For a belt, I cut the electrical cord off a clothing iron. The ends started to fray, so I re-cut them, burnt/fused them and dipped them in hot candle wax, which was rock hard after it cooled. I tie the ends together around my waste with a bowline knot.
Some things from the last 5 days:
- I preached on a microphone at Flinders St Station.
- A minister told me the motto for their buildings was 'People are more important than things.'
- Spent the night, house sitting a friends flat, watching Foxtel. So easy to be distracted from the 'real' world, I haven't slept there again, yet...
- Inspired another street person to start his own blog.
- Watched Borat, with friends.
- Handed out some gospel tracts, and people didn't throw them away?!
- Was put up in a backpackers hotel for a night by some concerned Christians, and had to convince them not to put me up for the whole week.
- Actually found a nice quiet spot to type in the State Library.
- An elderly lady stopped me in the street to ask why I had a cross on my top. When I told her what I was doing, she started crying, which made me cry. She said my parents must have raised me well. I agreed but when I mentioned that they couldn't understand why I am relying on the charity of others when I could support myself with a job, she responded they have it upside down, and you need to please God first.
- Made a baby smile.
- Had lunch with a mate who cooked the best meal I have tasted this year.
- Read some of my Biography of St.Francis book.
- Found a working bike rear lights module, blinking in the middle of the street.
- Spent the night sitting in Baptist Place alley, thinking about issues of drug use. I dozed off and when I woke up I found an empty syringe packet, so someone must have been there while I slept...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Chris as your Dad it's not that I disagree with your faith walk, in terms of learning dependancy on God and gaining first hand experience of the issues street people face... but after that the question is this: are you going to be part of the problem or part of the answer?
Being part of the answer means firstly using your talents (luke 19:11-26) to support yourself so as not to depend on others (as Paul did by being a tent maker) and secondly by using your talents to benefit others.
While in street ministry you have minimised your needs, you are still a user of goods, services and the provisons made possible by those who work, pay taxes and contribute to charity.
Street people not only benefit from charities but also from the provision of society in the form of police, garbage collectors, education possibilities, electricity, transport, health, water and so on.
So we would want you to complete your faith walk learning experience, and then use your talents and abilities to be a positive contributer to the welfare of others, both socially and with the gospel
Peter,
I have never got the impression from Chris that he plans to spend the rest of his days living on the street on welfare. I believe his aim has always been to be a part of the answer, and to engage and struggle with the issues to understand exactly what ‘the answer’ means.
Your son has many talents and, whatever might happen in the future, I believe he is using those talents right now in his honest attempts to seek God’s will, to understand the issues of poverty and need, and to build relationships with those involved.
He has, as you say, made every attempt to minimise his impact on the services available,
and I believe what little he has taken has been well-earned and will be paid back many times over in whatever future endeavour he embarks upon.
I also think he has made a significant contribution to the system through donating all that he earned from the sale of his possessions to charity. It might not pay for police or garbos like taxes would, but I think it goes a long way nonetheless.
Post a Comment