Everyone on earth, shout with joy to the Lord.
Start singing happy songs of praise!
Praise the Lord with harps.
Yes, praise him with music from the harps.
Blow the pipes and horns, and shout for joy to the Lord our King!
Ps 98: 4-6
Tesco teamed up with Groundwork to launch its community funding scheme, which sees grants of up to £4,000, up to £2,000 and £1,000 raised from carrier bag sales in Tesco stores awarded to local community projects.
Ashford Street Pastors is one of three groups in our area that have been shortlisted to receive the cash award and shoppers are being invited to head along to Tesco stores to vote during January and February on who they think should take away the top grant.
The Tesco stores in our area are:
Ashford Crooksxpress
Mace Lane Ashford Express
Please vote for us if you shop at Tesco during January and February 2018 and consider adding a line in your church newsletter over the next few weeks.
Thanks Cameo and WBC
Recently the Deltic Nightclub chain selected the Ascension Trust Street Pastor initiative across the UK as their chosen partner to make collections at their nightclub venues for a weekend. The staff of Cameo (our local Deltic venue) helped us to collect nearly £600.
At the Christmas Craft Fayre at Willesborough Baptist Church, we raised over £465.
These funds will help us to continue caring, listening, helping vulnerable people we meet on our patrols through our local community.
An answer to prayer?
This account is based on a recent report following a routine Friday night/Saturday morning patrol. Names have been changed to protect the identities of the vulnerable people involved.
John was having a bad end to a difficult day. It was after 1am and he was sitting on a bench in the park, very upset because he was concerned for his ex-girlfriend Paula, who was due to have an operation later that day. Her health was so poor that she was unlikely to survive. Although they were no longer together, John and Paula were still close. John gave his history of breaking the law and the time he spent in jail. He believed that if he went back to Paula’s house then the police would arrest him because the neighbours had reported him for making a noise earlier in the evening as he tried to persuade Paula to postpone her operation. The team offered to go with him.
There was indeed a police van about 80 yards from the house. The front door had all the glass knocked out. John thought the police had done it but the team said that that’s not what the police would do. Steve, the team leader, asked John to wait with the other members of the team as he went to the police van. In the van was Paula making a statement to the police. Paula’s friend Alex had arrived, seen John’s car and broken the door to get in. He had now departed but Paula was shaken and worried about her dog. Paula asked If John could go into the house to look for it. The police confirmed that that was ok and Steve relayed the message to John. John, who was now much calmer, went in and found the dog upstairs. The police said that they would arrange repairs to the front door and the team departed with thanks from John, Paula and the police.
Steve said ‘John asked God to give him a sign so that he could believe. Soon afterwards he met us. We cared enough to listen to him and helped him to return to where he was needed. We believe that we were the sign God was providing in answer to John.’
If you’d like to find out more then please email Lita using ashford@streetpastors.org.uk or ring 01233 879 341.
A few statistics…
Thanks to your support and donations, during 2017 we have:
• completed 54 patrols, 1351 hours with Street Pastors on patrol supported by 847 hours of prayer from Prayer Pastors;
• engaged with 1984 people and assisted 362 people in vulnerable situations;
• removed 664 bottles and 93 glasses from the streets;
• handed out 294 bottles of water, 30 foil blankets, 156 pairs of
flip flops and 1247 lollipops.