Homeless receive hope

Lesley, from the Bridges Project who serve breakfast to the homeless every Saturday, has shared this story about one of their customers:

“Before Christmas one of our regular’s who was a very grumpy cantankerous alcoholic said he wasn’t coming back as we didn’t serve him fast enough. I asked him nicely please don’t go; fortunately he did come back after the Christmas break. When I spoke to him he told me that lots of ‘weird’ things had happened to him. When he left after the Christmas dinner he’d had an accident, and was rushed to hospital. Lying on a hospital bed he says at that point he lifted his hands up and said, “Oh well Jesus it would be a good time to help me” (polite version!). He said to me, in his words “And wait and see how weird it gets!”

The first thing that happened was the social worker came to visit him and asked about his living arrangements, which at that point he was homeless. He then said “that’s not all girl”, a man from the council came and saw me “now whoever comes from the council and gives you a personal visit, well they did for me!” They put him in a bed and breakfast and he’s waiting on a 1 bed roomed flat. He says “no no no girl, it gets weirder”. He’s walking at Stratford and someone puts a hand on his shoulder, and when he turns around it’s his daughter who he’s not seen for 3 years, and who would not allow him to have her address. She now picks him up once a week to have dinner with her at her home!

Since then he’s not had the desire to have a drink, and he told me after he’d left on that Saturday he’d gained hope. We then went into the Sanctuary and thanked the Lord! It’s amazing to see God touch him in the way he did and we just don’t realise how God’s working through us in people’s lives!”

(Bridges Project serve breakfast for the homeless and pray with them every Saturday at Memorial Baptist Church, Plaistow – for more information contact 020 7476 4133.)