The Lodge

Spent some time with a young man the other day. He has the word crib tattoo'd on his face under his eye. He seemed rather excited about the fact that he had lost 3 kilos in the last eighteen months. And was very, very animated.

He called to L who is probably the leader of our group that goes to the Lodge, put his arm around her and talked about how he was going to run away and marry her. I am pretty sure her husband would not approve of the plan. He started dancing to a particular song and insisted she dance a bit too, which she did.

Then N and I spent about a half hour talking to him. He talked about how he liked it there, and that he knew he would get in a lot of trouble if he went back home. He told us of his sister and her pregnancy. I think he is excited to be an uncle. We compared tattoo's, my Christ saves tattoo across my belly was admired and when I told him what it said, it must have stayed in his mind for a whole two seconds. N and I were then invited to go see the new stereo he had bought. It was a small boom box, and he immediately turned on some Tupac and turned it up really loud, to show us how great it sounded. It really was loud, but not so great sounding.

We left after a few hours. I felt pretty melancholy for the rest of the day. Asking myself how we can make better relationships with these broken people. Maybe a movie night, maybe arranging some art lessons, maybe going to help clean some of the rooms.

Or maybe I should just go pick up my friend, and go have a coffee, or see a movie. The programs are great, and might really be enjoyable to some, but ultimately it will be the relationships that matter.

the rev