What do you do?

So my wife has been working for some friends at a downtown cafe. She has gotten to meet many of our neighbors doing so, and even more importantly know how they like their coffee. Being in Footscray we get a lot of colorful charecters. Many of the mental health facilities and programs are in Footscray, as well as many of the drug dealers. This makes for a plethora of interesting people. One such person comes into the cafe once and a while. She is obviously unstable, but is also intoxicated and mean as a snake.

She starts yelling at the customers and causing a general uproar, and she won't leave without being physically removed. And worst of all she spits on people, on customers, on the owners, on innocent pedestrians.

Last week she came in, as I was just stopping by to say hello on my way to our prayer walk. She had started screaming, was escorted out, and actually hit one of the customers in the face. The owner a big strong rugby player was very upset and was contemplating taking her out back. But what was interesting was the woman who got punched was a Christian woman. The disturbed woman was screaming for a glass of water, and the Christian woman who had just been punched, tried to be Jesus by going in and buying her a bottle of water. Now I and my wife are very proud of the love this woman showed, but at the same time, we feel for the owners of the cafe who are having this woman really disrupt their business. And we are worried about the womans safety as the owner can only take so much. We are also concerned about the customers safety when she assaulted one woman, why wouldn't she assault another?

Well, as Christian what do you do? I stayed outside with the woman with a goal to protect any customers without hurting her, and tried to act as peacemaker. The police were called. But she got on a bus before they arrived.

Life gets pretty interesting at times, and I guess you have to roll with the waves.

the rev