Don't be a stranger

Name
Geoff Reid

Place of residence

Bradford

Country of origin

United Kingdom

Occupation

City Centre Worker and Team Leader for Touchstone

Touchstone started as Beacon… it started in the inner city and rapidly spread over greater metropolitan area. There were churches in Bradford who found their benevolent fund (spare cash for those in need) was being drained by an influx of asylum seekers. The migrants were joining local churches and making a vast difference to the worship in those churches but there were also people who had not been given leave to remain and were not allowed to work and had nothing to live on. So we felt that something needed doing. We felt we needed to bring together churches in the greater metropolitan area.

Beacon has spawned a number of different projects.

• Advent Appeal - food and toiletries over Christmas time.
• CHAT - Care & Hospitality at Thornbury; the Asylum Court for all of Yorkshire and the Humber is at Thornbury, Thornbury Methodist Church is just across the road from the court and through CHAT they offer simple refreshments and a warm welcome, trying to put people at ease before they face the rigours of the Asylum court.
• Mackensie Friends - group of people who go with asylum seekers to court, not pretending to be lawyers but just to stand beside them and to be with them, to occasionally help with language issues.
• Hosting project
• Befriending project
• Furniture project - people who are getting rid of surplus furniture are linked up with asylum seekers who need furniture.

Beacon remains the Churches' Asylum organisation (standing for Bradford Ecumenical Asylum Concern) and works in close partnership with Touchstone but is a separate organisation. These projects are backed by the Christian churches of Bradford working together.

"Asylum is an issue that has touched Christians like nothing else has, across the different boundaries of politics, spirituality and denominations. It seems as if they have realised that in welcoming the stranger in this way, especially those who are most hard pressed, they are realising something at the heart at the gospel of Jesus."

"The Bible is laced with references to justice, and we believe asylum is at the heart of the justice agenda. If you go to the book of Ruth you find some wonderful stuff there about welcoming the stranger and the vulnerable. Boaz, even fiddles the system to leave bits of corn behind to make sure Ruth has something to eat. He gives very specific instructions to his workers not to harass or abuse this young and vulnerable woman. I wish we were better at urging our authorities not to harass the young and vulnerable.

"There have been stories in our local newspaper about dawn raids on families with young children and babies being woken up at 5am prior to being removed to another part of the country or kicked out of the country. We just think this is so heavy handed. The church is standing up to say that this won’t do. We have to recognise them as human beings, some with greater needs than the rest of us.

"In talking to immigrants I find some serious hurts.

"Churches should expect to receive a lot from asylum seekers. They bring different traditions of worship, an enthusiasm for Christian faith. If they are willing to go in for a genuine sharing of worship, sharing of experience, then they will find their Christian faith and maturity seriously enriched.

"Some churches are bemused by the different styles of worship and expressions of faith and other churches have embraced them.

"One of the effects of people of different nationalities and ethnicity joining the local church is that they become more open to learn and relate to Christians of different backgrounds. And this in turn has encouraged them to think about what their Christian responsibility is to their city and to reach out to people of different faiths.

"It took Christians of a different culture to open them up to what was on their doorstep and I think that is very healthy."