Social Ministry

SOCIAL MINISTRY

“God bless you all,” the Reverend said. The service ended with the organ playing Bach, and the choir processed out of the church. The congregation stood up and watched them go before kneeling and saying a last prayer, or sitting to wait for the doors of the church to be opened by the church wardens.
Outside, it was a glorious spring day. The sun was shining through the Chestnut trees and lighting up the churchyard. Buds of the trees were opening and squirrels chased each other over the many tombstones.
Reverend Charles Brown went outside to say goodbye to his parishioners. Mrs Kaye, Mr Dean, Mr and Mrs Rhodes all waited for him to shake his hand and wish him well for the week ahead.
“What a lovely service; I will pray for you, vicar. But you take care now,” Mrs Kaye said cheerily.
“Thank you so much, but I feel that God will look after me,” the Reverend replied. “He always does.” It was to be a big week for the vicar, he had asked his parishioners to pray for him.
The following morning the Reverend Brown was due to visit the Bishop. He was to find out the outcome of some news that had taken him aback when he first heard about it. ‘Social Ministry’, the bishop had called it. “Reaching out into the world and helping those who can’t help themselves,” he had said. Reverend Brown had been chosen for this special mission. He was apprehensive at first, but proud to have attracted the attention of the bishop in this way. He had always felt ‘called’ to do some good work in the community, now was his chance.
Monday morning, in the bishops’ study, a large old-fashioned room with oak panels, Reverend Charles sat and waited for his boss. A lady came into the room with a cup of tea and some biscuits on a silver tray. She was his Personal Assistant. Her name was Jane.
“Do you take sugar, Reverend?” she asked.
“No thank you. Just milk,” he answered. Then the bishop walked in. They shook hands and sat down. Jane left the room with the empty tray.
“Now Charles, let’s not beat around the bush. Social ministry is what I want you to do. Social Ministry,” he said, emphasising the ‘S’ and the ‘M’. “Yes, Social Ministry,” he repeated quietly. “You will go out onto the streets of our city and talk to the waifs and strays, who clearly cannot help themselves. Bring them into Gods’ hands and give them hope.”
Reverend Charles looked at the bishop and smiled. He felt like bowing.
“My calling will be fulfilled, Bishop. Thank you so much,” he said graciously. The Bishop then handed him a folder with information of his duties and then said goodbye.
“Good luck Charles, and may God guide you,” the bishop said.
“Thank you again Bishop. Thank you so much,” Reverend Charles answered as he left the building and headed onto the gravel driveway where his old car was parked.
Reverend Brown had only been a vicar for a short while. He was young but not naive, coming from a poor London Borough, growing up in the 1970s, with strikes and power cuts and inner-city deprivation. He grew up amongst drug addicts and homeless people on street corners. He got bullied at the local Comprehensive school. It was this, more than anything, that had lead him to a life of spiritual belief. He wanted to forgive those who had done wrong and help those who had gotten lost.
Fastening his dog collar around his neck and putting on his ‘civvies’, he flicked through the folder the bishop had given him: details of hostel accommodation, self-help groups, local youth clubs and housing estates. He had a wide area to cover and he knew it would be challenging and hard work.
His first visit was to a safe house for battered wives and fallen women. It was a new building with individual rooms for these women and their children, if they had them.
Rita, the warden, told him to come and go as he pleased. She seemed to him to be a good woman, the sort that makes a good nurse, he thought to himself. He walked up the carpeted corridor. It was soft in contrast to the hard, cracked pavement outside. He knocked on the first door he came to but no-one answered. So he tried another door, opposite. A young girl opened it and looked up at him. She was bruised on her arm and had overdone her black mascara.
“Yeah!” she snapped.
The vicar put out his hand to shake hers. But she declined.
“Can I talk to you?” he said.
“What for ?”
“I want to help you,” he said.
She followed him into the room and closed the door.
Charles noticed the smell of washing, fresh against that of curry and cigarettes. There was a line of clothes hanging over a big white radiator on the wall.
My name is Charles, and I’m a vicar. I just want to help you if I can.”
“Well vicar.” She paused, summoning up courage. “I’m Amy and I had a habit. I’m clean now I suppose, but I have walked the streets, been beaten up by punters, and been laid. How can you help me?” she said.
“In all honesty, Amy, I don’t know. But I will try,” he answered. “Are you still walking the streets?” he added.
Amy frowned.
“Nope. I’m here. But what future do I have? Nothing!” she said quietly, her head bowed. She opened a packet of cigarettes, rolled one in her small, fragile but dextrous fingers, before lighting it and taking a deep draw on the filter.
