News from the Streets

Well the Street Pastors have come through yet another Halloween weekend. Lately in fact since freshers week have been very busy in the City. Sadly despite all our efforts Alcohol related violence has risen and things are much more hostile on Friday and Saturday nights. On one evening recently we called 5 ambulances in 2 hours. The cases were for a 17 year old boy badly intoxicated with cannabis and alcohol. Another call was for a young single Mum fitting as a result of an Ecstacy/Alcohol cocktail. Then we are dealing with a man who's ear has been bitten through by someone in a fight. However we are convinced that Jesus is in all this. We believe that WWJB means Where Would Jesus Be.. We think the early hours of a Sunday morning he would be ministering love and care to people who need it.

This week at our Jubilee project we heard of a tragic tale of an impoverished single Mum who had been charged £150 bank charges by her bank for being a tiny bit over her £50 overdraft level. We made a complaint and were then able to help her clear her debts. In fact last week we were able to get several thousnad pounds worth of debt paid off for people thus getting them free and allowing them to sleep again. We have been so blessed in the quality of our excellent volunteers who serve the clients so well.

A huge thank you to all who gave to our Harvest Basics Bank Food appeal Chruches and School from all over Derbyshire gave so generously we estimate over £20,000 worth of food has been donated ot help us relieve poverty and to help make peoples lives better. Special thanks should go to John and Sylvia Gatt and Einir Cooper who along with the other stalwart volunteers Sue Smith, Sylvia, Karl and Andy and Ruth have done an amazing job in bringing in the harvest sorting it and administering it all.............. an amazing feat.

Recovery Project. we now have over 45 clients coming to this each week and are partnering with Restore to reach out to sex workers who come into the project. It is great to see this project which is a prtnership between Ozzy Road Church, YWAM DCM and now Restore take shape and begin to see lives turn around...... For myself Alasdair it is the highlight of my week !

The Healing in the Streets conference despite the down pour went really well with one lady being healed as we prayed for her and just now I took a call from a lady who we had prayed with on the streets the other day asking where she could find a church where Gods power was as she wanted to join a church where God was .......... providentially I had lots of choice in Derby !

Over 60 Christians from 21 differrent churches came together for the conference and we are so excited to see what God is doing in Derby through His church.... It really is the Hope of the World...

Please pray for the fulltime staff at DCM, the other day we calculated that we now have over 200 volunteers working accross the various projects we run and as you can imagine that takes some administrating and caring for.... So please don't fgeel forgotten we can just get very busy at times......

Healing on the Streets Training Weekend News

Hi Everyone,

Application forms will be with your churches this weekend please note we only have 100 places on this training weekend .. Yes 100 for the whole City ! So if you are intending to join the Healing on The Streets Team you will have to attend the whole training weekend on Friday and Saturday. So applications will be on a first come first served basis.

Application forms are available from your Church Minister so please contact them rather than us at DCM for application forms.

Conditions for application are as follows;
Recommendation of minister
Attendance at the whole conference
Sign up to minister an average of one Saturday per month from 12-3 pm approx

Every blessing and we look forward to seeing you at St Alkmunds Church on Friday 22nd of October at 19h30.

Ally

Street Pastor Car

While Ally is on holiday I have use of the SP car, yay!! I won't bore you with the details of how I came to be at the security gate at the University this morning but I was and I wasn't sure what to say to the guard to let me through! So I pulled up, wound down the window and before I could get a single word out he said to me, "Ah Street Pastors, are you one of the Street Pastors?" So I said "Yes, I help run the project." He said "Oh that's great, 3 people from my church are Street Pastors..." and so we talked for a minute, then he raised the barrier and cheerily waved me through. I couldn't help but think how cool it is that God opens doors, or should I say gates, for us!

Isaiah 45:1 "This is what the LORD says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armour, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut..." (NIV)

In Christ
Robin

Healing on the Streets Conference Details Confirmed

Hi Everyone,

We can now confirm that the Derby Healing on the Street Conference with Mark Marx from Causeway Coast Vineyard is confirmed for Friday and Saturday the 22nd and 23rd of October at St Alkmunds Church, Kedleston Road Derby

Prices for the Conference are £25 per head. There are concession prices for, Students, OAP's Unemployed.

For more details or testimonies from other Healing on the Streets towns please see the following URLs.
http://out-there.org/
http://www.onevoiceyork.org.uk/story.asp?itemID=979&pcid=128

If you are a Church in the Derby area or an indivdual who would like to take part in the confernce and training Application forms are available through your church minister / leader and they will have them by late August.

Please note that application for the conference is only through your church leader. Should you wish to join Derby Healing on the Streets you will need to complete a CRB form and have attended the conference to be a part of the Team.
The vision is to have Christians from accross the body of Christ on the Streets of Derby every Saturday from November 2010.

