One of the key facets of Outside Light that I find hope in is its honesty and struggles. We are not an organisation that pretends to say all is well in the garden, we are in a fight, we believe we are God's soldiers. I hope you don't think we have suddenly gone into covert ops or anything, however we have been quiet on the communication front, but we are still here.
So what has been happening, well we have stopped short of wearing black face paint although I have been pushing for this!! It would seem that we are going through a season of consolidation, pruning and fertilizing. We have been doing a fair bit of praying as well as venturing out onto the streets. However numbers of young people have dropped, it would seem it is too cold even for them.
We have been talking with other groups about a possible new youth drop-in centre very near to where we venture out. We are also in talks with Kings House Coffee shop to use that facility as a base for our Monday night venture. We hope that we are nearing approval for a set of floodlights for the Vyne field, one of the young people we have contact with has proposed and signed that, we pray that comes through.
Tuesday night group have been maintaining contact with families in the gloster road area, however the team numbers have been a bit lower than normal. I personally have not been able to go on a Tuesday due to other commitments and more recently two members of the team have had to withdraw from the fold for the time being due to other commitments and a need for a season of rest. One of the members is Phil, a key figure in Outside Light, he is maintaining involvement and holds the trustee position and we will see him back in theatre in coming weeks we hope.
Tuesday night had an encouraging encounter with a traveller family we have been speaking to, the young lad who we have shared the gospel with and prayed with has been in prison but recently was relased. Myself, Phil and Nancy ventured around and sat in the lounge drinking tea and chatting about God, reading the Bible and so on. The mother has invited us to a travellers' church in a couple of weeks and is extremley keen to take us; in additon she has talked about setting up a cell group in the area for travellers!! The daughter has now been going to church and came forward for an altar call a few weeks back, please pray that this is a move of God and not an emotional high, we would dearly love her to repent and totally surrender to Christ as all the family. Your prayers are what covers this and enables this, please pray.
Last night Brigadier Durrant and his comrades Osborn and Smith ventured out after some very specific prayers. We turned the first corner from said Brigadier's house and were greeted with upwards of 15 youth all walking towards us taking up the whole road. We recognised some and vice versa, it was an answer to prayer. We carried on towards our usual spot and found 3 lads, we recognised one of them, we gave them some tracts and just had a bit of a catch up which was very natural and easy. I got a call today from a lady I worked with previously, she said "what have you been doing to my son..." turns out we were talking to her son, she recognised the tract I gave him as I had given her one similar. She was genuinely pleased that we were talking to him, the ripple has been talked about in that office and I am popping in to see them next week, it has kept another door ajar. The boy had said we were really easy to talk to, the mother was asking me to try and keep him on the straight and narrow!! God answered so many prayers last night. We need to keep stepping out for him.
This small army sometimes feels as if we are shooting tanks with pea shooters, yet we have (read in the style of American boxing ring announcer) the biggest of the biggest, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Heaven's champion, Alpha and Omega, Name above all names, The Almighty One, Light of the world yes that's right ladies and gentleman the undisputed heavy weight champion of the Universe Jesus the Christ....he humbled himself so much.
We need recruits, will you take on the humility of Christ, forget what you are good or bad at, what's on telly, that you need to go to keep fit, and come and join us. I remember hearing about one man who got to the age of about 60 and realised who Christ was and what he had done for him, he fell to his knees and cried because he realised all the time he had missed in serving Christ, he knew that in heaven the treasure was God and all the souls he would see there...
We need a treasurer and more foot soldiers and all the prayers you can muster...
Keep on keeping on
George
For His Glory
