I’d vaguely heard of Street Pastors, there was a team in my local town centre that had featured in the local free paper. Funnily enough I recognised the coordinator as someone I had gone to school with. But that was it, nothing more.
I’d worked at what was formerly known as CIS for 33 years when I was made redundant in January this year. But there were no bad feelings, they are a great company to work for and looked after me until the end. But for the first time since leaving school I was unemployed.
So what next? I had no idea but I was definitely looking for a full-time permanent position. But this particular passage saw me through:
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Claire, the secretary at our church, forwarded an advert for a job. Manchester South Street Pastors were looking for a new coordinator. I looked at the spec, it was part-time, temporary and the pay wasn’t exactly great. To my surprise Marcus, my husband and not a Christian, encouraged me to apply. So after much prayer I did.
So I got the job, I was to work with a guy called Tony, an experienced street pastor but also new to the role of coordinator. We were to replace a guy called Tony Winter, the pioneer of street pastors in Manchester and a hard act to follow. Here I was, doing a job I knew nothing about with a guy I’d never met before, a recipe for disaster? No, we got on like a house on fire from the start, some situations are God given.
In Greater Manchester, the street pastor initiatives have formed a partnership for training, uniforms, funding etc. So here I was with loads of people who knew what they were doing, the new kid on the block. Peter, one of the other coordinators said “If you walk like a duck and quack like a duck, you’re a duck”. I was definitely the cuckoo in the nest.
But I took to it like a duck to water, I was initially asked to go out just once a month but I go out as often as I can. I can’t think of doing anything else and I know that this is what God wants me to do at this moment in time.