Lama's log

I think I'm at the end of my blogging time so these posts over the next days are likely to be my last.

Tonight I popped out to see the rough sleepers who have been staying at the church over the last 10 nights. It's difficult for me to sit at home at the moment and not think about the fact that they are outside and cold. So, I grabbed a Mark and went down to the river to find where they were at and see how they are.

They weren't all that good. They have got a couple of tents now but their stuff has still got damp and wet. The night is much warmer but it's still pretty cold. Food is back to being irregular. The good thing was that they're in a group and that does make them far less vulnerable but that's about all I can say with any positivity about it.

9 of them were in church on Sunday which is pretty beautiful. I don't feel easy at all about being in my house tonight, which, is how it should be. I keep toying with offering some house room but so far have chickened out to my shame. The place they're staying is right by a new housing development. Most of the plush flats stand empty because of the recent crash so literally, a fence a way, dozens of unoccupied houses stand while 6 guys and a pregnant woman look on from a sheltered ditch. It's pretty crazy.

Everybody has been talking about what the council should or should not be doing. The homeless talk about it, the neighbours, the church folk. Seriously though I think it’s our responsibility. As in mine and yours. It doesn't matter what the council do or don't do. I'm pretty sure I should be my neighbour’s keeper and they mine. If there is any sense of Jesus being in relationship with me and with them there must then be some implication for us together. There's just no getting away from it.