Why I became a Street Pastor

When I was asked why I became a Street Pastor I expected the answer to just pop into my head, but it didn’t! I really had to think about the answer but then it hit me – ANGELS – Yes, that’s right! Let me explain.

I was brought up in the Catholic faith, went to Mass every Sunday even if I didn’t want to. I went to a Catholic school with Nuns as teachers - really strict. I never had a doubt that JESUS died for me. Imagine that he loved me enough to give his life for me, that is love!

When I was fourteen my mum kicked me out of our house because I wasn’t working. I couldn’t get a job because I wasn’t old enough but I had left school as my birthday was in the summer holidays; catch 22! That is when I drifted away from JESUS but He never left me.

Anyway there I was with nowhere to live; but there was a friend of mine who was also on the streets so we palled up together. We found a van parked in an alley, it was unlocked so we climbed in the back and went to sleep. There was new underfelt in the back so we slept on that. As the weather got colder, more and more underfelt was being left in there so we weren’t cold.

On Christmas Eve I was dreading the next two days because in those days nothing was open. We went to bed and slept really well that night. When I woke up in the morning the windows were covered with snow! Oh, by the way, I didn’t even have shoes at that time. Anyway, we went out and all the shops were open! When I asked someone what day it was I was told it was the day after Boxing Day; in hindsight I do believe GOD kept us asleep and safe.

Then, the man who owned the van came one morning and found us! He was gobsmacked to find two girls and he took us up to his factory every day after that and gave us hot drinks and something to eat. I believe that man saved my life. He was an Angel to me. God Bless him.

I used to beg for food and money to take a bath or wash my clothes, so I don’t judge anyone because I know how easy it is to fall by the wayside. There are many other things which happened and when I look back I realise how lucky I am to be alive! Somebody up there loves me. I now realise that GOD was looking out for me even though I didn’t think it at the time; I sort of felt that He had abandoned me but He never gives up on anyone.

I am a Street Pastor because I truly feel that if there had been somebody there when I was young I would have been a lot better off. I see myself in a lot of the young people we meet and I hope and pray that they find what they are looking for - Peace of mind. If there is anyone who is thinking of becoming a Street Pastor let me just say it is a very rewarding thing to do.

God Bless you,
Mary Mifsud

Sermons of the past

I don’t know about you but have you ever taken down some notes during a sermon or at a seminar, thinking that you’ll ‘look that up when you get in’ then when you eventually arrive home there’s panic stations in the kitchen or you stand talking with your next door neighbour and you immediately forget what you were going to do. You then find the notes a week or two later and think ‘I can’t remember what that was about, but I’ll look it up anyway’. Well, needless to say, that’s happened to me.

I know Frank (or was it Andrew?) was talking about living stones around about the end of June and I thought just how interesting it was. The passage was 1 Peter 2 vv1-2 but the reference was actually verse 4 which says ‘As you come to him, the living Stone…….you also like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house...’. So I actually found what I was looking for, a rare occurrence in itself.

I freely admit to occasionally having a wandering mind and my notes at this point seem to take a stroll around the various stones (I suppose you could call them stepping stones) …starting with, of course, Livingstone Evangelist explorer & anti slave trade campaigner in Africa, you know ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume’ (Henry Morton Stanley 1871 on meeting Livingstone in Ujiji). And then to more stones, including rolling stones (gather no moss) Rolling Stones (what do they know about music?), capstone (architectural wall topping) sandstone (don’t build your house on it) Shenstone (Essex, who’d want to live there?) touchstone (what’s that, answers to Freda please) oilstone to keep you sharp and then the very last gravestone or headstone.

I’m sure there are many more and then, of course, we have the different types of stone, granite, pebbles, rocks and gravel better known in some circles as aggregates. Then, of course, there’s the milestone, cornerstone, millstone, stonemason, stonecutters and ……The editor has volunteered to collect stones so any more to Freda please.

