Leicester (December 18th-28th)

      On December 18^th the team jumped on a van to jump on a bus to jump off a bus in Leicester. The work we were to do in Leicester revolved mainly around ministry to the homeless and the underprivileged. Upon arriving, we were greeted by a couple named Paul and Vicki, who were the heads of a ministry called Open Hands. From the bus station, we went off to the building that Open Hands was run out of. There, after a lovely dinner of jacket potatoes, we sat with and met the rest of the Open Hands staff. As we went over what the week’s schedule would be looking like, the reality of, “Holy cow, were actually on outreach!” was just starting to set in. At the end of the evening we headed off to the different homes in which we were staying. Our team was divided between four different host-homes, with two or three people at each house, and at each house we were greeted with amazing hospitality. After a long day of traveling and meeting new people, it was great to be able to sit down on a bed, take a deep breath, and get some much needed rest to prepare for the rest of the week.

    Starting up the next day, we were back at Open Hands helping to get stuff organized for the opening of the second-hand charity shop. I was personally working in a very unorganized kitchen, using my slightly OCD-ness to put some order to a fair amount of chaos. My focus on moving plates/bowls, separating silverware, and organizing various kinds of hot-drink mixes was occasionally broken by Dean-Dallas, our fearless outreach leader, doing a dance across the room. That morning, there were shelves being raised, clothes being sorted, and a general readying of stuff for the people who were to come to the second-hand shop. Open Hands, in this stage, was essentially a free Goodwill store, plus a place to get a free cup of tea, coffee, or hot-chocolate. Once the “guests” came we served them drinks and socialized with them as they waited their turn to go through the shop. It was pretty cool to talk to people and to hear their stories, and it is gosh darn amazing how much people love the opportunity to simply be listened to.  Personally, just socializing and getting a chance to “pick” people’s brains, is one of my favorite things to do, so I thoroughly enjoyed this part of working with Open Hands.

    Also working with Open Hands, we made a full Christmas meal for the homeless people in the area. I quickly became an expert at piecing together what the English call a “pig on horseback”( a.k.a sausage mixed with stuffing, wrapped in bacon). Fortunately or unfortunately, as the case may be, I did not get to eat any of my “pigs on horseback” due to the fact that the 108 people we served ate them all. This dinner was essentially the last of the work we did with Open hands, but we had much more ministry to come.

    On the third or fourth-ish day (my memory is being put to the test by how late I am writing this blog), we did some street evangelism. Having done some street evangelism before in London, I was not too uncomfortable with the idea; however, this time MANY comfort zones were pushed to new levels.  In London we had simply started conversations with people through surveys, offering free hot chocolate, and generally being friendly; in Leicester we found ourselves with a group of……enthusiastic……elderly women who were quite literally blowing horns and waving flags in Leicester’s town center.  Despite some new and uncomfortable situations, we were still able to get into some good conversations with people, simply sharing a little bit about why we were there and what we believed.

    The rest, and actually the main part, of what we did in Leicester was with “The Bridge” ministry. The Bridge was a homeless shelter only open during the Christmas/New Years holiday season. Essentially, the bridge gave people a place to stay for the night and 3 warm meals a day to those in need of it. We worked out of a Salvation Army building which had a capacity for about twenty guests. (Meaning there was a room big enough to fit twenty cots in). To be allowed to stay at The Bridge center, the guests had to be referenced by another nearby charity. This was to control numbers and to be careful we weren’t allowing any dangerous criminals in the center or anything like that. We helped make meals, socialized with the guests, and every night two people from our team would stay the night at The Bridge to keep the guests company and keep some level of control among the potentially drunk, potentially high, (potentially both) guests

     We took a day off for Christmas to go to North Hampton, one of our staff, Matt, was from North Hampton so we spent Christmas with his family. It was hard to be away from home and family on Christmas, but being with somebody’s family did help the homesickness. Christmas day involved a small gift exchange between us trainees (I got a much needed guitar strap!), a full English meal, and some fun times just playing games with Matt’s immediate and extened family. Again, the hospitality we experienced amazed us as we felt included in a family’s little Christmas in the beautiful rolling hills of the English countryside.

    We went back to Leicester early on the 26^th and continued ministry that afternoon; then, that evening was my night to stay over at The Bridge. We had ministry only in the morning on the 27^th (cooking and serving breakfast at The Bridge), and on the 28^th we said goodbye to our awesome hosts and to Leicester to head back to Harpenden. Back on the Oval, we had a little over 24 hours to laundry and catch up on sleep before, on the evening of the 29^th, we left for the one, the only, Ghana….