Greetings and peace be with you sevgi;
About a year ago I become a Street Pastor and this does not involve preaching. We go out in pairs into the community late on a Friday night where gangs, drunks, drugs, violence, vandals and troubled people are. We go in the hope of bringing about some kind of care and peace at night. We have no power or authority to do anything, we have no agenda or targets to meet, we are just volunteers, and members of the public wearing a jacket with Street Pastors written in fluorescent letters.
I am 59 and my partner is 65, we put our trust in prayer and in God. Late one night we came across a car full of youths parked near the centre of the road, about a dozen of their mates were fooling around in the road by the car, most of them were drinking. We walked up to the driver and asked if he could park in a safer place, he started up the car and moved it safely. We said a few words to the guys fooling around in the road, and they moved onto the pavement.
There were a couple of intimidating guys right in our face, and my little lady partner looked up to them and said, I am not afraid, strangely they backed off and seemed to become more friendly. It was only as we were able to talk with them and listen to their stories we found out they were really a good bunch. Our confidence comes from knowing there is a prayer team at the church praying for our needs and the needs of the community.
On another occasion we saw a group of about twenty youngsters, they were shouting and fooling around. As we approached we noticed one girl on the grass she was drunk and not very well, her friends seemed to think it was funny and paid no attention to her. Another girl was running around and screaming she had lost her phone, others in the group were aggravating her.
We approached the girl on the ground and talked to her, we asked her if she could phone her parents for help, or did she have any friends who could help her. A couple of her friends came forward and we talked with them, they reassured us they could help the girl, and she seemed happy with this.
We talked to a few people and asked them about the missing phone and a youth pulled it out from his sock, we thanked him for giving it back to the owner. We were only with them for about five minutes, but that was long enough to encourage the youngsters to care about each other, they drifted away in smaller groups.
The police have given Street Pastors much of the credit for reducing crime by a third since we started, compared to the same period of time last year. This good news story was put on the front page of our local paper, and it is unusual for a newspaper to say something good about the church on the front page. I truthfully do not know what we do that works towards reducing crime.
I can only say that I have faith that God is helping us and doing something too. Since doing this ministry, I have found myself in a number of fearful situations, and somehow I find this inner peace that surpasses all understanding.
In the spirit of trusting in a loving God
Eric