One litle extra post

Sorry I couldn't help myself.

Two of our guys where in the centre today, it was a very quiet day.

As they went to close someone in the prayer room started calling out for Brian! Michael and Ursina went in and it was a person who had taken some khetamine by accident. Believe me these things happen, they had mistaken it for something else!

The guys sat with the person for 2 hours whilst the affects wore off, it was a cary and intense moment for both of them but they got through it. Michaels hand was hled tightly for over an hour. I went in to check they were okay and they had it all under control. The thing with Khetamine is that it is a disassociative anaesthetic and people need what is called a ground controller, Michael was that man.

I was just struck by the fact that this all took place in a prayer room, prayer and mission working in harmony. Prayers were said, hands were held and the person left after coming down.

Our prayer rooms need to be the places for people who are in trouble, God meets people in their desperate moments.

It's not all about buildings or rooms but there are thin places and sacred spaces were God seems to be present, we mustn't diss them or hold them to tightly but when they work it is beautiful.

Anyway I am now going on hols, speak again soon, well soonish......

Holiday

I'm off to France this morning with my family for 2 weeks so I will be having a blog holiday.

Just finished our 4th 2 week team.

The guys have been brilliant, it has been the hardest time out on the streets. One of the team got blood all over them from a man who was puking another team member had to put his hand in a guys mouth to clear the vomit so he didn't choke whilst waiting for an ambulance. Generally it is very messy in the west end, I am looking forward to being away.

I still love this place and love what we are doing as a community here.

Hopefully we will arrived back and refreshed ready to go for the rest of the season, I'll write again on the 11th August.

Take it easy

I've been blessed by GOD TV!!!!!

Last night an amazing thing happened I was channel flicking and ended up watching GOD tv, just before I flicked on to another channel the man talking caught my ear. It was a guy called Rick Warren he was talking about Moses and the question God posed him about "What do you have in your hand"

He explained about his massively best selling book called "Purpose Driven Life" not a book I am overly fond of in fact I started to read it and gave up. The word "driven" is a real turn off for me, anyway I hung in there. Rick talked about how he takes no money from the profits of the book, how he reverse tithes (gives away 90% and keeps 10%) how they work with trying to find solutions for HIV and support orphans, how he paid the church back everything they had ever paid him, he wasn't showing off, just talking. At one point the crowd started to clap he just stopped them and said "I am not telling you this to impress you, I am telling this to teach you" I loved it.

He then talked about how this declaration he made with his church, personally I am going to try to memorize it, it's good:

"Today I am stepping across the line. I’m tired of waffling and I’m finished with wavering, I’ve made my choice, the verdict is in, and my decision is irrevocable. I’m going God’s way. There’s no turning back now!

I will live the rest of my life serving God’s purposes with God’s people on God’s planet for God’s glory. I will use my life to celebrate his presence, cultivate his character, participate in his family, demonstrate his love, and communicate his word.

Since my past has been forgiven, and I have a purpose for living, and a home awaiting in heaven, I refuse to waste any more time or energy on shallow living, petty thinking, trivial talking, thoughtless doing, useless regretting, hurtful resenting, or faithless worrying. Instead I will magnify God, grow to maturity, serve in ministry, and fulfill my mission in the membership of his family.

Because this life is preparation for the next, I will value worship over wealth, “we” over “me”, character over comfort, service over status, and people over possessions, position, and pleasures. I know what matters most and I’ll give it all I’ve got. I’ll do the best I can with what I have for Jesus Christ today.

I won’t be captivated by culture, manipulated by critics, motivated by praise, frustrated by problems, debilitated by temptation, or intimidated by the devil. I’ll keep running my race with my eyes on the goal, not the sidelines or those running by me. When times get tough, and I get tired, I won’t back up, back off, back down, back out or backslide. I’ll just keep moving forward by God’s grace. I’m Spirit-led, purpose-driven and mission-focused so I cannot be bought, I will not be compromised, and I shall not quit until I finish the race.

I’m a trophy of God’s amazing grace so I will be gracious to everyone, grateful for everyday, and generous with everything that God entrusts to me.

