By the Wayside
(Updated EVERY week)

July 29, 2010

The Wayside Chapel in Sydney's infamous Kings Cross is a unique and special place. Serving the needs of 2000 young, elderly, frightened and displaced people each week, it remains a place of unconditional love, acceptance and support for the lost, lonely, homeless, abused and dispossessed.

Established over 40 years ago by the Reverend Ted Noffs, the Wayside quickly became known for its emphasis on self help recovery, and encouragement for all to speak and act on social issues. It is a sacred place for people of all faiths and of none, where the human journey of the whole family of humanity is celebrated and all creation loved and respected.

Graham Long is now the Pastor at the Wayside, and with his vast and valuable experience as a social worker, a prison chaplain, a child protection advocate and a welfare agency founder (and his intolerance for misguided religious extremists), there is simply no better or more qualified person for this job. It is an honour for us to include Graham's weekly Inner Circle Newsletter on the Points of Power website.

The Wayside is always looking for volunteers for their Crisis Centre, Cafe, Op Shop and their Street Outreach Team. If you reside in Sydney and have a few hours a week to spare and would like to help with this great work, they would love to hear from you.

Dear Inner Circle,

Some people, when they see a brick wall, think it is their destiny to run at it as hard as they can. I was sitting alongside such a guy yesterday in the rain, drinking coffee. This fellow has been pepper sprayed by the cops so often, you could call him a seasoned criminal. As he was talking, I wondered if his story will ever be known or told. Many people have seen snap shots of this man's life, but no one has seen the whole movie.  I've seen such life long habits of self destruction lose their power over someone but I'm blowed if I know what brings the actual turn around. When you see it, it's just a miracle! This guy told me that he wouldn't see me here today because he had to "move house". He is relocating from Randwick to Parramatta and the move was being made on public transport. I have a daughter moving house this week and that requires a truck just for her shoes. I asked how this man was going to manage to move everything on a train and a bus and he told me that everything he owned fitted into one overnight bag.

The Chapel is a more holey place today. You can see from the street, right through the walls to the back of the property! We've got trucks and angle grinders and workmen and hammers and traffic control. After years of talking and planning, all this noise is like music to me. I stood outside for a while on Monday, just to watch some of the erection of the hoarding and work site office. It was quite entertaining to see such large trucks and heavy loads, efficiently managed in our narrow street. I noticed a skinny young kid walk into the street as this was going on. He walked toward where I was standing and then exploded. He started throwing our neighbours rubbish bins across the road and kicking the side of a building. He ended up in a foetal position near a garage door in our lane with one of our Youth Workers applying her usual tender care. It turns out that the young man suffers from a form of autism and for him, pretty much any major change in the physical environment, brings on a sense of panic. All the assumptions I made about what was happening as the bins were flying across the street, were completely wrong. How sad for this young kid! There must be many people who find change, even change for the better, very difficult.

Yesterday a man told me that he sleeps in a car park near here. He said that there are about 50 people who sleep in the car park and that the operators of the place are OK with this on the condition that everyone and all their mess are gone by early in the morning. He told me that recently a lady who parks there every day, opened her boot and produced enough 1 litre bottles of orange juice for everyone. Another lady who parks there early, opened her boot and gave a warm jacket to every rough sleeper. No one missed out. There are some amazing people in the world.

Thanks for being part of our inner circle,

Graham

Rev Graham Long
Pastor
The Wayside Chapel
Kings Cross
www.thewaysidechapel.com

Free barbecue for the homeless.
Thank God for the Wayside.