again but then tomorrow arrives and something strange happens. I feel re-motivated by some unknown energy. It's happened all year.

every piece of work i have done here has been about the toughest thing I've ever done. Kids who's instantaneous reaction is to anything is cry.....kids who talk of their future in gangs..adults who cry because of the difficulties facing them and their families because gangs terrorize their neighborhoods...passing homeless people asleep in the middle of the pavement because they can't access a bed for the night. The need destroys me. I can't meet it all and i can't really deal with it all emotionally. Last night i walked home past a man asleep on a pile of clothes beside a clothing bank. This is in Brixton one of the most dangerous boroughs in London. The chances are high of being mugged on the way home let alone the chances of being attacked whilst asleep on a pavement. The next morning on my way to work i passed the same man still asleep on the pavement....was he dead i thought? but who in London would stop to check. I didn't!

My mum will be glad to hear me utter the words i think I'm working too hard. I've done it all year and incredibly I've continued to work hard even when i didn't have the basic supports in place. I suppose the idea of a frontline gap year is too push you well out of your comfort zone so that when you reflect on it there is significant personal change. What worries me is my future and that on the 5th August on the train back to Scotland my mental state is going to actually reveal to me the extent of the damage done. I suppose stepping out of your comfort zone can be both flourishing and damaging. Flourishing if you've got the wisdom to see your limits and damaging if you push yourself too far. This feeling is the result of four weeks where the church has relied solely on it's volunteers and running a church that's open six days a week is not easy.

This Blog is me voicing an honest refection of how i actually feel in this moment. I don't Blog often because it takes too much energy at the end of a very long day. Tomorrow I'll feel different and my tendency would be to blog a more positive comment. Also, i don't write these things to be lost. I'll be sure to voice my feelings to the people who manage me. So a final story from today. Warm sunny day cafe buzzing....in walks one of our resident homeless men. His name is peace. Throws up all over the floor.........

The attack of the pegs

It's not often that hanging out the washing turns nasty but on this day it did. There i was just putting out my clean clothes to dry when one of the pegs threw itself at my face. I squealed in pain and Sam my Brighton born colleague came running out and was also attacked by several pegs. One hitting him right in the eye. Blinded by this attack the pegs took over and what you see in these photos is the results. The attack was both unexpected and cheeky. I'll never approach hanging out the washing in the same way again......

Financially challenged

One of the privileges of my job is working in our coffee shop. It's the open door to the community and most of the time the first contact we have with people we'll go on to support. Up until today i had never done a full shift in the coffee shop. Normally i only manage to squeeze a half day into my weekly schedule but this week our volunteer shortages meant i had to do a full day. People are always intrigued by an open church (probably because most churches always look closed) and this means that we attract a diverse range of visitors. The church is also on the way to the Imperial War Museum and so we get a lot of tourists dropping in, either to ask for directions or to enquire why in fact the church is open. We have our regulars who worry about the growth of the cafe...They like the quietness and get concerned that their secret hideout will be discovered by those they try to escape. We have the homeless who drop in for a free coffee, a trip to the toilet and a chat. The Cafe is also very popular with the Oasis staff and it's a really good way for us to socialise informally.

I love the process of making coffee. Grinding the beans and then the smell as the coffee pours into the cup. Steaming the milk....and pouring it so that the froth is left until the end. Then watching the milk and coffee combine to form a pattern. I also like it how willing people are to talk in the coffee shop. I have never witnessed a customer come into the coffee shop and been treated only as a customer. We love our coffee but we love people more! The people in the coffee shop respond to the way we ask questions and serve with a smile (not a cheesy one but a friendly one).....they come back. We call customers by their names, we ask them about their work and their families. It's like a coffee shop and a support agency in one. I worry that this is coming across as if Church.co.uk is the perfect church. Far from it, such a thing doesn't exist! We have our weaknesses but i think we're doing something right through the coffee shop.

I was standing serving a group of kids and carers when Rachel my fellow volunteer came and told me there was a man here to see me. I handed over the order to her and made my way over to the guy. He introduced himself (he was Irish) and we quickly established common ground about being Celtic. He told me he was going to tell me something and asked if i would not judge him for it. He asked if he could speak to me in confidence and then quickly followed that question up by telling me he wasn't in trouble. This stopped me from giving the confidentiality policy talk to him and urged him to tell me what the issue was. He got round to explaining that he had had his van clamped on the New Kent Road and that he needed £24 (to add to the £61 he already had) to have it unclamped. He would have to do it today or he would face being charged £250 tomorrow. He came across as very genuine and i really did feel like he was telling the truth. But i feel as time goes on i become more assured in these situations and can ask questions that in the past i may have gone to get my manager to do. Part of me did believe him but i needed to test his story because i just couldn't be sure. In a politely put way i asked if he had his van keys with him.....that took him aback a little and he explained that they were with his colleague sitting in the van. It was like a game. My sceptical experience of people asking for money playing up against my gut feeling about this genuine case of need. I then asked in the instance that i got the money whether i could take a walk back to his van with him.....to back myself up i talked about the previous occasions where we had given people bus tickets etc and i had gone with them to buy it. That question was too far for him and began to accuse me of judging him. He told me i was a bad christian and that i was not willing to trust in God the way he had trusted in God when he was guided into the church. I explained that i really wanted to help but because of our limited finances i would need to see the situation myself. On that note he stood up and told me that he would speak to his home church about me and he was sure they would be very disappointed. He told me that i was an immature christian and had a lot of growing to do. Instead of arguing my case i decided to apologise that i couldn't help him and was sorry that he felt that way about me. He left the church mumbling under his breath.....i returned to my coffee making duties.

Now. I have two feelings about that situation. One is of great victory where i foiled the plan of a man looking to cheat money out of a church. The other thought is of disappointment with a system that is full of people who lie their way into being supported. When i started working with the Salvation Army i was a naive young man willing to believe any crisis story. By the end of my time working with the homeless i was sceptical because of the people who had abused my trust. However, i decided not to call myself sceptical as this was a really negative frame of mind and instead decided i would be appropriately questioning. But what if that man was telling the truth?..... was it a coincidence that he forgot his bank cards? left his keys with his young colleague? Asked not to see the the senior minister but just a normal christian? That man left the building either more frustrated with a society that doesn't trust or angry because he was outsmarted by what appeared to be a engagingly naive young man......Would you have given him the money?