To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I say: However, Whenever, Wherever, and Whatever you ask me to do, my answer in advance is yes! Wherever you lead and whatever the cost, I’m ready. Anytime. Anywhere. Anyway. Whatever it takes Lord; Whatever it takes! I want to be used by you in such a way, that on that final day I’ll hear you say, “Well done, thou good and faithful one. Come on in, and let the eternal party begin!”

Good old GOD TV!!!!

Missional Community observations from Michael Frost

I read this in Exiles by Michael Frost.

My thoughts as you read this are that for ordained clergy lets also include gifted leaders. Lets also remember that lots of New church guys in the 60's and 70's got a lot of flack for breaking away and now they are firing the flack themselves......

We Make It Too Hardby Michael Frost

Why can't we imagine being a community of Christ's followers without a building or formally trained or accredited clergy? Whenever I raise this issue in seminars, people regularly remind me that house-based groups of 15 or so without proper accreditation and training can lead to heresy and cultish practices. But the fact remains that nearly every major heresy that has beset the Christian church has come from recognised church bodies whose leaders were properly accredited by their sponsoring hierarchies. Conversely, virtually every new movement among people hungering for a deeper knowledge of God has been rejected, quashed, or destroyed by the "church" of it's day, and it's leaders have been famously excommunicated or martyred for following the missional impulse of God.........

Journey

On Saturday we will be driving to Provence for a two week holiday, a long ferry then a pleasant drive. My children are bound to come out with inevitable phrase “are we there yet?” we have to work hard at getting them to enjoy the journey.

I have spent the last few years with the realisation that sometimes I can be living for tomorrow without enjoying today. Waiting for all my dreams to come true.I could spend ages looking into the distance and hoping to get there, so focussed on what is ahead I don't enjoy what is happening around me. I know we need dreams for the future, vision even plans but they can sometimes put me into a state in which i lack contentment with the here and now.

I think you spend a lot of your early years wishing you were older and then you get older and spend your time wishing you were younger!

In all of this, some bad, some good, I can forget to enjoy the journey.

If there is one thing I am finding out it is this cheesy little saying “the journey is as important as the destination”

And not only that but I have a deeper realization that God is with me on the journey. Reassuringly I do not journey alone.

In Joseph Conrads book "Heart of Darkness" he says "we live as we dream alone" the more i think about that the less I agree. We dream alone but we don't live alone, life is best shared.

We don’t journey alone, I'm trying to enjoy the journey.

It's not all bad!

I went back to the hospital yesterday morning, thankfully the guy who we had dropped of was feeling a lot better. I drove him back to San Antonio and through a series of elimination we found his hotel. All his friends were sitting outside very worried and they had just started to sort a taxi to go to the hospitals.

The guy was and probably is very shaken, I think this disturbs me more than most things, seeing people who have been beaten up. It wasn't his fault he was the victim of a crime and having been beaten up myself in the past, you feel your manhood has been dented. It's just not what you expect to happen you always have this picture in your mind that if you really had to you could defend yourself. When that doesn't happen you can feel broken.

I guess brokeness is something we see a lot of, people get broken by the drinks, the drugs, the violence. I know many times that it is their own choice but that doesn't make it easier to witness.

On Sunday night these two girls were in such a state and all the coherent one wanted to do was phone her mum. Unfortunately phoning your mum in tears from a hospital on holiday probably doesn't do a lot to give her a sense of peace. Anyway i spoke to her and all she said was "I just want you to get her home safe to her hotel" and thats what we did.

No matter how much people do this to themselves, they are still someone's daughter or son.

The other thing that I have had to say to myself and want to emphasise to you is that the majority of people come here and don't get robbed or end up puking and wetting themselves down some alley way. The majority come here and have great cheap fun holiday. We deal with the more desperate cases and I mustn't allow generalisations to creep in when in it comes to the majority of people in the West End.

The picture I sometimes paint is the one that we have made a choice to be around, thats okay, but please, this is a beautiful place.

Press On

You're going to have to forgive another one of my 4am posts.

We've had a great day, every Sunday we have a community lunch everyone brings something, we eat, then usually play water polo. The last few weeks we have had a guy who recently got out of Ibiza prison, two members of a band that are playing at Ibiza Rocks and various other friends. Today we switched the Air Con on high and had four bar workers from the west end around for a fantastic roast dinner, there were 14 of us in total, I was stuffed.

