ridiculous

is the only word i can choose to describe the things that happen here.

tonite, anni and toni and i were sitting down to a nice dinner, it was about 10pm, still light outside and we had our windows open to get the nice breeze blowing in.. all of a sudden, we heard all these voices coming from all over the place, outside.. not unusual, we live in a really busy area, are sandwiched in between two pubs, and usually on the weekends especially, there is always some sort of arguing or commotion outside. im not sure what it was about this particular noise, that made me get out of my seat and look, but, as i did, i saw about 80 teenagers, coming from the 3 roads that lead to this street that is directly in front of our 2nd story window, all gathering in a square formation.. and they were all completly wasted and i knew immediatly something was going down.

it was like a seen from movie.. within about 5 minutes, literally, there was a square formed, with about 4 rows thick of teens, all opening up into an empty middle.. beer bottles and cans were being thrown and all of a sudden as we were deciding whether we needed to call the police or not, a riot broke out of fighting.. the kids from the north side of town, against the kids on the south side of town.. around 80 kids, aged 12-15, drunk and fighting, smashing bottles on each others heads and immediatly there was the biggest fighting mob of kids i had ever seen, blood everywhere and people coming out of their flats and out of the pubs to try and stop this catastrophe.

i called the police, the girls were shouting down from my window at them to stop, and it was such a mess of alcoholic, teenage gang violence and it was awful. the minute our kids who were involved saw us watching, they took off..

but for once, the police came as fast as i have ever seen them come, cuz i usually call them all the time and they are never here in time.. but i went downstairs and outside to get the little kids off the street and talk to the adults who were all over the place, and about 14 police on foot from every entrance you could imagine came running and then there were ones in cars and it was biggest mess of people running around and scattering.. apparenlty, almost the entire community had each called the police.. thankfully.. but after they were all disperesed, we just stood there, with the broken bottles and blood, and beer and just a mess everywhere, looking at each other in disgust.

its ridiculous. its so sad and it breaks my heart. these poor kids! my goodness!! please pray for these people, this area, and the things that God is doing.. its such a sad thing to see fights everyday anyways, but on this scale, with kids we work with, is just ridiculous..

*sigh*. no wonder Jesus wept. the tradgesty of it all is so sad. thank you for your prayers. welcome to life. reality. today. God bless you all.