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| A clip from the church’s website |
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Baptist Church, Vernon Square
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We’ve found this Christian church’s drop-in centre for the homeless to be manned for the most part by very unchristian staff. On the first visit I was approached by a diminutive man (a member of staff) who appraised me while grunting derisively.
On a following visit, shortly thereafter, another staff member (or volunteer) subjected me to a far more robust assessment. First he actually forcefully threw a plate onto a table right in front of me, and I don’t mean that he rudely slammed the dish down, he actually tossed it from about 15 inches away so that it hopped on the table right under my chin.
On the same day, and very soon after throwing the plate, he came to where I was sitting and, in an ignoramus manner, forced himself in beside me. This was despite a two seater couch being unused just 2½ feet away. Like his little friend before him he was quite resolute in his attempts to provoke a reaction.
And as if to round off events, lately a young female has shown up as a volunteer or staffer and she too isn’t adverse to emitting sarcasms.
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| Baptist Church that alludes to love and friendship. |
Once while leaving I bade Donald farewell and his response was to derisively shake his head and grunt. He soon though removed any vestige of doubt I may have had about my being welcome in this drop-in centre.
On Tuesday 9 December Donald was handing out tickets for an xmas lunch the drop-in was hosting on December 16. And surprise, surprise, he handed out these tickets to all around me, even people who were seated at a table with me. But he completely ignored me. I was seemingly deemed unfit to be offered one.
All very well and fine if this upworldly mobile Christian didn’t want me there, but you’d think he have, at least, tried to hand out the tickets covertly. That he wouldn’t have very obviously rubbed my nose in it. And if he didn’t want me there that day, or at any time previously, all the gutless git had to do was tell me and I’d have left.
It doesn’t stretch my imagination very much to think that the two provocative staff members who initially harassed me were prompted to by Donald in attempt to let me know I wasn’t wanted. He also seems the type of chap who wouldn’t know any better than to physically poke or push someone in order to assess their character.
What really galls me about Donald is how, every Tuesday morning for about 20 minutes, he preaches about love, peace and other biblical content. The way he can stand there, with bible in hand, pontificating about Jesus and love and then, within minutes, act like a snivelling hostile sneak is hypocritical beyond measure.
I am so terribly sorry to read of your experience at what was once one of the most caring homeless drop-ins around; I put my heart, soul and four years into making it that way. I left shortly after meeting Rev. Smith, he had a bee in his bonnet about something, and turned on me to say my guests were hopeless not homeless.
ReplyDeleteIn a meeting shortly afterwards I challenged him on this and said there is always hope in Jesus. He denied his outburst, and tried to pacify me with some highbrow intellectual gobble de gook. A man of superior class who obviously caters for a better class of homeless that yourself - shame the volunteers have yeilded to his leadership.
DEATH OF A NOBODY (edited from Camden New Journal 21-12-2006)
ReplyDeleteRough sleeper dies in squalid shanty after pleas ignored
A CHRISTMAS tragedy unfolded in a hotel car park last Wednesday when a naked homeless man died hours after a pastor who works tirelessly for rough sleepers misjudged his pleas for help.
Medics removed a corpse who fellow rough sleepers identified as ------ ,a multiple schlerosis sufferer, from a squalid makeshift shanty in the shallow entrance way of the Travelodge Royal Scot hotel in King’s Cross.
Split from his wife ----- and on the streets, he had taken to drink and drugs and joined a transient group who have used old cardboard boxes and shabby mattresses to make a concrete ramp their home, his associates said.
His death deepened the fear and revulsion felt by residents in Vernon Rise over the use of the Travelodge car park as a den for rough sleepers and drinkers. The Rev Andrew Smith, pastor at the King’s Cross Baptist Church, a stone’s throw from the den, was the first port of call for -------'s friends when they saw he was ill.
He said he went to check on the sick man but decided not to call an ambulance, a decision he now says was “a bad call”.
“Two of (the rough sleepers) that I know pretty well came to see me. They said: ‘He’s in a bit of distress – would you call an ambulance?’
“But I’m always calling ambulances here. I had called one the week before. If you keep calling ambulances they can get annoyed.”
Mr Smith went to see the sick man but judged him no worse than the many serious cases that attend his thrice-weekly drop-in centres at the church.
“We put him back on the mattress in the recovery position, and he was breathing pretty freely,” he said.
“I told them to report to me on a fairly regular basis if he doesn’t seem to be feeling well.
“An hour or two later there’s a whole crowd of people up there, and the police were there too. They said he had died.”
Mr Smith said he was unsure how the victim’s condition had worsened so rapidly.
He also added that the rough sleepers in the den told him they had a mobile phone with which to call an ambulance themselves.
But asked if he regretted not taking action, he answered “yes”.
“I was very upset about it, naturally. You have to make these decisions, and maybe we made a bad call, there.”
End of CNJ edit.
WHAT??? In the middle of bleakest December a seriosly sick naked man did not need help??? Would have took you two minutes to get him some clothes from the drop in where you have hundreds of mens garments... Jesus said; 'Cloth the naked.' --- Rev A.S. said, (and I quote) 'HOPELESS NOT HOMELESS',,, and what about the mobile phone - if his mates had one, why did they appeal to you for help????