We were out on the west-end last night, it was a good night, lots of good conversations and opportunities to share with people. We gave chocolate brownies to one of the bars for their staff, Helen is our brownie making queen, the bar staff always really love brownies.
At 3am Alan and I went for a walk, within 10 minutes we got offered various drugs on 4 different occasions, don't know what that says about how we looked!
We then saw a couple having sex on a walk way, loads of people were just walking by and some guys even stopped to watch, it was a very sad and disturbing sight.
We got a call on the bat phone and took a drunk guy back to his hotel in the van, we had a good chat with his two mates.
As we then walked back to the prayer room we got stopped by a worker who asked us if we would pray with her, we stopped and prayed with her in the street, then went back.
All in all our little walk only lasted 55 minutes, it's amazing what you can see in that time.
The whole sexual side of the island is very sad. We have found out that prostitutes use the dark space below our prayer room for business. The other night (or about 5 in the morning) someone came down and there were 4 of them having sex with customers.
I really felt for the girl having sex with that guy in the street, it was so degrading, I'm not judging but just sad. Sad that the beautiful act of intimacy and oneness which is the sexual act, has been so degraded here on this island. Although it's not just on this island, society at large appears to have misused and misappropriated the whole concept of sexuality.
As a community we prayed today to get a little more wisdom and understanding as to how to work with this whole area, we struggle to know how to engage with it. Should we have gone up to the couple and asked them to stop? lots of questions....
The photograph at the the top is by and artist called Joyce Tenneson it's called Intimacy.
Thats what it's all about, it's a search for intimacy, that has somehow gone wrong.
On a personal note I was reading the sermon on the mount in the prayer room from the message version it said "Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices - they also corrupt" I've got to protect myself out on these streets.
2 comments:
wow, brian...sometimes i read your blog and think about how we're in similar places; other tiimes i read it and am amazed at how different our corners of the world are. i think it's amazing that below your prayer room are prostitutes. (of course, i can't wait to get there.) i once read a devotional that said even the man knocking on the door of the prostitue is really looking for God - it's the whole intimacy thing. how beautiful that you guys get to live out as a community what true intimacy looks like - in your families, in your spiritual lives.
i always walk away from your blog with the profound sense that you guys are absolutely in the right place. i know you know that already, but sometimes it's good to hear again. keep going - as a community you'll work out how to handle each situation you face together. listen carefully...there are lots of cheers for you guys coming all the way from mexico. we're with you!
Just to say Kelly is right that your community being there is a living picture of what intimacy really is. You might feel you can only see the imperfections of your attempts to live out love, intimacy and community, but it makes a big impression even when you don't realize it does. People there can see it.
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