By Liz Wills, Development Worker for North Hertfordshire
I wasn’t planning on working at church yesterday as my trusty volunteers had everything under control and they were happily making up food parcels for the families that we support. However, I had to pop down and drop some paperwork off. I stayed for a while and had a chat and a coffee with the volunteers when a young homeless man who lives at the homeless shelter popped over with his friend.
His name is John and he is in his early 20s. He was made homeless a couple of weeks ago and he has been staying at the homeless shelter since. He is a lovely young man, quiet and very introvert. We started chatting and I asked him what he was planning on doing all day – he replied that he had nothing to do and was exceptionally bored and desperate to get a job.
As everybody knows with me if you stand still long enough I will give you a job! So I asked him if he wanted to spend the day working with myself and the volunteers. At first he didn’t look too keen and said that he needed to check with the hostel. He was back within 10 minutes asking what jobs he could do.
So him and I got to work with the other volunteers. He worked hard clearing the rubbish, topping up the food bank, bagging up fresh food, making food parcels all whilst drinking endless cups of coffee. We even managed to find time to sneak in a McDonalds! We had a great day working, laughing and chatting. He was part of the team. When he left he told me that it was the best day that he had had in years and could he come back next week. Of course I replied Yes!
Yesterday was a true example of how we can live out our faith thorough the people we work with.
Nothing particularly exciting happened yesterday – John didn’t get a paid job, he didn’t get housed, he didn’t get reunited with his family but he did spend a day being made to feel equal, appreciated, cared for and part of a community.
Nobody pitied John because of his situation, nobody told him that everything was going to change and that his life would be okay but even if it was just for one day his self-worth and dignity was restored.
