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Back …
Saturday 7th July 2012 @ 12:56 pm

So – I’m back. Back on the blog, and back on Ibiza. It was strange to come back here & discover that it felt like home. Just like I’d never left. Comforting and familiar. That’s good. A strong sense of the familiarity with a good sense of place really helps to get back into the work – you need all the advantage you can get!

Take my first night back out for example. I think I wanted a nice roll in. A nice easy familiar night back on the street. And for a while that is what it was. I was orientated in the van for an hour (I will be driving the vomit van at times this year) I was in the prayer room for a couple of hours, I’d prayed with a guy on the street, and I was walking around the west end for an hour … and then, just before 4am, when you’re beginning to think “ok, it’s almost time to think about wrapping up for the night if things are smooth” … my partner at that moment sees one guy hunched over himself at the side of the strip – puking his guts out. And so it turns out that at the end of this nice first night, I sit in urine to get beside him, get vomited on (well bile, as everything else was mostly out of his stomach) … we then spend close to an hour with him, trying to sober him up to find out his name and hotel, and then walk him home holding him between us, while trying to find his hotel and get him into the recovery position … bed then at 6.

… all because we believe Jesus values people enough to not want them to sit in their own piss and vomit at the side of the strip in San Antonio while countless party–people walk past more or less ignoring him …

Jesus has a lot more patience with people than I do – and is a lot more gracious. Seriously, if it wasn’t for a sense of the holy being around and helping, it would be very difficult to keep this stuff up …

But then you do get giggles from it as well. I hope I always remember driving the vomit van for the posh boys, out in Ibiza to celebrate completing their A levels. Four of them, but a couple of them completely wasted – on their first night. In the van on the way to their hotel while Emma & Charl were looking after them, one of them, holding the bucket just before puking says, “ I’m going to be sick – awww nooooo – can’t believe I’m going to be sick in front of a woman.” It was funny seeing the young posh boys being totally mothered by Charl & Emma, and then asking, “How much is this taxi?” Reply, ‘You’re not in a taxi, we’re taking you home for free.” “Free? What you mean free pounds fifty?”

The final thought from the tall one who couldn’t hold his drink. As they were in his room, making sure he got onto his bed with a bin beside him … upon the request to put him in the recovery position he suddenly revealed, “Oh oh oh, I’m a qualified first aider! Watch this!” And he immediately leaps into the air and lands back on his bed into the recovery position.

You gotta love this place. You really do. Preferably, as Jesus does …


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