Bringing God's grace and healing love
to people with life-disrupting problems

Prayer Letter
February 2004

Praying for Crisis Centre Ministries,
its work, staff and clients
in the context of Bristol's inner city areas.

FUND RAISING

We have mentioned money in some prayer updates and newsletters, and the importance to us of the balance between our trust in God to provide and the part we play in fund raising. On this subject, we recently came across an organisation called AID International. This is a fund raising charitable trust and a partnership of Charities Taking Aid to the Poor. To quote from their literature:

"Aid International offer people the opportunity to participate in a range of worldwide events and challenges from marathons in New York to treks across the Great Wall of China to cycling along the river Nile. These challenges give people an amazing experience in amazing destinations and at the same time raise much needed funds for the nominated charity"

So, if you or someone you know may be interested in becoming involved in any fund raising event (and it doesn't need to be as grand as the examples given) in support of Crisis Centre Ministries, please get in touch with us and we will look into this a bit more.

FROM JAYNE

Please pray for K, one of our clients who is in hospital.

Pray for all the volunteers who have been working with us, for God to give them strength and wisdom.

Pray for L, that she can keep strong and keep asking God to be with her.

Y has been offered a flat. Please pray that she will want to accept it, and that it will be a good home for her.

FROM ANDY

Sparks - based at The Crisis Centre

Two students are coming regularly, and the occasional one drops in for odd sessions. 'I' is a man who is fairly new to Sparks and has been responding well to the training: he starts a two week placement next week and P, mentioned previously, is waiting to hear news of a longer term voluntary work placement. Please pray for these two, as they take steps to move forward in their lives.

There is a Celebration of Learning evening arranged by Community Education on 17 February, at which some of our students, who completed courses last year, will be receiving certificates. Good for them! Pray they will be encouraged.

The Well - a safe house for women

There are currently 3 residents at The Well, and a further one who has moved out to her own place but is coming back for the training sessions. It is a new challenge for me to train an all-women group but this seems to be going well. Please pray for these women as they are also trying to get their lives back together, in a very warm and caring environment.

Lazarus House - a first home for people coming out of prison

I have taken two sessions with 3 of the residents, so far. The training is optional for those in the house, and it was disappointing that when I took a volunteer tutor for the third session (Ann Banks was to teach a session on Healthy Living) no-one turned up. Please pray these men will see the value of life skills and make the sessions a priority.

I am enjoying the variety of training in different environments, although it does mean more thinking for my ageing brain cells! I would still like to see an increased motivation among the clients we work with.

Thank you for you support and prayer.

BRIDGEHEAD

This is going well and we would like to see the group grow in numbers, as well as in their understanding of God. Their enthusiasm to learn is very encouraging. Please pray that God will continue to build this group, and fuel their hunger to know more about him.

THE WILD GOOSE

Please continue to pray for this aspect of our work, for the contact James is wanting to make with churches and for the exploration of church involvement with us. Some of our volunteers specialise in areas, such as an art workshop led by Deborah, Fiona and Derek each Tuesday afternoon, and a video club led by Paul each Thursday. We are making contact with our clients in various ways, and as we engage more deeply with a number of them we see again the complexity and tragedy of their lives. Please pray for wisdom for volunteers and staff in their contact with clients.

ADMIN

We continue to benefit tremendously from the involvement of volunteers with administration. We could still do with more and would appreciate your prayers regarding this. We would really like to have a number of volunteers to concentrate on the various aspects of fund raising.

We will need to incur expense to meet with fire regulations and health and safety requirements, and this will put added pressure on our finances.

We are involved in basic but essential work in the office - putting up shelves! As we give attention to this, we see again a number of practical repair needs - badly fitting windows (with a very cold draft in winter!), electric heaters needing to be replaced, for health and safety reasons, inoperative curtain fittings, etc. There are also redecoration needs in various parts of the property. It would be so good to have a volunteer or two who is skilled in DIY and who would be able to help us with these practical aspects.

PRAISE GOD

One of the students on our LITE Course is now in permanent work! Jason has given his permission for us to use his name. You may have been praying for him as J. He featured recently in an article in the Evening Post (4 Feb, page 5); the placement at Marks and Spencer was arranged through CCM and Business in the Community, and Jason has recently been given permanent work there. Though CCM is not mentioned in the article, Jason has said how much he has appreciated the support he has received from us. He says "I didn't expect to make it. If I can come this far, then anyone else can as well". Please continue to pray for him as he continues to go forward in his life and also in his relationship with God.
A homeless man was referred to us from Clevedon one evening recently and Jayne, our catering co-ordinator, was able to contact Emergency Social Services and arrange bed and breakfast accommodation for him rather than the night shelter. Generally, in the evenings, the only option is the night shelter and maybe on very rare occasions people can be placed in hostels - but bed and breakfast accommodation, that's a miracle and definitely worth celebrating.

Trudie Lane, Administrator

Prayer LetterFebruary 2004