Blood on the Doorstep By Susanna Rychiger

Published: July 27th, 2009

I was recently asked, ‘what does a typical Friday morning in your Community house in Thun, Switzerland look like?’  The question threw me a little, when you live with a community of people all focused on loving Jesus and living the best they can slap bang in the middle of the nightlife of our city… there isn’t a lot that’s normal.  The only way to answer their question was to describe just one recent Friday and how we responded to blood on our doorstep…

1am – I wake up slowly, through the open window I hear loud screams from the streets. Suddenly I’m wide awake, I jump out of bed and dash into the living room to see what’s going on outside. One ‘gang’ is running after another… it seems to be serious. I pray as I have prayed at this window looking out at this street so many times before. I’m trusting God, that he will bring peace to our street.

7:30am – After a 6am community prayer meeting we’re enjoying breakfast together when one of our community friends yells: ‘There is blood in front of our door… but I have to go to work… bye’. All around the breakfast table stop and look at each other – then as you would guess – run to the door! There is actually blood there, quite a bit and not dry yet. Hmmm… immediately the incident at 1am came to my mind… “God what happened last night?” We walk around the house following blood spots through our whole garden…  I look around and I notice the fence at the back has been ripped down.  Looks like someone tried to climb over it… There I find much more blood….

I shiver… it seems somebody who was badly hurt, ran through our garden, paused on our front step and then fled over the fence in the backyard. ‘God what happened?’

Have you ever watched a TV series like NYCIS or CIS Miami?  Well, I felt like I was in the middle of one of these shows following the blood trail around my home.  This isn’t the Bronx in New York, Boystown in Mexico or the streets of Ibiza… this is a rather small city in little old Switzerland, surely things like this don’t happen here?

While cleaning the blood thoughts swirled in my mind.

Is this a typical Friday morning in our community? No not quite.  We don’t find blood every morning – but we do find the hatred on our streets growing at a disturbing pace.  It seems especially during the summer, when the parties burst out of the clubs and bars!

‘God I have a question? Why am I living here – in the middle of this nightlife? Are there more of these ugly things coming?  What do you expect of me, of us as community?’  

‘Susanna’, I almost hear God’s voice, ‘I am the one who sent you here. I am the one who gives you the grace to be able to live next to a pub that opens most nights ‘til 4am, to live next to a homeless shelter and soon, next to the place where they will give out heroin to heroin addicts (funny drug programs in our country!) It is by my grace that your community doesn’t close its door and focus on the comforts of life.  It would be easy to do and you know it!’

Boy do I know it – it would be so easy to lock the front door and leave the violent life of the streets outside. I could walk through my city, only opening my eyes when I see good things, good people, good life, but God wants to show me the other side… He wants to show me people and places that need him. God is longing for these people, He’s longing to know them and love them… are you longing for them too?
 
This is the challenge to our little city centre community; by God’s grace can we share our lives with the poor, the drunken, the drug addicts and oppressed?  Communal life: time to talk, to pray, to help, to be awake, to go into the streets, to cry together, to party, to laugh, to listen, to meet people. Within community my ego dies every day and my heart transforms into a serving heart.

Despite of everything that is happening in the neighbourhood – I love living here – it is a Godly place, and as my friend Brian from Ibiza once said:

‘Community living as an ideal sounds wonderful, community living in reality takes hard work.’

But blood on our doorstep or no blood on our doorstep, I know it’s worth it!


 

Susanna Rychiger is the national team leader of 24-7 Switzerland.  Passionate about prayer and discipleship, Susanna lives in a community house in the beautiful city of Thun.  Susanna enjoys time with God, friends and international travel where she makes use of her excellent language talents.   

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