Testing, testing.

After several years working in Old Woking, a curious pattern has started to emerge when we go out there.

The evening starts really well, with lads playing football, girls chatting to our girls; then right at the end it feels as though there is malevolence in the atmosphere and things start to get out of hand.

Three weeks ago, we had a good evening playing football - had some really good chats with kids asking us about God - only to have these conversations interrupted as we watched two very young brothers trashing a bike right in front of us. It all happened really quickly – first one of them picked it off the ground, rode it away a few yards, then he got off, lifted it above his head and slammed it into the tarmac. The wheel came off and rolled toward the older lad who had ridden the bike there. The other brother ran toward the bike and leapt up and down on the frame bending and breaking it as more pieces flew off. Then he picked it up and hung it from the overhead slide wire. It was as though he'd lost his mind and had gone completely nuts.

I fully expected the older lad to take issue with this but instead he laughed. It turned out it wasn’t his bike.

The brothers are both small - no more than 12, probably only 10. It was amazing to see the damage they could cause in such a short space of time.

Then another older lad decided to ride a more expensive bike belonging to a younger lad – I was concerned that he might have a similar fate mapped out for it - a fear that was shared by the bike’s owner. I took hold of the handlebars and took some verbal abuse and threats that I’d be head-butted. The bike’s owner had hold of its rear and eventually was made to say ‘please’ before the older lad would get off.

Last week we had the incident with our goalposts where everything went swimmingly until we came to packing up – when the same two brothers and the same older lad started jousting with the goalposts, and swinging around a heavy weight that would have broken something had it landed on them or someone else. On that occasion I shouted, as much for their protection and that of others, as for my frustration that they could be so stupid.

Last night was the same. It was a great evening. Five of us had gone out, our girls chatted to their girls, we had the goalposts up – and we were even joined by a local resident who was happy to play football with the lads - Alexandra Gardens take note! Andrew and I packed up – without incident. We chatted to the lads, including the older lad who had been a wally the week before - no brothers this time. The older lad is 15 but looks older and acts younger. He seems to want to prove that he’s a man by making veiled threats and joking that he has a weapon, when he doesn’t. Full of bravado - completely lacking in common sense.

As Andrew and I put the kit back in the car we became aware that the older lad was now by the swings. It was dark but as we got closer we could see Nancy standing by the swing and a couple of people in the basket being swung really high. Nothing was said, there were no screams but the older lad was laughing and shouting as he pushed harder and harder at the basket - there was the sense that whoever was in the basket wasn’t enjoying it – so Andrew and I stepped in and slowed it down, again taking abuse and threats from the older lad whose fun we’d spoiled. He laughed at us.

It wasn’t until we’d stopped the swing that Andrew and I realised it was Annabel, one of our volunteers (on hols from university) who was in the basket with a younger girl. She was shaken and took abuse from the culprit who had swung the bucket so high that it had shaken her. She walked off with his insults directed at her, Andrew and me ringing in her ears. What was more worrying was that the younger lads were joining in and saying, ‘Don’t come back’.

Obligingly I turned and said, ‘Fine, we’ll not come back then’. Older lad decides to walk toward me and make more threats. He tells me to come over to him so that he can nut me. I tell him I won’t fight. And I add that we won’t be back, either. The other boys hear this and start apologising – ‘We’re really sorry’ they say. ‘We didn’t mean it’.

Now, interestingly, Phil decided a few weeks ago that we would pray this coming 1^st of September and not go out. The following week we’ll be planning – and not going out again. Was this all in God’s plan maybe? Certainly, if we don’t turn up for a couple of weeks it might focus their minds on whether they want us around or not. We’ll see.

It’s clear to me that things were going really well until just three characters turned up, so that now we have to think about our response and whether we need a strategy for dealing with any future events like this. It’ll be a big prayer subject of mine this coming week but I feel that the Lord may already have shown us the way.

What’s also clear to me is that we must take a leaf out of the Street Pastors’ book and have a team back at base praying for those who are out. We did this before when we had enough volunteers and there were none of these problems then – in fairness we’ve not had these problems when we haven’t had a prayer team back at base supporting us, although I know that others pray for us through the week. But there’s the sense that we really need to buttress our defences with contemporaneous prayer to try to prevent these events from getting out of control. It would be Satan’s way to put something into the minds of just a few individuals to upset the work we’ve started. We need prayer at that time for these lads, and for our protection.

Interestingly, there is a prayer room very nearby - even closer than the church, which is God- inspired and set up in someone’s house, completely independently of Outside Light. It’s there 24/7, it’s comfortable, peaceful and perfectly placed for the support of our work on St Peter’s Rec.

Is there anyone not yet with us who would like to support us in prayer who would be prepared to give up a few hours on Tuesday evening’s please? Ideally we’d get together a small team of prayer supporters so that we could put together a rota? If you might be prepared to support us in this way, please will you contact me jndurrant@gmail.com. Thanks

Monday, in contrast, was great. Even I played football. Believe it or not, Malcolm Ramsay, Big John Holland, young K and I thrashed a similar size team that included George and three good players. Well, we were thrashing them with our star striker Malcolm scoring some amazing goals - but I lost the will to live and let in some of their balls so that we ended in a draw.

There's a good feeling around the kids at The Vyne - we've got strong relationships building with several of them and they're happy to chat about life stuff. We thank God for that.