Wooler and Chatton minister Jason Askew describes a Mission Partnership day with a difference
Eight in the morning the manse telephone rings.“Hello, its Jackie, I am on the bus with John (the driver), we are in Newcastle . . . where exactly is it?” The Internet is a wonderful thing as twenty minutes later I was able to give them enough clues to enable them to telephone someone else and find out!
Three huge quiches, fifty buns, Troy, Zachary, Linda and I set off. It was Thursday 1st September. Questions were coming from the back seat.
“Where are we going?”
My answers were not very specific because I did not know exactly how the day would pan out. We were going to Holy Island . . . to begin with . . . then on to Spittal, then to Wooler.
“Who will be there?”
I had no idea. Refugees, Asylum seekers, people from the West End Refugee Service, I was not sure.
“What are we going to do?”
Stuff! Walk, talk, play football (maybe), we will have to see.
“Why are we going?”
It was a North Northumberland Mission Partnership, church thing that we had organised. This was met with blank looks of confusion from the back seat!
10.45am at the St Cuthbert Centre on Holy Island we met Barry Hutchinson and Jenny Young (from our Chatton Church), tea, coffee and cakes. Around 11.15am John Young came in and introduced Richard to me, a man in his forties/fifties: they had come to tell us that the bus had arrived and they were now off to direct the people to the Centre. I went with them.
Meeting strangers is strange. What I mean to say is that sometimes feel that I am not very good at it. What shall I say? What if they do not want to talk? What if I say something completely inappropriate? Oh well, here goes, ‘in for a penny . . . both feet in my mouth'
I discovered that Richard was from the Congo. He had left because of many troubles and had been in Britain for four years. He had a great smile and a stillness, which belied the troubles he had known in Congo and still knew in his quest to find a new life here.
Once more, not knowing what to say I just stood and grinned at the men, women and children who came off the bus. They had no idea who I was so they perhaps thought I was Holy Island's village idiot! As we walked to the Centre I asked two boys (aged about 11 years) if they liked football. They had been to see Michael Owen (the new messiah!) ‘unveiled' yesterday. I later discovered they were Seeva (NUFC fan) and Shad (MUFC fan). Seeva lived in Newcastle with his family, Shad was up from London, visiting his cousins. They were of Kurdish descent but of Geordie and Cockney accent, they had lived in the UK most of their lives.
Tea and cakes finished, we had one hour on the island before the tide could change the ‘plan' for the day. Some of the group went for a walk with Barry. A few went to look round the Priory. Jackie, Linda, Troy, Zach and I went round to the Heritage Centre with Richard, Sheeva, Shad and Sheema (Sheeva's little sister aged 3 years.) We drew, rubbed and stamped some Celtic designs, Shad admired the wall hanging and told me he had seen many carpets with great patterns, but he really liked this one.
Getting back to the bus at 12.45pm (the ‘tide guide' said it was safe to cross up to 1pm) there were only about ten of the fifty-five people ready to climb aboard. Sure that the others were on their way we, the Askew's that is, went to get our car. Ten minutes later we drove round to the bus, just to check. Most of the group were aboard . . . we set off ahead of the bus to inform the good folk at our Spittal Church that a bus full of hungry folk would be arriving soon.
1.30pm at Spittal , no sign of he bus, no answer from Jackie's mobile (great things mobile phones so long as you are stood very still on top of a trig point!) so I tried Barry. “Hello, Jason,” said Barry “the bus has left. I think they will make the crossing. Unfortunately though four children are missing, so John Young and I are looking for them and he will bring them in his car sometime!”
By 1.45pm we were all (including the four missing children and John) tucking into quiche, salad, rice, rolls and some Kurdish koftas, stuffed vine leaves, chickpeas, apple pie and fig cakes. In this building where God is worshipped on a Sunday morning (yes, the very sanctuary itself), I mingled on a Thursday afternoon plate in hand and discovered that the Kurdish families were from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Turkey. There was a volunteer interpreter who had come from Belarus and that the lady reading her Bible was from Lithuania. She said she would pray for us.
