Last Friday, for the first time the temperature was a shade below zero degrees centigrade as we set off for school. The skies are still clear and blue and the days beautiful, but there is definitely a chill in the air. One of our colleagues claims that she can smell that snow is on it's way…
In some ways the coming of winter is fun, especially as it brings the possibilities of winter sports! Rosie has recently started ice skating lessons and the thought of getting up into the mountains with snow on the ground excites us all! But we are also aware that for many people it is actually very difficult and miserable when it gets cold. In particular, we are mindful of one of the boys who Oasis has walked with over the last few years and who had lived in the transition home that we were running, but who has recently chosen to start living on the streets again. Sadly, despite working hard over the summer to get himself enrolled at an art school, and making a good start both in the studies and in settling into a dormitory, he has been encouraged by some of his old 'friends' to return to his former way of life, has dropped out of the college and is living on the streets of the city.
On a happier note, a couple of weeks ago we were contacted out of the blue by a local organisation who had 19 boxes of winter clothes for us to distribute! It turns out that we had written to them about a year and a half ago and not heard anything back… They however, had not forgotten us, and when they recently received a consignment of packages from the US, they earmarked some of them for us! It has been really good to be able to pass these on to many of the young people that we are walking with (including, of course, the chap mentioned above).
