Angrier still

It has been another year, so I thought I should post my annual blog... no not really but this is the first time in a year that I have really needed to express myself to the masses... and only because I am sooo... you know what.

"What is the point," I asked my wife the other day, "of knowing all these Christians when none of them will actually do anything!"

Let me explain. I work at a youth centre in Henderson, we see hundreds of young people evey week. This week three youth came into our centre, one pregnant and sixteen, her 19 yr old partner and another female friend age 19 from Christchurch. They all live in a house with 5 other people and a woman they all call 'mum'. As it turns out mum is a bit crazy and was kicking them all out, no place to go and no-one they know to ask for help so they stumbled on us, they had two days to find a place.

We try to help them, they have two days to move.

They head home and 15 minutes later I get a phone call. Alex, the 19 year old girl from Christchurch has been served a tresspass notice and had to pack her gear and leave in ten minutes. She sits crying on the footpath. Screaming people in the back ground and she just cries on the footpath.

You would not believe the stories she told us when we picked her up from that footpath.

She has no money, knows no-one and has no place to go. No 'emergency' shelter will take her as she has not been through the correct proceedurs. #$%& ya procedures.

We pick her up and start to make calls. All the Christians we know and no-one can take her. No place for Alex. Claire one of our staff lives in abig house with another youth pastor (a hopeless baptist one, sorry Lord for calling one of your children hopeless, I know that is not true but it is how I feel) and she has 3 spare bedrooms in her house. We had to literally plead with her to let this girl stay just one night! Where is Christ in that youth pastors life, all the conversations about love, all the times she has EVER approached the story of the Good Samritan and it all means nothing, absolutely nothing!

The next day we rang and emailed all sorts of people... now I will be honest with you, taking this girl in would be no easy ride. My wife told me to bring her to our house and I reminded her that we only have one room and no bathroom... not the ideal situation, we are building another room for this purpose but council consents take some time.

Anyway... no Christian would offer help or support. We rung one well-known large pentecostal church and asked them if they had any help available, their answer "we only help people from our own church". What use is the Holy Spirit if that is your attitude... perhaps the pentecostal movement is a farse after all??? I don't know... when will people learn that Jesus has to be about the hurting and suffering... how much more plainly do they want it to be written in scripture?

All these Christians and it is useless. God must be way more frustrated than me... "I am sorry for the times I have been useless Lord". (Pray that with me).

And the big well-known pentecostal church has this huge vision of impacting more people for the Gospel. Bull #$%^.

Perhaps what makes me so angry is that I see so much of me in this post. It brings into stark reality my own uselessness in the face of so much pain and suffering. I think people have just seen so much of it they simply think "just another troubled teenager". "Yet another, and another". Well yes, there will be more, many more. But please help.

If you live in central Henderson, anywhere close at all, and you wouldn't mind having us call you and ask "Hey we have a person who has no-where to stay tonight, can you help". Please call us at Zeal (www.zeal.org.nz) and we will happily put you on a small list (so far of zero) of people we can call when this happens again. You can offer a place just for one night, or up to a week or whatever. Anything is helpful for us.

I have to go in my uselessness and do a useless first aid course... it is protocol. all day I have to do this course while I attempt to ignore the need of a nineteen year old lonely girl who has no place to go and stay tonight.