Prayer Letter
February 2001
Praying for Crisis Centre Ministries,
its work, staff and
clients
in the context of Bristol's inner city
areas.
BRIDGEHEAD CHURCH
Thank you so much for your prayers for this. It’s still
early days, but we are encouraged.
We have a high ratio of workers to clients; a team of 5 people responsible for Bridgehead Church, supported by three volunteers, and two musicians who have indicated a particular interest. In addition, we are privileged to have the involvement of a number of people from various churches who will be either speaking or leading worship on specific evenings. Between 4 and 8 clients come each week, but these are different people each week, with the exception of one who has been consistent now for 3 weeks. It would be so good for there to be a consistent nucleus of people coming each week as well as those who drop-in.
We find our clients open to talk about God, their lives and the situations they are facing. They do like to be prayed for and it’s interesting to see prophetic words operating in this context. One meeting was particularly heart-rending for me as one young man who had been telling us he was dying (he has apparently been diagnosed with full-blown AIDS) learned that a friend of his had died as a result of heroin addiction - he found it almost impossible to cope with this information, was visibly broken emotionally and was talking about "going out, getting a fix and killing myself". He stayed until the end of the meeting, still very tearful, but unfortunately did end up in hospital that night - but he’s still alive! At the same meeting another client was telling us of friends of his who had also been heroin users and who had died over the past year. These are people who are not holding their lives together to begin with, and the additional emotional pressure of bereavement can easily pull them back into addiction - the second person I mentioned had been free from drugs for a number of months, but has recently started using again.
At the same time as struggling with their life issues, some of these people have come to know God and talk about the change God is making in their lives. Please pray that God will give us a small group of people as ‘building blocks’ (or living stones!) for Bridgehead Church: people who are responding to him, who continue to struggle but whose lives are changing, people who can talk to others about their friendship with God - a nucleus who come regularly.
THE MISSING PEACE
Anne White is now Project Manager for this aspect of the ministry and she took up this post on 1 February. She comes with knowledge and experience of the issues faced by our clients, but obviously much of her work with us is new to her. The drop-in centre is generally full of clients and we want to be in a position to respond well to these people. As well as providing nutritious food (significant, because of the physical affects of addiction), we would like to be able to give more individual attention to those who come in.
Please pray for Anne, and also that God will draw to the drop-in centre the necessary resources - finance, equipment and volunteers. We are very grateful to the many people who volunteer with us, and encouraged by the number of those involved, but we do need more if we are to extend the opening times and also develop outreach: we would particularly appreciate two or three people who would be prepared to take on a level of responsibility and could become Team Leaders.
LITE
Funding - help! The LITE Course has benefited from SRB2 funding for 4 years, and this is due to end in March 2001. We had anticipated ongoing funding through SRB6 but it seems we will need to bid for this and any funds will not be available until the end of the year. We are therefore presently following up all the options we hear of regarding funding for the Course. Would you please pray particularly that we will be successful in our applications to a couple of Christian funders: we do not anticipate that this will cover the full costs of the course, but it would be good to have working relationships with these groups and to be able to supplement our income in this way.
The LITE Course is doing really well, with six students coming in fairly regularly (two come afternoons only). We would value your prayers that we will be good news to these people, that they will be able to find a way forward on issues which have held them up (eg. addiction, attitude to authority etc), that we will see the change that comes from knowing God. We are expecting God to display his love towards these people in a way they can understand.
GENERAL
On a very basic level, we are needing some maintenance work undertaken - door closers fitted to two doors and a new door fitted to the toilet in the drop-in centre (the present one has been kicked up, and the lock removed!). We are in contact with a builder who is very generous to us in terms of the work he does and the charges he makes, yet it would be so good to also be in contact with someone with DIY skills who would be able to offer a few hours from time to time - we are prepared to pay!
Our Newsletter is in process and it includes some specific prayer requests for clients. If you don’t already receive a copy of this and would like to, please let me know and I will arrange for one to be sent to you.
Trudie Lane
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