Isaiah 43 vs. 20
20 The wild animals honour me, the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland,
We see the young people living on our city streets as the jackals, the outcasts living on the street running in packs, but there is the hope of the Gospel for them in their hopelessness.
Three years ago we began to pray for the groups of young people hanging around the Market Square in the centre of Derby.
We asked God to share His heart for them, and what strategy He had to reach them. The secret weapon God showed us was...hot chocolate.
For two years we have gone every week to the square sharing hot chocolate and building bridges of relationship to carry the gospel over.
We have made deep friendships with a core group, loving them with our actions and sharing the truth with them with our words. A story:-
I was sitting in the square with “K” a 16 year old boy, living on the streets in a haze of cannabis and anger, stealing to make ends meet, when he got up and started to attack another boy. I asked “Lord what should I do?” Pull him off him was the reply. So I went over and did so. He was shaking with rage and his eyes were wild. We sat down then he did it again, more resistant this time it required two of us to pull him off. Asked him “why are you doing this?” No reply.
I sat with “K” in that same square; He tells me he has stopped smoking Cannabis and is going to college and had a weekend job and a girlfriend. Over the two years we have loved him in his pain, accepted him for who he is and helped him practically and held him in our hearts in prayer.
We have seen God at work in “K” and many others restoring them to Himself, through our friendship and love for them.
