Catching fish
Was looking at the passage in Luke 5:1-11 where Jesus call his disciples for the first and he tells them to cast their nets out on the other side of the boat when they’ve already been slaving away all night trying to catch fish. Anyway Jesus ended up by telling them that he was going to show them how to be fishers of men instead. Someone who was praying for me recently reminded me of that passage and how my job is about catching fish, not cleaning them. I get so frustrated when doing presentations to supporters about the work I do because they think we’re there to a) keep young people off the streets and then once we’ve done that to b) clean them up so that they conform to society’s standards. I just want to see kids sold out to Jesus. Bring it on!

Young/old?
I came to the shocking & painful realisation that I am not young anymore! Ugh! And it wasn’t because of my growing grey-hair count. Actually, I feel very young and class myself as being in a kind of young adult bracket, at 28 it’s stretching it a bit to say that I’m a young person I guess! It’s weird but I really don’t feel 28, looks horrible when you see it in print like that. But anyway the other day I was reading stuff for my Masters course which was talking about how our attitudes, values and behaviour are influenced by our age. Moreover although I may view myself as being young and maybe someone in the 50+ bracket would too, the young people I work with definitely don’t see me as being young! I often like to think that because I’m a youthworker, I’m in touch and in tune with youth culture and all that stuff. But who the heck am I to say that?! How often do we put young people into a box and say they are this or that. I am therefore just as guilty as the next person of oppressing young people! …Don’t know if this is making sense…uh-oh is that a sign of senility?!