Football in hand I walked to the beach like the Pied Piper. Teams picked, our game had a hint of a Celtic/Rangers derby match, as Seeva, Shad, Troy, etc took on Sidion, Ali, Zach, etc. In goal I discovered what real sand wiches are like . . .pwrt! Around us people played and paddled, two women (from Georgia) were caught out by a wave and were soaked. At this point ‘Aussie rules' football was abandoned in favour of swimming in the North Sea. Not for me, I sat in the sun chatting to the Georgian family and eating more fig cake!
Once again we set off ahead of the bus, this time to inform the Wooler United Reformed Church folk that our friends were on their way. I have to say that when I walked into the Glendale Hall I was overwhelmed, not just by the wonderful spread of cakes but the fantastic turn out of church folk who had come along to offer hospitality to complete strangers. There was an air of expectation and anticipation, I could almost hear the questioning thoughts, who was coming, what were they like, could they speak English – all the sorts of questions we had had at 10.30am. With great excitement the bus arrived and we all trooped into the hall, by now Richard, Seeva, Shad, Sidion, Ali were like old friends and were constantly asking me “when can we play football again?” The Georgian family asked me if I was really a minister (I am never sure how to take that remark. I think they were pleasantly surprised.)
We said Grace and then tucked into more cake and conversation. As I looked around people were serving and being served. I noticed a group of women I had not yet spoken to so went over and said hello, just like earlier I was nervous of what to say, but I discovered that they were from Eritrea. They laughed when I asked ‘where was that?' Of course it is in East Africa, near the Sudan, one of those often forgotten places where famine and war have caused so much tragedy, and for these women who had only been in the UK for a year, so much struggle. It is not easy over here but they manage, they live in a hostel with 60 other people, it used to be 200, but many have gone. I wondered if they had been sent back by our government . . . back to the struggles from which they had escaped.
I moved to another table where a lovely Kurdish family told of how, in one month's time, they would be forced to return to the trouble from which they had fled. Another family told of how in the place where they were living the ceiling in the children's bedroom had collapsed and no one would do anything about it. ‘You just have to make the best of it.' When I stood up, I saw that the Eritrean women were collecting all the plates and cups and sweeping the floor. The Bus was getting loaded up and the Eritreans were all in the kitchen doing the pots! They liked washing up, they said. I wondered if they missed the simple fact of having a pots of their own to wash and a place of their own to clean . . . a place they could call home.
5.30pm down at the Park in Wooler. Some people walked by the river, some sat on the green grass, some played on the swings, some of us began the return derby match with all the passion we could muster. John the bus-driver made a great goalie! Troy jumped in the river in his shoes to retrieve the ball and I was ‘nutmegged' so many times that Seeva stood behind me most of the time to stop ball from going in!
And finally, we were sat in a circle. It just sort of happened. The evening sunshine and the lush grass of North Northumberland, Kurds, Georgians, Eritreans, Lithuainians, a Scot, a Welshman, a couple of Geordies and the Askews, what a strange spectacle. There we sat with different people singing in their own tongue, we all clapped along, to African, Arabic, and Kurdish songs, the Brits Sang the Skye Boat song together, I did a verse of Elsie Marley! Children sang . . . we all laughed. It seemed the perfect end, to a great day.
As we approached the bus there were hugs and handshakes, exchanges and smiles. Fifty-six people waved and smiled as the bus took our friends back to Newcastle and as I stood waving back with four wet towels (borrowed from Spittal) and a cake slice (which I think belongs to Jenny Young) I felt tears welling up for the sheer privilege of that day. On the way home Troy Zach and Linda said how much they had enjoyed this day. I thought to myself (and told God) ‘if this is what being church is, strangers becoming friends . . . if this is ministry and mission, sharing troubles and joys . . . then count me in!'