At about 6ish we have a little community time every week, worship, break bread, look at the bible and pray for each other, today Bob the local anglican vicar came and he also brought a friend who is a gospel singer doing events here in Ibiza.

We have 4 people living with us at the moment, Michael (England) Ursina (Switzerland) Laura (N.Ireland) and Becky (Australia) it's load of fun. 3 of the guys went with the rest of our team to Space, I hope they had a great night.

Anyway at 12 midnight Tracy and I got a call to go to the medical centre and take a guy whose nose was broken to the larger the hospital in Ibiza town for an xray, they don't do an ambulance facility for this and a taxi wouldn't take him, he had been robbed on his first night, no wallet, no phone and no recollection of where his hotel was! He was covered in blood and getting it everywhere. By the way Laura stayed at home and baby sat. We where with him for over 2 hours, they decided to keep him in because he was confused, so I'll go back in about 5 hours time and help him get sorted, thankfully the British Consul will help sort him out.

As we where driving home we get a call to take another girl home she was very drunk and really panicked, hyper ventilating and stuff the doctors said she was fine, so we have just spent the last hour calming her down and sitting with her until she seemed better.

I'm on the verge of being overwhelmed, we feel so inadequate to the task, it feels like trying to stop the tide. We'll keep going because this is where we are meant to be.

A little phrase comes to mind "press on"

This is the tension, on the one hand you are trying to build a solid missional community here on the island holding that with the tension of the proximity of that community to so much messiness. It's hardly like you have time to think about one because you are always tired from dealing with the mess. However as a community we are very strongly bonded by the task of helping in the Westend. If community is the only goal it will never work, communities have to exist for something other than themselves. Community for communities sake is self serving, consumeristic and in danger of becoming an inwardly focussed little huddle. Communities need mission it is the food that sustains them, all christian communities need mission as their organising principal.

A community organised around anything else other than mission can never truly be a Christ centered community. I'm thinking that statement could read a little strong and maybe even a tad self righteous, it's not meant to be. I think it is the truth.

Right, now I'm going to bed

Short term missions

Great discussion going on over at Andrew Jones Blog

Short terms missions teams tend to be groups of young people who go away for two weeks to engage in some form of "mission" work, building projects, orphanages, helping out in churches or coming and working on the streets with people like us!

I haven't always been a fan sometimes it can feel a bit like christian tourism and there can be a lot of money spent on actually getting a team to a destination etc.. Some argue, me included, that the money actually spent on getting the team to the destination could be better spent given directly to the charity.

However my mind has changed and I am more open to the concept of mission teams than ever before.

We will have had 9 teams out here this year plus 7 people who have come for a month or more and we couldn't actually do what we do without them

So for us they:

1. Enhance the quality of work we do especially with bodies out on the street.
2. Encourage us just by hanging out with us and helping us to remember we are connected to something bigger
3. get a heart for what we do and pray for us upon their return
4. occasionally throw someone up who wants to join us longer term
5. help generate financial support for all we are trying to do

I guess for them we bring a challenge on issues of grace, prayer and service, I feel most people grow by serving out here.

the down sides as Andrew rightly mentions is that I think Ibiza is quite a cool place to come to and it appears to be easy to attract people we don't want to end up just as a trendy destination as long as we feel that people are helping us build we will keep having teams. When we move to the point were we feel as a community that we are predominantly serving the teams and they aren't serving the work here we will need to revisit it.

Messy Night

Tonight at about 9pm we were sitting having our dinner, when the phone rang. It was the Spanish doctor from the medical centre in San Antonio, they phone us quite a lot these days, basically he had a guy who had been brought in who wasn't ill and just needed someone to talk to. Bethany and i went along and when we got there we found out the guy was italian, so with Bethany's Spanish and my english we listened for over an hour to his sad tale, he spoke a little Spanish and English and actually if you know a bit of Spanish you can understand a bit of Italian. We listened when eventually he communicated that his problem wasn't physical it was spiritual! He didn't know we were christians. basically when he was low in the past his Italian priest prayed with him and he felt better, he even showed us how his priest prayed by placing his hand on his head. So we asked if we could pray for him he said yes so I laid my hand on his head and prayed that God would bring him peace. It was amazing his whole countenance changed and he then prayed for us, first he kissed a picture of his priest 5 times then we also had to kiss it. With that he got up and said "you people are from a different world" and we walked him out and he left happy.

