Welcome News from Mike - June 2009

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I wait.  Tick follows tock, follows tick, follows tock – you know the rest.  I sit -  in the dark place.  Feet away, a small creature rises from his bed.  “Thomas, lie down”.  The plea for reason falls once again on deaf ears, and I find myself once again manoeuvring my precious son back into his bed and covering him over.

A short time later, I’m trying to ignore him as he attempts to make himself comfortable around a two-foot Tigger (sorry Disney) pyjamas-case.  Should he be on top? Or should Tigger?  This way up or that?  Eventually, of course, I go through the same motions of settling him.  This is the same game we play, night after night.  Sometimes we have to abandon him behind the safety gate – one of the few items that he can’t climb over.

Thomas is going through a new phase at the moment.  He has had to leave the safety of his cot for the insecure freedom of a bed.  He is, however, beginning once again to sleep through but, not so long ago, getting ourselves to bed was more an act of desperation.

New Levels, new devils - or so I’ve been told.  Did I ever tell you about the night I met Ricky Moody?  Ricky Moody was the bane of my Christian life for nearly a year.  He was the guy who really taught me about anger.  I don’t think I hated him.  It was what he did, what he represented, that got my back up.  He seemed to spoil everything, every relationship, every life that he touched; and yet at the same time there was this overwhelming sense that he was loved by God.

He first appeared the night my leg grew.  No seriously…  I used to wear one shoe out faster than the other.  I was chatting to a preacher after his sermon about praying for stuff like that and I jokingly mentioned this fact - and he gets some other member of the congregation to pray over my leg; and lo and behold my ‘shorter’ leg suddenly grew about half an inch!

I moved on that night to a new level of reality.  But as I said:  ‘New Levels, new devils’.  When I got back home, I found Ricky Moody (whom I’d never before heard of) and a few of his friends.  He’d taken a dislike to Lee in the flat above, but by the end of the evening they’d settled their differences - and, from then on, Ricky Moody became an integral part of our small community.

Ricky was the black sheep of a fairly dark family to start with.  He came from an expansive family who, though admitting that he should probably reap from what his mouth often sowed, often felt obliged to finish off any business he started.  Two members of his family, including his old mother, consequently made commitments to the Lord; but not Ricky.  I often wonder what happened to Ricky.  There was this sense that God was following him; and he wasn’t letting go.

It’s funny what you think about whilst sat in the dark.  Thomas, of course, is sat up in bed;  “Daddy”, he says.  And before I curse the night I begin to think of those fathers who don’t get to tuck their children in.  Maybe they don’t care; maybe they’re absent through a broken relationship; maybe they don’t even know they have a child; maybe they’re in prison: maybe they’re staring up at an Afghan sky, not knowing whether they’ll live to kiss their child again.  It’s funny what you think about whilst sat in the dark.

You hear the breathing slow and deepen.  Maybe it’s time to get up and leave the room.  Then the phone rings… So we start again.

God must be crazy!  I mean to believe in me the way he does.  He must have been there watching me all those times I failed, whether by choice, or chance - and yet he was waiting on the flip-side with open arms, watching with that certain love that a parent has for a child.  That same type of love that causes me to hurt when my child hurts; causes me to hurt when I hear of another parent’s hurt.  I must have hurt God, and yet he still believes in me.

I can’t believe how much I grumble that Thomas won’t go to sleep.  Does God grumble over me?  Or does he sing over me?  Maybe I won’t sing over Thomas right now.  It has taken him this long to get settled.

I was thinking about the disciples - that Jesus chose such a rag-tag bunch of men, who normally wouldn’t make the grade, and yet these were the men Jesus chose to bear his name; these were the men Jesus chose to change the world, and to make and change history.

I never planned to work with young people.  I really thought that, if God was going to lead young people in through the doors of The Welcome, he would also provide that specially trained, trendy and relevant person with the ability to engage with them and have the vision to minister to them; someone who believed in them.  And he did – me!  I’m still recovering from that shock.

Sitting in the dark place allows me to reflect on the last few days and weeks.  I have, in the space of a couple of weeks, had meetings concerning opening The Welcome over the summer holidays as a youth café; new toddler-group ideas; providing a possible solution for seniors (that’s the old folk), and finally we’ve begun discussions with Manchester Airport and the Message Trust about the possibility of launching an Eden Bus project on the estate – and that’s where you all come in.

I know when you see me coming over the hill you must be thinking, ‘What is it this time - money, time, prayer or cakes?’  Yes!  All, please!  And if you’re already doing so… thank you, thank you, thank you!

The Eden Bus is a mobile, evangelistic youth centre.  It is very well equipped, even has its own cinema, but the one thing they don’t provide is a crew.  The Eden Bus need a serious commitment from about fifteen (fifteen!?) volunteers to help support and run the sessions that they do.  They’ll provide the training; they’ll even train someone up to PSV level to drive it (it can’t be just me who’s always wanted to drive a bus, can it?).  So if you fancy a go… 

We also need all the prayers we can get.  And once again, is anyone interested please in helping with Little Stars?  We also still need a building manager, and a fundraiser, and we still need lots of lovely cakes.  And on that level I will be seeking out those with the spiritual gift of bun-making over the summer holidays, because buns and muffins build bridges that nothing else can.

Thomas is definitely asleep now, so it’s time for me to creep out.  I know he’s safe.  But I also know that somewhere out there in the dark, Ricky Moody is doing whatever it is that he does…

(Some names have been changed).

                                       Mike