Life on £25 a week, a prayer and a bag of Chips..

I met Kev (name changed) this Friday lunch time as we were out on the streets of Derby. Kev had recently come out of prison and began to share his story with me. Born into a single parent family in Glossop he was raised in a home where he made it to school 3 out of 5 days a week and his special needs were never really picked up on. He said as I gave him a New Testament that he had read a book once, but hadn't bothered since. He told me that the place he had been living in was rat infested so he had to leave and was now living in Allenton. He had been sent to prison because one day the voices in his head and the anger got too much and he hit 3 people in a fit of rage.

At present he was living in a NACRO shared house and getting by each week on £25 a week. He told me where you can buy packets of Noodles for 8p a packet so you can eat each day.
I asked him what he dreamed of being one day. "A forklift driver" he replied, "I just want to make enough to live" he went on to say.
I realised he had barely eaten in the last two days so I went and bought him lunch. Do you ever pray I asked him. "Why?" he replied " is anyone listening". So I went on to tell Him how God feels about the poor and the lonely and said I would pray with him that God would intervene in his life.
At 21 Kev with a prison sentence behind him he is pretty well destined to a life of poverty, petty crime and if things go badly for him in Allenton the Heroin dealers will get to him one day. From there he will join the 2000 Heroin addicts or 10,000 alcoholics that have lost hope and numb the pain of the inner voice of dispair in Derby.

So I held his arm and prayed, I prayed about the inner fear he felt, the hopelesness, the job situation, relationships in his family.......... However the moment I gave him a bag of Chips it seemed as though the prayer connected. "Why would you do that for me?" he asked. My answer seemed so cheesy but I meant it. "Because I really do believe that If Jesus was here now this is what he would do" I replied.
Across our city and our nation are thousands of Kevs that need someone to step into their life and connect heaven to the Hell that is their life.

I spoke this week with a director of a BBC1 programme and she shared with me some of her opinions on Christianity. It was facinating to hear how she felt about so many things it was a truly pleasent hour in St Arbucks. She too had met a few Kevs, they're everywhere. She was asking the God question as well, I encouraged her to go on an Alpha course and get some answers to her questions.
In both these cases the same prayer filled my mind "God would you meet them where they are and reveal to them who you are?"

Rich or poor we all need to know that there is a God who meets us at our point of need.