TAKING IT TO THE STREETS

By Lauren Martin

In the late 1970s the problem of Sydney’s Kings Cross as a so-called ‘den of iniquity’ had come to the attention of the metropolitan media and the New South Wales Government. The public was shocked when it became aware of the extent of the underage prostitution trade in this inner-Sydney suburb. Amidst the outrage The Salvation Army offered to help. In 1980 it set up the Salvation Army Outreach Service - SOS (pictured right.) Workers would meet the young people where they were - in the squats they lived in, the streets they worked, the alleys where they injected sometimes lethal doses of heroin.

I don’t want to sound melodramatic, says Bob Seymour (SOS Sydney 1989 – 1994), but the fact of the matter is that people did die. It was the early hours of the morning, sometime in the late 1980s and Bob Seymour had received a call from the police. As he walked up the cold, dark alley the scene before him was like a movie set: bright police lights illuminating a blue tarp that barely wrapped the body of a teenage girl who had been found in the dumpster beside where she lay. Found with a Salvation Army Outreach Service card in her pocket, the police had called in Seymour to identify her. Despite years in the job it was shocking for him to witness the 18 year-old’s frail body – emaciated from years of heroin abuse. But it wasn’t the drugs that killed her. She was a prostitute who had been used and abused by a client, then dumped like garbage to die.

It’s just devastating. A young life that’s just been used and cast off, says Bob. Some people would be judgemental and say, She knew what she was doing, she knew the dangers. But do 18 year-old kids know the dangers?

SOS workers were often called to squats where a young person had overdosed and would perform CPR whilst waiting for emergency services: You’ve got this person lying on the floor of a squat surrounded by filth – syringes and rubbish and garbage everywhere - and this young person is lying there lifeless and you’re waiting for an ambulance. What choice do you have?

The so-called ‘success stories’ were few and far between but that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. After journeying with a young person for a long time there was often a point of crisis, during which time the young person asked themselves important life questions such as What am I doing with my life? It’s at those times says Bob Seymour that SOS workers had the privilege of helping them pick up the pieces. We had to really hang in there with people, be there for the long term.

Accepted, loved, forgiven

There are countless stories in the New Testament of Jesus showing unconditional love and acceptance to those around him, but Bob Seymour recounts just one as told to him years earlier by a colleague: the story of the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ robe. The first word that Jesus said to her was a wonderful word, he said daughter … Jesus made this woman feel acceptable. Had she not believed that she was accepted then she would never have believed for a moment that she was loveable. And without knowing that you are loveable would you ever believe that you are forgivable?

Working with young people on the streets is not the type of evangelism of a fiery pulpit, where converts can be counted at the end of the sermon. It is a journey of walking beside people in whatever circumstances they are in and modelling Jesus to them. Accepting them and loving them to the point where they may finally realise they are worthy of forgiveness. The truth of the matter is, you don’t need to tell people how sinful they are, they already know that! Says Seymour. What they need to know is that there is freedom from their bondage. It’s the type of evangelism of which the fruits may never be known in this lifetime.

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This is an excerpt from an article that first appeared in The Salvation Army's Hallelujah! magazine.