The first day back from our holidays was special.
Well I think so anyway!
It's freshers week in Durham. Hundreds of new and returning students are filling the streets, buzzing about. Some looking a little pale and lost, others loud and brash.
A kind of watchable chaos!
But the City has taken on a fresh vibrancy this week.
And so has Sanctuary 21.
The worship Studio is converted into a kind of freshers market place where churches and various Christian groups like the University CU and of course us at S21 are making contact with new Students and welcoming back the familiar students that we already know and love.
There is a 24/7 Prayer event going on downstairs with loads of young people heading to our Prayer Centre to pray.
The place has been packed with people coming and going, praying and eating, laughing and crying.
There is definately a spiritual electricity riding in the air.
It is so so so good to be back.
But adding massively to the vibrancy are the really needy people who flock into our place for friendship, food, drink and warmth.
The homeless, the poor, the lonely, yeah, even the sick.
James, an amazing guy who works for Emmanual Church in Durham and has a big heart for the lost, and I, this morning set about making bacon sandwiches for these people (well, James did, I am just useless in the kitchen) as we have planned to do every thursday morning and give them opportunity to talk to us about anything.
I want to say this morning, I felt so humbled by sitting with these people, and the welcome they gave me back from my holidays. I felt loved and accepted and needed in my work for God. What a massive lift I got this morning.
What a contrast though.
Amazing young people at the start of their time at university in a new City and all the excitement, hope and newness that comes with that.
On the other hand, equally as amazing people who in many cases dont have anything. No place to lay thier heads, no money, they cant see any future, they have lost hope in many ways. many of them are probably at the lowest point a human can reach. I sat with a beautiful girl later on in the morning, who told me she had been sleeping rough for the last year and how she had to resort to working the streets to get money. She looked at me with awesome green eyes that were vibrant yet really sad and said, "I just need someone to talk to." My heart flipped over a few times and I locked into her pain a bit.
I want to talk to her.
For hours.
I want to be available day and night for these guys.
I say I want to see the lonely making friends, the homeless getting shelter, the alcoholic getting dry, the drug addict getting clean. th prostitute getting off the streets.
looking at this contrast between hope and no hope, I just knew more than ever to day that Jesus stands there.
I knew with a strength of confidence I havent been able to reach in a while, that he is there for everyone. No one who has ever walked this earth has been without the love from a saviour.
Hes there for the student.
He is there for the homeless guy.
He is there for you.
And listen, God needs every Christian to be there for the whosoever.
It's good to be reminded that we are his hands and feet.
We are it, the Church, his hands and his feet.
Are we there for the whosoever?