We went home for half an hour and then went out on the street. Tonight was messy we took one guy home who had drank far to much vodka, then we got a call out to help a really large girl home. Helen and Bethany spent ages with her they had been there an hour before Bruce and I turned up in the van, we then drove them home about 3 miles to their hotel. When we got to the hotel the younger more sober girl was very rude to the staff, i tried to calm her and asked her to quietly get in the lift and go to her room. She then told me to "f**k off" I politely pointed out what we had just tried to do for her but she just stormed off swearing, bethany went after her and then she turned and slapped bethany in the face and back with her shoe. It was horrible I was so furious i thought the guy on reception was going to kill her, he was also very angry. In the end there was nothing we could do we had dropped them with their parents and they were safe so we left them.

No time to process we had to drive on and pick up a girl who had got totally wasted and take her home, they were lovely girls and very grateful (we don't do this for peoples gratitude but we do appreciate gratitude)

We drove back to what looked like a double murder!!! (okay I'm tired and being overly dramatic) two guys lying in the street surrounded by their caring friends. It turned out they were okay just lost the use of their legs we got them back to their hotel it was quite comedy as one of the guys trousers fell down in the lift, I felt like I was dealing with a two year old.

We then drove back to the medical centre were two of the guys on our team were waiting with a guy who had sobered up and needed a lift back to his hotel. We dropped him and the guys of at the hotel only to receive a phone call that it wasn't his hotel! So we drove back to get him whilst driving to him he just got up and ran off leaving our guys with his shoes! We couldn't stop him or find him. At least he was sober enough to go for a jog and we think he ran off because he had spotted his hotel.

At that point we called it a night and came home and here I sit after 8 hours of madness trying to process what has just happened. I'm not depressed more distressed this is fulfilling, frustrating, energizing and wearying work.

I feel sad and battered but alive and happy. How can that be?

I'm also a bit annoyed with myself that I reacted to the drunk girl by trying to put her right and tell her what we had done for her to make her grateful. I think it made her more angry which in turn may have contributed to Bethany getting a slap. I'm angry with myself that I let Bethany run after her and backed off myself.

Tonight I know why i blog, it helps me unload. If you're the praying kind please send one up for us.......

Compassion Fatigue

I have been thinking about the word compassion recently

Compassion is the emotion that I feel a lot, compassion is prompted by the pain of others. For me compassion has to be an active emotion it's different than empathy, compassion leads to the desire to help others.

I read this about compassionon wikipedia "In ethical terms, the various expressions down the ages of the so-called Golden Rule embody by implication the principle of compassion: Do to others as you would have done to you. Ranked a great virtue in numerous philosophies, compassion is considered in all the major religious traditions as among the greatest of virtues."

Various things move people with compassion, drunk, helpless, lost people tend to move me with compassion. Probably because I've been there, I've wet myself, soiled myself, puked all over myself, fallen asleep in stupid places and generally got very messy when younger. In many ways this helps me although many of the people who work for us have never been in this state, they still find themselves moved with compassion. It is not unusual for someone on a team to break down in tears after a night on the street.

I watched a TV programme about prison last night and found it very moving. A young inmate met with two parents who had lost their child in a street fight, they talked and challenged him, he responded really well, at the end of the meeting the father of the dead child got up and just hugged the inmate, he was a big man and the inmate was a boy, he just held the boy in his arms. I found it very moving, I don't know whether I could have done that, but it moved me to tears

I don't ever want to become hard to what we do here, there are moments when you need to protect yourself but generally it should be compassion that drives us to do what we do.

I think we can get fatigued with all that goes on in the world, various appeals, loads of disasters, charities we want to support, things we see and situations we experience. It can overwhelm us.

I love the words of jesus "Come to me all you who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest" when my compassion starts to be fatigued I go to Him, so that I don't grow weary and lose heart.

Condoms and CD's

We've run out of condoms and CD's to put in our welcome bags, has anyone got a hundred or so of either lying around that they would like to donate to 24-7 Ibiza?