But just to show that I didn’t really go off track for too long I also have a note of the five bullet points: Army; Family; Body; Flock and Bride. That was difficult as there’s normally only three points in a sermon. I seem to remember that these tell us that we are all an army of God’s people fighting in the spiritual battle wearing the armour of God (Eph. 6, 11-18). We are one family, one body, one flock all heading the same way under the guidance of the good shepherd. Mind you I’ve seen those sheep, running all over the place out of control and there’s always one or two or more individuals who decide to ‘do their own thing’ and generally end up in a mess, with the shepherd having to make a special journey to get them out of trouble and bring them back to safety. It’s a familiar story isn’t it? We can be just as difficult as sheep and when you think of it there are times when we stray and need to be brought back to safety, and to submit to Christ.

One last thought, C. S. Lewis wrote the following: “The cardinal difficulty in collaboration between the sexes is that women speak a language without nouns. If two men are doing a bit of work one will say to the other, ’Put this bowl inside the bigger bowl which you’ll find on the top shelf of the green cupboard.’ The female for this is, ‘Put that in the other one in there’ “.And then if you ask them, 'in where?' they say, 'in there, of course.' There is consequently a phatic hiatus." Answers to the meaning of phatic hiatus to Freda. The first correct answer received will be published in the next issue…watch this space…there are no prizes, only praise; after all would you expect anything else from a Baptist?

One Man and His Dog

One of my favourite regular customers is a blind man and his dog called Brian. This passenger is a fun character and insists he is not visually challenged but blind. So, in deference to him, I shall describe him that way and only him, in this way.

We pick this customer up from all over London as he has a beautiful speaking voice and he records speaking books. So we have to pick him and Brian up from recording studios all over London and take them home to Putney. Brian is a character all of his own and likes to sit up front next to the driver in the luggage space, so that he can see out of the front window. He is a very experienced taxi rider and it is amusing to watch Brian leaning into the corners. Every now and again my conversation with my customer is broken as he calls out to Brian from the rear and through the glass partition and Brian answers in the time-honoured way with a bark. This particular customer has a wicked sense of humour, and so I shall explain.

We, the drivers, are invited to find a place on our way to Putney for Brian to powder his nose, mark the territory, water the plants – you choose whatever you are comfortable with. It is then that the fun begins; our blind customer invites the driver to put on dark glasses, and we then leave the cab and feel our way around to the other side of the Taxi and open the door to let Brian out. Brian, wearing the full “Seeing Eye Dog” harness, leads us away from the cab and we release him to go and do what doggies do. When Brian is done he returns, we clip on the lead and Brian takes us back to the cab. Brian assumes his position in the luggage bay next to the driver, and the driver then feels his way back to his driving position. By now we have an audience. With all the windows down, I start up my engine, I slyly check my mirrors, and just when the time is right and safe to pull away into the traffic, I say in a loud voice “Is it safe to go now Brian?” My customer in the rear who has slouched down out of sight calls to see if Brian is OK – Brian barks and we speed away.

In the rear view mirror I check the “jaw drop count” of our spectators who cannot believe what they have just witnessed. I am sure there are dinner parties which have broken up in arguments all because someone has insisted that he has seen a blind cab driver that gets around town by way of his Guide Dog.

Of course there was an act of deceit which occurred here, a bit of mischief, some fun! We live in a world which deceives, which would have us believe that God does not exist, that Jesus is not the Son of God. So in this climate, it is important that those of us who have not been deceived speak the truth at each and every opportunity.

Let us all pray for three opportunities to be a witness to the Gospel today and each day; you do the maths and we will have made a good start to move this world from deceit to truth. May God bless you all.

Martin Seymour
1 Corinthians: 2-3

Dying For the Loo!

Safe drinking water is at a premium in Bangladesh. BMS development workers Fiona & Les Allan look at the health problems associated with water shortages- and how their local hospital is helping.

Throughout Bangladesh there is a scarcity of water, let alone safe drinking water. We have heard that in an adjoining district water is being sold at 120 taka (a day labourer’s wage) per bucket and in Dhaka there are long queues for water at mobile tankers.

In Chittagong, houses only get water pumped to them twice a week and, if there are power cuts that day, you cannot pump the water up into storage tanks on the roof. Problems like these have led to the hospital being full to overflowing with patients who have diarrhoea, vomiting, typhoid fever or hepatitis.

The Christian Hospital Changraghona’s community health programme (CHP) is working hard to address issues of safe drinking water and sanitation. Village health workers, mobile clinics and the hospital provide low-cost medical care for those who are sick. However, prevention is better than cure and the CHP is enabling the poorest of the poor to access sanitary latrines and deep tube wells.
Materials to make the latrines are provided by the CHP, which are made and installed by the villagers themselves giving them a sense of ownership and pride.

