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Posts Tagged ‘help’

Gone Gone Again

Posted in Inner city, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 13 January, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Gone has been staying in our chicken shed for a few weeks now. It’s dry and sheltered and he feels safe there. We haven’t seen him much because he can get in there through a side gate, so he’s mostly been coming in to sleep and then leaving without knocking on the kitchen window or the front door. He spends the day on the streets and visiting other helpful Vicarages.

It had been a few days and I mentioned to the Vicar that we’d not seen him for a bit, so the Vicar turned off the light in the shed, which ensures that Gone will come and talk to us to get the light put back on. That was last night, and then this morning we were told by a friend that Gone has gone. He’s gone back to prison. And that’s why we’ve not seen him. He’s not going to be away for long, but at least he’ll be dry and sheltered and fed for a few weeks.

GoneOnce again he will be inside for a short while and then released with money and a room in a hostel allocated to him. He’ll spend the money on Frosty Jack and buying a mobile phone and a radio or video camera, and he’ll come to our doorstep and tell us he’s not going to the hostel because he doesn’t trust people in hostels. And I expect he’ll ask to sleep in our shed again and we’ll go through the cycle of approaching various agencies and wondering what on earth can be done for him.

Sometimes I think this loop will continue for ever. He’s someone who cannot really cope with the system there is. Over the years many kindhearted people have helped him, but he’s never managed any long term stability.

So please pray for him, and for those of us who know him and want something better for him. We have a short break now and it would be good to think through some options for him. Pray that he’d work out what he should do himself, and pray we’d be wise too and have the energy to help again. Pray for Gone.

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Gone Going?

Posted in Church, Inner city, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 9 October, 2012| Leave a Comment »

One of the lovely things about the Midlands Women’s Convention last weekend was the opportunity to catch up with friends from around the region. I was able to have a good chat with another vicar’s wife from the Black Country who has been sharing with us the unusual experience of having Gone sleep under the garden hedge.

Mrs Very Benevolent and her husband live in another Sandwell town, just a few miles from here. She told me that Gone has been supplied with a sleeping bag by a local Food Bank and has camped out in their garden for the past few weeks. Another vicar nearby sometimes allows Gone to use his bathroom to spruce up. So he’s surviving. As usual.

Mrs VB is finding that Gone is alternately awful, abusive, threatening and foul and then repentant, sweet, thankful and charming. Same mix as ever. But the good news in all this is that the local police have decided that enough is enough and have demanded that the local housing office sort it out. Since Gone is without doubt the most vulnerable person I have ever met, I am thankful that at last some people in authority are taking responsibility.

My friend said that the first option will be to get him to Betel, although we all know that Gone struggles with trusting others, so the Betel community may not prove to be the best place. Whatever happens we are praying for a good solution for him. But at last there seem to be people in the ‘system’ watching out for Gone and there will be other options if Betel doesn’t work out. Keep on praying for him – we would love him to to feel secure in a home.

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Five (or More) Ways to Encourage a Vicar’s Wife

Posted in Church, Vicar's wife job description, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 14 July, 2011| 19 Comments »

A lovely parishioner visited me yesterday and brought a bunch of flowers, knowing that I’d had a pretty stressful few days. Sometimes being the Vicar’s wife can feel lonely. You’re in a weird situation that not many people understand and people keep on calling at your front door asking the Vicar to mend their bikes (amongst other things last night). So when someone from our congregation thinks of me and lets me know they’ve been thinking of me, it really warms my heart. A little encouragement goes a long way and helps me to persevere.

And then a Vicar’s wife friend on Facebook asked for some help in drafting a talk on ‘Five Ways to Encourage a Minister’s Wife’ (she’s not just speaking to Anglicans). There were lots of great ideas there – and they’ve inspired me to write my five:

  1. Treat the Vicar’s wife as a real person, a normal member of the church family. Don’t give her too many messages for the Vicar as she’ll feel horribly guilty when she forgets.
  2. Be a pew buddy – sit with her on a Sunday morning – if she has kids give her a hand with them.
  3. Let her know if you’ve been thinking of her or praying for her (maybe in writing).
  4. Make sure she regularly gets on the Minister’s Wives conference, or a retreat, or something spiritually refreshing, and try to ensure she gets enough time with her husband.
  5. Flowers, wine and chocolate, obviously, or even an invitation to Sunday lunch for the whole family.