We just need some nice music CD's we gave away a drum and base Cd, people loved it.

Also we need a fair amount of condoms, all shapes, sizes and flavours welcome, we have given other a 1000 away over the last 2 summers. You may think that is just a drop in the ocean and actually it is, but it matters to some people.

We are keen that people don't have unwanted pregnancies and don't catch sexually transmitted diseases. Believe me if people are going to have sex they will, if they have a condom handy they are more likely to use it.

Anyway if you know of any freebies let me know, just for your info I will be contacting government agencies in Spain and the UK, but it could take a while so if you have about 1000 spare please get in touch.

People love our welcome bags, if you're in Ibiza and you haven't had one pop in and we will sort you out.

Check this out, it was filmed in September 2006 it gives a snippet into all that we do. Click this link Prayer as mission

Our community has changed Fiona, Steve and Dawn have all moved on, we are now in a different prayer room and we have the van to take people home in, I am also 8 kilos lighter now.

Hope you enjoy it

Rhythm Has Your Two Hips Moving

RHYTHM is my hardest word to spell I remember this little saying to help me, Rhythm is also the hardest thing to get right when you live a semi nocturnal life.

I am not finding it hard to blog at the moment, just charging about loads and trying to manage my time better.

I am swimming everyday and doing weights, I have dropped below the 15 stone barrier, I still have love handles so it will be a few months before I post a photo. I am finding that the exercise helps clear my head.

We have also put two chairs out on our front patio, so I sit there every morning and read my bible and pray, then in the evenings I sit down with Tracy out there. Like a young hip and happening couple I smoke my pipe and we play backgammon or scrabble. It's frustrating because Tracy always wins at scrabble so I am trying to concentrate on backgammon. I also feel like I am getting enough time with the boys which is good.

I also meet with Bruce every two weeks just to chat about my thought life and spiritual discipline, plus doing some reading of a few christian books.

The only thing I am not doing is painting, I have two or three blank canvases.

This rhythm of exercise, spiritual discipline, accountability and quality time alone with my wife and children is really sustaining me. I know it's obvious but you can soon get so caught up in the work that you almost forget about yourself. Someone commented that I seemed a lot more relaxed this year and I agree with them.

The surprising thing is that in the middle of all this the work is going great, we are busier than ever, have more conversations than ever, pray with more people and the centre is going brilliantly.

At the end of the summer Tracy, Bruce, Helen, Ellis Dan and myself are all going to head for Ireland and England for a break, we are going to do a training come inspirational day in Ireland and then hang out at the essex boiler room.

This will also contribute to our rhythm of rest, by the time we leave for Ireland in October we will have been on the street 4 nights a week since May, we will need the bigger rest.

I've seen so much in so many places
So many heartaches, so many faces
So many dirty things
You couldn't even believe

I hope thats not to over dramatic, it's a great line and pretty well sums up the last few days.

I can't give you loads of details as it would be inapropriate and an abuse of trust. We have dealt with some mess, people hurt and damaged.

What I feel I can talk about doesn't do it justice, boy's beaten up and taken to hospital, a guy covered in puke with his mate sitting in it carrying him to the van getting it smeared on us, another guy completely wrecked and vomiting taken back to hotel, a disturbing conversation with a hotel porter who had a major trauma with a holiday maker, a teenage girl abandoned by her boyfriend who we had to take home, this is just Helen and myself, 2 out of a 10 person team and it all happened in 3 hours!! Goodness knows if we wrote all that happens to us as a group every time we go out.

The picture above should sum it up, thats me in the red, we stand looking out on something that is large and imposing, there is a vastness to it that overwhelms and leaves you with a feeling of smallness and inadequacy.

There are times when I don't know how to process all we see and other times where it is so busy it all just rolls into one and I don't get time to process.

I don't feel overloaded with it, more a sense of numbness, like a wave of mess we just witness every night we are out. We put ourselves in the position of finding the mess so we ask for it, but that doesn't make it easy.

It was our 16th wedding anniversary yesterday, we are popping out to Ibiza town for a meal tonight which should be lovely. Celebrating 16 years of more ups than downs with my beautiful wife.