“Do you need food?” Charles asked. “I can get you food. I can pray for you too. God loves you, you know that”
“GOD! I’ve had it with God!”
Her eyes opened and were angry. The pupils dilated, the brown colour of the eye was startling.
“You had better go,” she added, “go save someone else.”
Charles got up and again put out his hand to shake hers, but again she declined.
“I’ll come again, to see you, Amy, if that’s okay? Look after yourself now.”
He left the room and walked down the carpeted corridor again. He knocked on a few other doors but no-one answered.
Reverend Charles felt sad. He trooped onto the city streets at Midday thinking and thinking. Amy was so young, but so old. She was like many biblical women he had read about, weak but strong. Like Mary Magdalene herself.
That evening he went to a soup kitchen to help with the dinner service. Amy stuck in his mind all evening, even while he chatted to some old homeless people. She focussed his attention like his Sunday sermon. He could help her into society, he knew he could.
At eleven o’ clock the soup kitchen closed for the night. Reverend Charles said goodbye to Peter, Andrew and Clare, the other helpers. He decided to go for a drive, back to his house, via the Red Light District. He was curious about the lives of fallen women. What must drive them into selling their bodies? Such a waste, he thought.
Fifteen minutes later he was in the District. No red lights though, apart from those on the traffic lights. He stopped his car and opened the window. It was a clear night, the moon looking down. A girl came up to his car and looked in the open window.
“Want a good time? Fifty pounds!” she murmured.
“No, err, no thanks,” he said.
He wound up the window, his hand shaking, and started the engine. He parked the car and got out onto the hard concrete pavement. He walked under the street lights and approached a lone woman dressed in boots, fishnets, a miniskirt and T-shirt with a black jacket.
“I’m Charles,” he said.
She looked surprised.
“Hello Charlie, want a good time?” she replied.
“I’m a vicar and I want to help you get off the streets,” he countered.
“Take a walk, Vic,” she said, bustling passed him.
He grabbed her arm.
“Why do you do this? Why?”
“I said, take a walk,”
She was agitated. Then a young girl walked passed.
“Amy!” he said, surprised.
The girl got in a stationary car and then it drove off down the street. Reverend Charles was shocked, but he was sure it was Amy. He walked to his car, got in and drove home.
The following day he went back to the women’s safe house. He knocked on Amy’s door and she opened it.
“You!” she said.
“I’ve brought some food. Cake, biscuits, fruit…,” he said.
Amy had a scar on her arm under the bruise. It looked red and painful.
“Your arm!” Charles continued.
“Cigarette burn, that’s all,” Amy shrugged.
She put her hand to her arm to cover it. She coughed. Charles walked in the room carrying the shopping bag full of food. He noticed the washing had gone. The room odour was now mustiness and stale cigarette smoke.
He fished out the packets of food, fruit and biscuits for her to see. Her brown eyes opened and shone through the heavy mascara. She quickly opened the biscuits and took one in her mouth, crunching with glee. She sat on a chair and crossed her bare, thin legs. Charles asked if she had any tea? She nodded and pointed to the cupboard. He boiled some water in the electric kettle and made some tea.
“I saw you last night,” he said, “in the Red Light Area.”
She crunched on another biscuit.
“So?”
“So, you said you weren’t on the streets anymore.”
“My God smiled on me. Gave me two hundred pounds!” she said.
He put his hand on her arm, forgetting about the scar.
“That hurts!” Amy squealed. He let her go. She got up and suddenly took out a small penknife.
“Don’t you hurt me. Vicar or no, don’t you hurt me!” she cried.
The blade flicked open, glinting in the sunlight that poured into the flat. She held it out to threaten.
Charles stood up. He had never had this happen to him and he stammered as his heart thumped. Sweat bled onto his forehead in beads. Amy, her brown eyes wide and mad, her mouth open, slashed the air with the blade. She caught his hand and blood flowed like a crazy stream from the wound. She shouted at him.
“Stay clear!”
Seeing the blood on his hand she thrashed out again catching his stomach. Blood stained his white shirt. He put his hand against the wound and then pulled off his dog collar.
“God help her!” he pleaded, clutching the collar.
Again she shouted at him, something incoherent, then, quickly, she flicked two shallow cuts on her own thin, bare midriff. A cross shape that oozed blood on her belly
“God help me!” she cried.
Charles grabbed the knife from her hand. She was crying now and shaking. He put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her onto her knees and the two of them, blood-stained, closed their eyes and moved their heads skyward, looking to the heavens. Together they just shouted, and prayed to their Almighty Gods like they really believed