Often life causes us to stop in our tracks to reflect and following a super evening in Redeemer in May at one of our 101 Prayer & Worship nights I have been thinking of how we follow that biblical principal of welcoming the stranger who is in our midst.
Many years ago when our children were young we were coming up to traffic lights one afternoon and the boys saw a gentleman waiting at the lights to offer to wash our windscreen. As soon as they say him they called out to me… “get your purse out Mum and have your money ready!” when I asked them why they wanted to do this they almost chorused in unison, “Papa says we are to welcome the stranger who is in a foreign land”. This reminder caused me to stop in my tracks and reflect on the principal that Papa was teaching our kids, a principal that is first spoken of in the book of Exodus and flows through the whole Bible, ‘when a stranger sojourns with you, you shall treat him as the native amongst you and you shall love him as yourself’. That afternoon impacted me deeply and I think on it often.
Daniel Saunders interviews Sipho (Housing4All) about the needs of asylum seekers and refugees in NI | 15 May 2019
In May we had an evening that also caused me to stop in my tracks and I felt my heart moved as I know many of us in the community did. On that night a lady called Sipho spoke with us about her work. As a human rights activist Sipho helps people who are seeking political asylum here in Northern Ireland. She is part of a project called Housing4All — a group of asylum seekers who are trying to ensure that the human right to housing is realised for all asylum seekers in Northern Ireland. It was a stunning evening where we heard first hand of how life can be experienced here and the services that are available and also the gaps in the services and the limited finances that families and individuals are expected to survive on. She shared a very practical issue about the purchase of school uniforms and how expensive they are in a family budget and how often children starting school can be delayed due to a lack of uniform. Sipho and the charities she is involved with offer families in need a grant of £35 to buy a school uniform and she suggested that that would be a simple but significant way that we could begin to address the needs of the strangers who have come to live here and show them love. We continue to meet needs through our Farmbox and Family Matinee initiatives — and whilst we are conspiring to respond to needs in lots more ways we have decided to engage with this School Uniform appeal.
How to get involved
Throughout the month of July we would like to invite you to contribute whatever you can so that in August we have a fund available to start giving families in need the £35 grant.
Please pop whatever you are able to give into an envelope on Sundays and mark it for the School Uniform Appeal.
We are going to get our kids involved in this by saving 20p pieces, and also making welcome cards to go out with every grant so that our children can write cards of welcome to these families and tell them about what is great about living here.
As a leadership we know that God is stirring lots of hearts and we long to see you step up and step into anything that you have been stirred to respond to, please talk to us with any ideas you have and we would love to support you to respond to the needs that God has brought to your attention and is stirring you towards. Together we are confident that these small but significant acts of kindness are us simply responding to biblical principals and helping families to see the practical love of God meeting their needs.
Peace to you all,
Stephanie