Derby Healing on the Streets is part of Derby City Vision and is administrated by Derby City Mission

New Team for Austin Estate

We wanted to show you the new team of guys that we are working with in the SunnyHill area of Derby. We have recently obtained funding from the Police and are awaiting funding from Derby Council for our community football team. We have also been working with them and the commnunity safety partnership to see the local pub the Caxton arms restored as a centre in which the community meets.
We believe that Gang culture thrives in the context of community break down fear and deprivation therefore we work with members of the communities to help them rebuild and engage with the problems that they have. Creating aspiration and empowering people to make life better for the generation that follows.

Welcome to the New Street Pastors/ Training day with Les Isaacs

Ally Kay Director of Derby City Mission with Rev Les Isaacs CEO of Ascension Trust














Left to Right
Dave Simpson Derby Salvation Army
Andy Stewart New Life Christian Centre
Steve Tribe Belper Baptist Church
Angela Russell Ashbourne Road URC Methodist Church
Les Isaac Ascension Trust
Jim Kay St Alkmunds Kedleston Road
Dr Darren Leaning Woodlands Evangelical Church.



A big welcome to Derby's new Street Pastors as they begin their training with us. 4 of them will be working in our Estates Project and 2 of them will be owrking within the night time economy. They all bring real gifts and talents to the project and we are thrilled to welcome them. This now brings a total of 60 Street Pastors within Derby... Listening Caring and Helping our young people and communities.

Article from Todays Derby Evening Telegraph

Hi the Derby evening Telegraph have pblished an article on us here below. Just for clariffication we didn't spend £21,500 on a car we spent £3,500 slight differrence. We recieved a grant of £21,500 from the Criminal Justice board to recruit equip and train 15 Street Pastors and launch the Browning Circle project. The photo also isn't of Derby's Street Pastors.

Pastors: We bring peace to streets of the city

Street pastors

DERBY'S street pastors say they have stopped more than 850 revellers getting involved in drunken brawls in their first year of operation.

The Christian volunteers, who patrol the city centre on Friday and Saturday nights, say they have also picked up 4,688 pieces of glass and handed out 593 bottles of water.

The pastors say they try to calm situations which could lead to violence.

Alasdair Kay, who co-ordinates the scheme, said volunteers kept a record of "agitated" people to whom they spoke and, of 903, only 53 had gone on to get involved in a fight or arrested.

He said: "One of the things we do is let people rant and rave at us, as we are not going to react. We let them get it off their chest.

"What you find is that when people are drinking, something else misinforms their anger."

He said disagreements usually focused on race, girlfriends or family problems.

Mr Kay said: "They are the three main issues. Racial tensions are still a problem in the city, they haven't gone away. We get on the side of the person being targeted and tell people that they cannot say things like that.

"That is a lot of what we do. We also do simple things like tell them that there are CCTV cameras and police just around the corner and do they really want to spend a night in a cell? No-one really wants to do that."

Mr Kay said the street pastors were set up after two tragic incidents – the death of 17-year-old Shaun Dykes, who jumped from Westfield car park amid cruel heckling from onlookers, and the shooting of Kadeem Blackwood – in 2008.

He said: "After these incidents, I thought, 'we have to do something to make this city safer'."

The pastors were formed in February 2009, but have only kept figures since April that year. Pastors, who are trained in first aid, have treated 239 injuries – 111 of which needed hospital treatment.

The 50 volunteers meet for a briefing and prayer at 9.30pm and then patrol the city centre from 10pm until 4am.

Over the last 12 months, the street pastors have volunteered for 3,477 hours.

During this time, they had conversations with 18,347 people.

The pastors, who are supported by 25 churches in Derby, have also handed out 12,050 "spikeys" – which can be inserted into the top of a bottle to prevent people's drinks being spiked with drugs.

In addition, they have given out 1,405 pairs of flip flops to women who take their high heel shoes off as they walk home, to stop them injuring their feet on glass.

Following their success, the pastors were asked by police to extend their services to gang-plagued areas of Derby.

The group was given £21,500 to buy a car so that it could work in the Browning Circle area of Derby's Austin estate.

It was hoped that by providing a presence on Friday and Saturday evenings, the pastors could reduce tension and aggression and form relationships with young people and others in the community.

The project also aimed to develop a mentoring programme to offer non-violent activities as an alternative to anti-social behaviour, crime and gang membership.

Mr Kay said that when he helped establish the group, he had no idea it would be so successful.

He said: "I felt like I was up against a wall of scepticism – never did I expect it to have such an impact."

Mr Kay has since gone on to help set up similar schemes across the country, including one in Nottingham.

To find out more, visit www.streetpastors.co.uk