What's been strange is that this week we have helped quite a lot of 17 year old people, I am sitting here at 8 in the morning, the sun is shining, it's very peaceful, my children are up and life seems normal but I have just spent the last couple of hours with Dave looking after two 17 year olds in the local medical centre. They are now back at there hotels safe and sound.

I guess it makes me feel older, dealing with people who were one when I got married!

I should probably go to bed but I'm just going to sit here eat a banana, finish my mint tea, check out the BBC website and then hit the sack.

It's good to be alive and share that life with someone you love.

The team where out last night and had a great time. The only italian speaker on our team managed to sit down next to guy who only spoke Italian, amongst the 1000's of holiday makers here that is totally random but fantastic.

We prayed with various people and helped other. It never ceases to amaze me how open people are. The team prayed before they walked out on the street that they could help the broken hearted. They then met someone who had recently suffered a bereavement who really wanted prayer so they prayed for them on the street. Once again they prayed with the prostitues one took out a hankerchief and covered her head whilst they prayed.

We also picked up a young guy on the streets covered in vomit, it was great to get him looked at in the hospital and take him home later, he was okay just overwhelmed by the large measures that are served here.

We also found a girls friends who was lost and managed to take 3 guys back to their hotel who had taken khetamine. Sometimes people just want you to walk them back be cause they have lost their friends and are a bit nervous we are happy to do that.

Just need to think about where we are going with the room. It's going really well and has a lot of use 30 plus people a day, I'm thinking we do a few wii tournaments maybe even DJ lessons.

We have have 3 new team members this week which is great because it really is very busy now.

Agendas

I have been thinking about agendas today and came to the conclusion that everyone has them. There is nothing the matter with agendas, what I don't like is hidden agendas.

People have agendas to raise their kids well, to earn money, to become famous, to become comfortable, to travel, to promote their event, to be happy, etc.

There are many organisations that have agendas some are clear some are a more hidden, I even think that some are deliberatley a little blurry.

Religious organisations have agendas, something to promote, a way of life to suggest. Most christian organisations have agendas so do islamic groups and other religions.

It made me think about the agenda we have for the work of 24-7ibiza, what is our agenda?

Well this is what I have been thinking about all day. Primarily it is to be like Jesus and in trying to live our lives in such a way that we reflect his teachings. Thats why I like the term "Follower of Jesus" more than "Christian". The word christian has so much baggage attached to it and maybe by how we live an act here as followers of Jesus we will help to change peoples impressions of christians. That would also be on my agenda, that the people we meet in the west end and other places would view christians in a better light after they had met or been helped by us. I see a lot of what we do as taking people a step closer to understanding the christian faith, seeing that it is about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Hopefully by what we do, how we help and serve, people will see that this is how a follower of Jesus should be, maybe they would want to explore the possibility of walking down that path after they have encountered us, I'm happy with that agenda.

Of course I don't have all these wonderful qualities in abundant measure but I am trying. A few other things that I feel have to be on the christian agenda stuff that we mustn't shy away from: "Imperfection" "Weakness" "Questions" "Tolerance" and "Honesty"

We are not perfect and if we have an agenda that aims to present ourselves as perfect everyone will see through and no one will want it because it is a standard none of us can achieve.

Electricity

Sorry for the lack of blogging, I was away at Summer Madness for a few days which was really great. Then I arrived back 1 hour before our 3rd team of the summer, these guys are from the South of Ireland. So far this year we have had no one on a team who has been English!

Yesterday we realised we had forgot to pay our electricity bill so they cut us off for 24 hours which further delayed my blogging, the electricity has just come on again. We have all just had the most uncomfortable nights sleep and we all got very sweaty.

It was pretty mental out on the street last night, very busy and very messy. We witnessed one guy get a beating from some bouncers, took a number of girls home who had had to much absinthe! Briefly waited for an ambulance with a girl who had fallen and cut herself. We also sat with a guy who had fallen asleep and been robbed, it took us about 1 hour to wake him and helen eventually found his friends so he went home kind of happy. Alongside that we had loads of conversations, gave away a bible, talked with some new workers and prayed around town. The new team did great.

If you have emailed me or left a comment since Thursday sorry I haven't replied, I will do it today. I have over 100 emails to reply to!!!!

Anyway I am going to boil the kettle now and make a nice cup of earl grey, I like electricity.