Well have just got out of bed after an evening's Street Pastoring. Town was amazing as it was sooo empty. I am not completely sure why, however seemed to be hardly anyone in town.
It appears that there was something at Mango and Calvin Harris up at the University. Mango was rammed and I think a lot of students were spending the last Friday of term up at the 360. I wanted to go to the 360 but was on duty. There was also a very bitter wind coming down from the NE and it made the evening tremendously cold.
So as you can imagine there weren't hundreds of people staggering about and falling over as there usually is on a Friday. We spent our time talking to the door staff and the street people. We were able to help a guy in a door way find somewhere to sleep for the evening and when we had done this he was off to his bed and bath like a rat up a drain pipe.
My colleagues spent sometime talking to a woman who wanted to off load about decisions she had to make in her life. I hope that she wakes up this morning with a clearer vision of which path to take with her life. We chatted to the Police, who confirmed our view about the emptiness of town.
Some of our colleague came across a man who had been attacked while he was sitting in a bus stop. Ambulance and Police called. Once they had arrived we let them do their jobs and moved on.
At about 2am the decision was reached to head back to home and then home. Walking up Queen Victoria St I saw a man slumped asleep in the doorway of a travel agent. We went up to him, checked that he wasn't dead, which he wasn't.
He was however considerably more than half cut. Myself and a colleague tried to chat him round. That is talking to him until he responds. This took about 5 minutes for his befogged brain to respond. It would have been longer, but another team member had started to pray.
The unconscience man started to wake up. Being up isn't the same as standing up. We had to persuade him to stand up once he had opened his eyes. He slowly uncurlled himself and stood up in a very very unsteady manner. We gave him a bottle of water and this seemed to revive him. We asked him where he had to get to, Spencer's Wood, we pointed him towards to the taxi rank. Off he staggered smilling towards the taxis. Once we saw that he was ok, we went off home.
Another night over, bed at 3.30....