The village health workers educate the families on personal hygiene, how to keep the latrines clean and how to treat diarrhoea quickly using commercial or homemade oral rehydration supplements. This project is supported by British Baptists via Operation Agri.

Please pray for:

• Those affected by water shortages and disease
• The expansion of CHP’s water and sanitation project into more villages.
• Those working to prevent and prepare for the effects of climate change in Bangladesh.
• Derek mentioned to me that at the moment Bangladesh does not qualify for debt relief, so I have added this prayer need to this BMS article which Alison kindly sent to me.

POSTPONED: Debt Relief For Haiti!

Haiti is one of the countries that had been very severely affected by the food crisis that occurred last summer. Their situation was made even worse by a series of hurricanes that devastated the country. As a result of these crises, Haiti was not able to meet the conditions imposed upon it by The World Bank and the IMF. The result – the promises of debt cancellation for Haiti were pushed back by six months, through no fault of their own.

If matters could be made worse, this was done by Robert Zoellick, the President of the World Bank, upon visiting Haiti last October, when he claimed that half of their debt had been dropped and the rest would soon follow. THIS WAS NOT THE CASE.

The ethics of the World Bank and the IMF really sickens me.

As Micah 6:8 says, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (my italics).

Derek Fraser

Stepping Out of the Boat - Literally!

It all started in 2007, when I was working on a cruise ship, when I had this vision of my life changing, as well as my career.

The next day this client came in and said he was a Christian and he had a vision for me ….. he said my life was going to change because God had a plan for me. He then gave me a Bible, wrote my name in it and told me to read John 14:6 – “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.’”

The next day my friends and I were sitting on the beach in St Lucia when a guy that worked there came up and said to me “that I was the one.” I didn’t understand what he meant; he explained that he had this piece of land that God wanted him to give to the right person. He than told me that my life was going to change and basically said the same thing the other guy had said, and then described the vision which I had had ……… this did not feel like a coincidence and for the rest of the day I was on a high. My manager persuaded me not to go back (even though it felt right).

When I finished that contract I wanted another adventure, but didn’t know what. Everything I tried to do, whether it was on ships or on land, nothing was possible. It felt as if I was in a room with lots of doors and every one which I opened “slammed shut in my face.” This was really weird as all my other jobs just fell into place! The only thing that popped up every time I searched was a TEFL Course. After getting a part-time job, being baptised and going to Kazakhstan, I knew that was what I had to do.

After completing the course in January I finally passed the exam, which was a miracle as I am really not academic, hated English at school and found the course extremely hard and stressful. But God helped me through it.

I didn’t feel ready to get a job teaching as I didn’t really have experience, and then Frank suggested teaching in the church to gain experience (which sounded quite exciting).

The next steps were getting the resources (teaching stuff and classroom equipment). Basically everything needed for the classroom was given to us. Richard told me that he had seen a whiteboard in a skip and when we went to get it they gave us tables, chairs and kitchen units for the room, which would all have cost around £1,000. The next thing that was needed were teaching books, which would have come to around £500. But then I met up with a friend who told me where I could get similar books for free (this didn’t involve stealing them!)

We decorated the room above the stage and once it was finished it was suggested that a flat screen computer would be good to have up there. Without me saying anything, the next day my cousin said she had a spare flat screen …. “Did I want it?” I couldn’t believe how much God had provided.

Now everything was ready. I felt that I wasn’t, but then there were a couple of things which spoke to me ….

The first was Frank’s sermon about “when does the miracle take place?” and as with the feeding of the 5,000 the miracle took place when they decided to trust God – that is when the food was multiplied.

Another thing was a book given to me about a rebellious boy, who could not read or write, becoming a Christian and then being called to be a teacher. He would go to the priest the night before each lesson and then the priest would teach him what to do (so really he was only one step ahead of the students, but he became a famous teacher after all of that!)

I started teaching three students but had felt God telling me that I would get more when I was ready. One night God answered my prayers! The next day I had five more people who wanted to do the classes. So, basically, I went from not feeling ready to even get a job teaching, to running my own English classes ……it’s amazing how God works!

Beccy