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Posts Tagged ‘drugs’

Some Things This Week (it was Busy and a bit Random)

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 7 September, 2012| 3 Comments »

So, this week

  • The Queen started secondary school. We are all quite enjoying the early mornings but are considering investing in coffee producers and matchstick makers. She is having fun meeting lots of new people and being all grown up and responsible. She has not missed the bus nor lost her phone. Yet.
  • A house for sale about 100yds from our front door was raided by the police. They found it full of cannabis plants. The police took the plants and left the pots outside the house. Might see if we could use some!
  • Our new Ministry Trainees, Radiohead and Sweet Tooth moved in. They have survived so far – even with the children bouncing around all over their attic home. We are very much looking forward to getting to know them as they serve in the church and experience Vicarage life close up.
  • The Vicar spent a long time at a Deanery Standing Committee and nearly everyone on Twitter suggested that those meetings would be a lot better (ie shorter) if the committee did stand and not sit.
  • The Queen has been asked to give a short speech at the local library when they officially celebrate their refurbishment. The mayor will be there and everything. We are just waiting for permission from the school to come through.
  • We played tennis at the local courts. All the courts were being used, something I have never seen before. It was the last day of the holidays, and sunny, but I also suspect an Olympic/Paralympic effect. Good for Lord Coe.
  • Our friend Nick Barr-Hamilton was featured in a post on Archbishop Cranmer’s blog. You should read it.
  • Gone has not been seen here for nearly two weeks now. So we have thrown away the mouldy and smelly blankets he was using to keep himself warm when he slept under our hedge. I expect he’s either in prison or has managed to find some housing (a housing person came to the door and spoke to Rocky a few weeks ago, looking for Gone, but we don’t know anything more than that). It’s rather strange to have someone so much in your life, but no real means of finding out what has happened when they go. Do pray for him.

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Never a Dull Moment: This Week’s Parish Crime

Posted in Church, Inner city, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 1 July, 2011| 1 Comment »

We had some excitement in the parish today – a ‘suspicious package’ was found in a house just round the corner that was being raided for drugs. Residents in houses close to the raided property were evacuated, and we were asked if we could accommodate them in the church hall.

So we were there with the teapots and some biscuits, on and off all morning, whilst we all speculated about what was happening. I quite enjoyed myself – particularly because I met a couple of neighbours that we’d not previously had the chance to speak to. It was a bit of a pain for them, though – one friend was without her diabetic medication, another lady had her two young children with her, but not their toys, people needed to get their cars to get to work. Most folk took the opportunity to go shopping in town but returned later to hang around and chat at the end of the street or pop into the hall for more refreshments.

Finally, after about 31/2 hours, we were told that people could go home. I stayed behind in the hall to tidy up and the local PCSO and his Sergeant came and chatted. Turns out the suspicious package wasn’t Semtex, as had been suspected, but something to do with with preparation of drugs. They seized cannabis wraps from the property and made three arrests. More drug dealing – the house next door to that one was raided a few weeks ago and seizures made for the same thing. I reckon you could probably raid a couple of houses on every street in this parish and find evidence of drug use or dealing.

The police were quite cheery, as these arrests were made on top of two successful operations locally earlier this week. A house just opposite the church was raided and found to contain a stolen motorbike and 27 stolen bicycles. And only last night they carried out some checks with immigration officials. They found illegal immigrants, but also some dodgy vehicles that were being stripped down, including a vintage Rolls and a BMW that had been nicked from Police HQ.

So a good week for clamping down on crime – well done to our local coppers. It does make you wonder what’s happening behind closed doors when the police aren’t calling. And makes us pray for this broken parish all the more.

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Glimpses of Brokenness

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 20 May, 2011| 2 Comments »

Some of the things that I’ve come across or heard in the last few days:

  • A granny was robbed of gold necklace after she collected her grandchild from our school nursery. Lunchtime yesterday.
  • A friend’s business was burgled a few days ago. When police came round to look at the break-in they smelt something suspicious. They raided the unit next door and found a cannabis factory.
  • 2 men (dad and an uncle?) were taking a young lad, maybe six years old, to the ice-cream van, just as school was out and streams of kids were passing and queuing. They were dressed in t-shirts bearing what I have found are sometimes called ‘comedy‘ phrases. I wasn’t very amused myself. I don’t shop at Blue Inc, or I’d be boycotting their business.
  • A kid who thought that ‘the taxpayer’ would pay for our broken windows, so it wasn’t such a big issue after all.

And these are just the stories that I can tell in public. The evil and brokenness around us here can sometimes be heartbreaking. Despite that, we are encouraged regularly. This week some kind builders have been supplying us with wooden pallets (for burning and for storing logs on) and some tree surgeons gave us a tree that they’d been chopping down. Vicarage warmth is assured for next winter.

Like every week at the Vicarage, it’s been a fair old mix, but perhaps more of a mix than most people enjoy. It makes me remember that old hymn and resolve to employ my heart and tongue as I should.

