God at the bus stop

You may have heard of Street Pastors? Well, here Kim Woolnough shares a story of ‘street nursing’.

‘We’re going to miss the bus to church!’ my son shouts as he scoots along. Surprisingly, the queue is far from the bus stop. It soon becomes clear why as I approach the shelter, and I’m shocked. A thin elderly gentleman is slouched in his wheelchair, covered from his hands down to his shoes in his own excrement. People nearby give disgusted glances. It’s clear no one – including me – knows what to do.

My son stares. ‘Mummy, what’s wrong with that man?’ I mutter a prayer – ‘Lord help me to help him’. I reassure my son and ask him to stand back with his sleeping sister. I put on my cheeriest voice and try to assess the situation. ‘Hiya there, everything alright?’

‘Oh yes. I just need to get myself sorted, and then I can get on the bus back home. I’ve been here most of the night’ he says. We talk back and forth. He tells me his name is *Pete. He doesn’t want help, and it becomes clear he lacks awareness of his situation. I phone an ambulance – it’s at least a two-hour-plus wait, as its not a medical emergency. I have no PPE and my small children are with me – how can I help this man? He’s uncomfortable and covered in excrement. Lord help, please!

I learnt that day that angels drive Vauxhall Corsas. Well, *Yolanda did anyway, with a boot–load of PPE and wipes! God sent a helper! My son sits nearby, munching his snack whilst his sister sleeps – just an ordinary Sunday. And there in the ordinary bus stop, with a makeshift hospital curtain made out of a blanket, we work together to uphold the dignity of this gentleman. We notice pressure sores already forming and chronic leg ulcers. His skin is soaked and washed as best we can, and clean clothes acquired from the charity shop.

Somewhere in the blur, Pete looks up, his hair matted, beard untamed and asks, ‘Are you some kind of off-duty nurse or something?’.
‘Yes’ I replied, and in my heart, I reflected – but I’m also an ‘on-duty’ follower of Jesus.

Even when we are not ‘at work’, we are at work for Christ as his ambassadors, ministering love, and sharing the gospel. And he meets us in that.

We phone the emergency social services line, and thankfully, they understood the high risk of the situation and put a social worker on the case immediately.

‘Mummy – I think we’ve missed church’.

Yolanda replies with eyes full of love – ‘Oh, but you see, we’ve had our church service right here today’. Yolanda knows the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:40 ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Kim Woolnough is a learning disability nurse working in Oxford.

* Names have been changed to protect confidentiality