Many of these things would encourage any church member, but I’ve tried to highlight some of the things I’ve found especially encouraging myself. What do you think?

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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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Where Does Our Help Come From?

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 2 February, 2011| 21 Comments »

Obviously, you recognise my quotation from Psalm 121:

1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

And of course, as a Christian, I look to the LORD when things are difficult and when I need help. But God uses other people to provide some of the human comfort and support I need in my Christian life and in our ministry. One of the ways that we can get that support is through formal support structures.

The other day I had a leaflet in the post about ‘Clergy Spice’, which is a programme of events run through the year by our diocese for clergy spouses. The admirable wives of our bishops and archdeacons and a few others run this and also produce a Clergy Families handbook.

But I must confess that I have never been to one of their events, but not because I don’t need support. The thing is that I already had some great support structures in place before we came to Lichfield Diocese.

Apart from my wonderful husband, who helps and encourages me daily, I am involved in three groups that enable me to share the joys and frustrations of Christian life in safety and support.

The oldest group dates back to before I even met the Vicar. I was in my early twenties and was invited by a few girlfriends to join them on a weekend away. That group met initially for some talks on the Christian life and to pray together. Twenty years later, nearly all of us are still meeting twice a year and continuing to pray for one another (we circulate a prayer letter three times a year). Not all of us are married or in paid Christian work (or married to people that are), but as the years have passed, this group has delighted us all more and more as we’ve seen the Lord’s work in us and through us.

The second support structure I tap into is the Proclamation Trust Minister’s Wives conference. I started attending these when the Vicar was still in training, and I find the refreshment of three nights away with some excellent bible teaching a great tonic. That’s the place where I catch up with folk from theological college days and make new friends who are in similar situations. Last year I was very encouraged to meet someone whose husband is in a small Black Country church like ours. Because we are in different dioceses we’d never come across each other, but the conference enabled us to share some of our experiences. I have other Vicar’s wife friends who go along to the New Wine Women in Leadership conferences, which are similarly encouraging (but possibly with a bit more singing!).

The third ministry support structure I’m involved in is an annual reunion of the group who left Oak Hill Theological College in the same year as us. I organise this and last year we held it here in our parish. Less travelling but more catering responsibility! The first couple of years after we left a pretty large group of us gathered but in subsequent years there have been fewer folk, but always at  least 15 of us, including children. We meet, share something of what has been going on in our churches, eat, go for a walk and then pray and break bread together. Alongside the meet-up I nag everyone to send prayer and praise requests, so we also have an annual prayer letter which helps folk just to feel in touch as well as pray for one another. Writing this reminds me that I need to get an email out this week about the reunion and prayer letter – we’re meeting in less than a month!

I guess I also use social media (Twitter and Facebook) for support. Last week I mentioned on Facebook that I was thinking about whether to change our Sunday school resources and I had some wonderful help from friends who’ve been (or are now) in similar quirky churches with fluctuating Sunday schools.

So I feel I’m blessed to be pretty content with my support structures. I know that I have enough discreet people who know me well who I could turn to if things were sticky in parish or just if I felt fed up. But I know that others struggle in this area.  I was interested by some comments on Twitter recently from folk (I think mainly ordinands’ wives) who felt a need for some better support.

Where do you find your support in ministry? I notice that there doesn’t seem to be a non-evangelical equivalent of the Proc Trust or New Wine. Are non-evangelicals less good at networking and supporting one another?  Or is it a personality thing? Are there other conferences out there if your diocese isn’t running things or they aren’t convenient for you? Maybe I’ll see you at the Proc Trust conference in March. But book soon – they sold out last year!

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