We've
parked a 'Christian bus' on a local church car park on a regular basis
to use as a drop in from a semi-detached project. The aim is to draw
the 16 + age group who are now too old for the youth club in the area.
There's a steady number of regulars and a good relationship is built
with all, though the young people see little relevance or importance
in church itself, they enjoy the contact, fun and discussions with
the youthworkers.
One
night the young people come in and a group of them are laughing about
the 
money
they are carrying about. As the night goes on it appears that a number
of these normally broke friends are carrying around wads of notes
including £20's. This seems suspect. Then about 9.30 they begin
to get hungry and suggest getting food from local take-away and shop.
This is unusual as the biscuits and tuck are usually the max they
can afford. Having gone, we are then informed by the remaining young
people, that the notes are forged, that one of the lads is involved
in a forgery racket and the joke is that they are going to try out
the forgeries locally and see how many people are conned. The best
bit is that on examining the notes...they are perfect except that
the queen has a beard!
This
is our community. We care about and know local traders and it seems
desperately unfair that they could potentially lose lots of cash because
of our friends.
What
do you do? Do we shop them to the police and lose them possibly to
the remand centre...do we shop them and lose relationship... we're
the only Christians they know and have been there for them a few years
now....
Have we a duty to tell them it's wrong? (they're not daft...but they're
enjoying this kick at other's expense, literally)
Should we tip off the local traders? If we know the details...will
we get implicated if we say anything? What if we get accused of conspiracy?!
Anyway... have we got any proof? O No! Our fingerprints are now on
the notes.
We discussed and prayed and for right or wrong we decided to keep
relationship with the youth, but to tip off the traders to check incoming
notes to see if the queen has a beard....we then didn't hang around
too long when they started to ask how we knew....
Ruth
Clay – Frontier Youth Trust Networker