Through all the changing scenes of life,
in trouble and in joy,
the praises of my God shall still
my heart and tongue employ.

Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady

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The Vicarage Garden is busted (in a good way)

Posted in Garden, Vicarage, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 21 March, 2011| 2 Comments »

Despite my desire to become Alys Fowler (including the Pre-Raphaelite hair), things in the Vicarage garden didn’t go brilliantly last summer. I planted out, but didn’t really give things the attention they needed. I was too busy fire-fighting the clutter in the house.

But this year I’m hoping for more success. I now have a cleaner, who comes every couple of weeks to help me to conquer the house. I have a schedule, which means I am strangely (to me) doing a little more housework than I used to. So there may now be some time to water and weed.

And to start us off, last week we had the gardening team from Betel in to clear the beds and get us on the road to a manageable and (hopefully) edible garden this year. The team comprised four men – one was Gav Burnage, Associate minister from Aldridge Parish Church, who is living and working full time at Betel. The other guys were members of the Betel community in Birmingham, learning to live and work free from substance abuse.

God was kind to us, and the sun shone. The Vicar and Rocky joined the Betel team. I skived off the digging, but supplied regular tea and cake. They sorted out our main beds, nuked some brambles and the evil blue weeds and left everything looking tidy and ready for planting. Now we just have to keep up the weed-free look with regular forays in our wellies. The money we paid for the work helps to pay for Betel’s accommodation and keeps this amazing organisation going. If you live in the Birmingham area and need a garden blitz, why not see if they can help you out?

 

The Vicar with the Betel team. Note the tidy flower bed (and still-absent coping stones).

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Drug dealers – Slow Burn to Justice

Posted in Inner city, tagged , , , , , , , , on 25 January, 2011| 1 Comment »

Thankfully, since police installed a CCTV camera opposite the church yard a few months ago, our local druggies have been getting their supplies elsewhere. It got very frustrating last summer, with drug deals taking place almost daily under our noses. The police had a few near misses with catching the dealers, too.

On one occasion I had called 999 and the cops came, but it wasn’t our normal team, who happened to be out at a training day. The police car gave chase to the dealer, who they think had a large quantity of drugs on him. But the dealer got away and since it wasn’t the local team chasing, they weren’t able to identify who was driving. Alas.

The camera was up for about six months, I guess. It’s gone now, but the dealing hasn’t returned in earnest. But we still know that the dealers live in the parish, and occasional drug deals are spotted here and there. But when they happen, people don’t always report it. They don’t see any immediate effects and that can be discouraging. We’re glad we’re (mostly) free of drug dealing, but knowing that the dealers are still plying their trade elsewhere makes people doubt the strength of the police and the reality of justice.

West Midlands Police Superintendent (he’s recently been promoted) Mark Payne has a blog where he explains why things look so slow when people are looking for justice. He repeats what we heard from the local police sergeant at our neighbourhood forum the other week: small pieces of information are important, even if it looks like nothing is happening.

So for now, I’m waiting for the police to put it all together, reporting everything (and encouraging others to do the same) and praying for God’s justice to come quickly.

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Dealing with Drugs

Posted in Inner city, tagged , , , , , , on 16 September, 2009| Leave a Comment »

So the kids are back at school and everyone is busy catching up on the local gossip. The neighbourhood drug dealers are a popular topic of conversation. Chattychap thinks that some of the teenagers in the area are being recruited to make the actual drug deliveries. This distances the dealers from the deals. And sadly some of the local kids don’t have very clear moral frameworks and would find the idea of making easy money very appealing.

Everyone knows who the dealers are, even the local police (I had a chat with them the other day about it). But to nick them, they need to catch them with the stuff, or in the act. This is extremely tricky, with a single PC and two PCSOs covering an area a good bit larger than our parish, which is home to nearly 3,000 souls.

The PCSOs told me that the best way that local people can help to get rid of these guys is to note any deals or activity that we see happening and pool them together to give to the police. But mostly it feels like nothing is being done, even though everyone knows what’s going on.

I saw the dealers just the other day, hanging about with some other guys at the top of our street. I couldn’t see a drug deal, but they were just standing around looking suspicious, maybe waiting for a deal or a delivery. Can the police use that? I doubt it.

Recently an elderly lady in our congregation was badly hurt when she was mugged very near to the church. The thief stole her handbag in broad daylight. Most people agree that it was probably a drug addict. We need to rid our neighbourhood of the dealers, but it seems an almost impossible task. I believe in the transforming power of the gospel, but we need to know people first to tell them of the forgiveness Jesus can give and how he can change lives. And I’m a little nervous about introducing myself.

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What scares you?

Posted in Inner city, tagged , , , , , on 29 July, 2009| 5 Comments »

What should we fear?

Some folk think that it must be scary living in our parish, with its deprivation, drug dealers and people like Gone. Last week I found some great quotes on what we should really be afraid of, selected by étrangère from Tim Chester’s recent book ‘The Ordinary Hero‘. I’ve been thinking I should buy it to read this holiday, but slightly fearing to aswell.

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