|
Evangelising in the Endz
Kristina Cooper, who has been reaching out in evangelisation to the young people of her estate, reflects on what has happened over the last six years and what God is doing
|
|
It is now almost six years since I made the decision to transfer the focus of my time and energy from serving in the parish to trying to evangelise my neighbours in “the Endz”, the south London housing estate where I live. There were many reasons for this but one of them was that I realised that almost everyone I knew was a Christian and, as the years passed, whenever my friends and I got together, we tended to talk more about what was wrong with the parish or the Church than the wonderful things God was doing. I guess this often comes with the fatigue of long term service when you are not evangelising and getting to share in the joy of new converts. Six years on, regardless of any other fruits that there might be, I realise I have probably been the greatest beneficiary of my decision. I knew from the start that this was to be a long term commitment and that I must not look for quick results. And this has proved to be the case. At times, however, I have seen some wonderful epiphanies of grace, which have given me great encouragement. A few summers ago, for example, I had a group of three or four teens coming for several weeks saying the rosary almost daily and composing Christian raps. Then more recently, I opened the door one winter night to find two teenagers I had never seen before wanting to come in. It was late and I was a little nervous. It seemed they had heard about me on the estate. Did they want a drink, I asked. “No”, they said. They wanted me to teach them about God and to pray! There then followed an amazing hour of witness and sharing. I thought revival had surely come when they were coming off the streets to ask for prayer. Unfortunately their religious fervour only lasted a week or so. Such is life! Learning to love unconditionally This is when you have to learn unconditional love and to let go of your desires and expectations for them. I realise the Lord is letting me, as a single person, experience in a small way, the joys and disappointments of motherhood, albeit that mine is a spiritual one. Even so it can still sometimes be very hard, particularly when you see the young people making wrong choices over which you have no control. These experiences have helped me to get in touch with my own powerlessness and enabled me to learn to trust God more and to realise that He truly is in charge. This has been hard to do as by nature and upbringing I’m very self-sufficient. One of my characteristics, even as a child, was that I would never attempt anything I wasn’t sure I would succeed at. The downside of this, however, was that there developed in me an almost pathological fear of failure. Later, when I became a committed Christian this was transferred to my spiritual life where failure almost took on the dimension of sin. Thus I had a tendency to scale down God’s call to something I knew I could always manage in my own strength. On reflection this was not just because of a fear of failure but also due to a lack of faith. Deep down in my subconscious was the fear that if God didn’t help me, perhaps He didn’t exist and I didn’t want to risk putting my faith to the test in that way. The truth is our secular culture often saps away our faith without us even realising it. God on His side, however, wants us to grow in faith by learning to become more dependent on Him. But we can’t do this, if we restrict ourselves to situations where we can do everything without His help or grace. Risk I realise, is essential to the Christian life for faith to grow. God’s call When I began I knew it would not be easy. And this has proved to be the case, but in a sense this has become immaterial. When you know God has called you to do something, you know you just have to do it, regardless of your feelings, which fluctuate, or any apparent fruit. Although at times I have felt depressed by the enormity of the situation and the hopelessness of it all, I know, I wouldn’t like to be anywhere else or do anything else. My very poverty and powerlessness in the situation has also helped me to see the signs of God’s action in ways perhaps I wouldn’t have noticed if everything was always going well or if I was working in an area where I felt I had some expertise. The irony is that I would have never thought I would be someone who could work with teenagers. I somehow skipped the vulnerability of the teenage years myself going straight from high achieving child to sensible adult without a blip. In fact I always felt rather unsafe in the company of teenagers with their moods and insecurity. Instead now, through becoming friends with them, God has given me a new empathy and understanding of them and, in the process, helped me face some of my own unresolved issues from my teenage years. Daily beans on toast I also realise God has used this outreach to help make me a more balanced person in other ways. I am someone who loves talking and discussing big ideas and taking on challenging and exciting projects. I am not so hot on the practical and routine, but this is ultimately what this call has turned out to be, for all the initial glamour of taking the gospel to the “hood”. Day after day, it has often been simply providing endless servings of baked beans on toast, playing cards and just hanging out with the variety of boys who have turned up on my doorstep. I have done no more than a mother does for her own children, except I get to send them home when they get too diffi cult or I have had enough! I have learnt that love does not mean you have to feel loving all the time, or say you love people. It is acts of love that count, and the time you give people and this comes from an act of will when you put the needs of others above your own. And you don’t need to be ministering to delinquent teens to do this. God gives everyone opportunities for this, right where they are. When you are single like me, however, and there are no children to look after or aged parents to nurse, it can be all too easy to live a lonely, sterile life and become over-pre-occupied with your own needs and desires, instead of reaching out to love others, which is what ultimately makes us fully human. I remember being very impressed by a film I watched some years ago called Marvin’s Room. It compared the life of two sisters. One (played by Diane Keaton) who was now dying from cancer, had stayed at home to look after their bedridden father and scatty old aunt, while the other (Meryl Streep) fearing she would have her life ruined by such responsibilities, had spent twenty years away from home. The fi lm showed how the sister who had stayed and had had, on the surface, a very limited life full of sacrifice was full of love and joy, while the other sister, who had always been looking for her own happiness, had become bitter and disappointed. At the end of the fi lm, the dying sister, confi des to her younger sister, how blessed, she has been in her life. The sister looks surprised. “I have had so much love,” she says. Embarrassed her younger sister, replies, “Yes auntie and daddy really love you because of all you have done for them.” “No,” replies the older one, “I don’t mean the love I have received, but the love I have been able to give.” And this I have found to be true too. The love that transforms us is not so much the love that others give to us, but the love that Christ enables us to give to others, and which we, in turn, benefi t from through being His channels. Learning to respond to initiatives of the Holy Spirit Over the years I have also had to learn to lay aside my own inspirations , which never seem to work anyway and instead to respond to the initiatives of the Spirit. Looking back I can see that those things that have borne fruit, have usually been those coming from outside, either from the boys themselves or from others. Some of these have really surprised me, particularly the popularity of traditional Catholic devotions like the rosary and the Divine Mercy. The fashion for rosary beads, for example, has not abated, and I’m still constantly asked for them by children of all ages. This gives me a great opportunity to negotiate contracts with them, such as learning particular prayers or carrying out various good deeds. I also now have a small grotto to “Our Lady of the Endz” in my garden (actually a statue of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal donated by a Goodnews reader a couple of years ago). When a friend installed it for me, the effect on a couple of my neighbours was tangible. One, a Filipino Catholic lady, beamed with delight and shrieked, “Love has come, love has come” and rushed home to bring a huge bunch of lilies and roses to lay in front of the grotto. Meanwhile my very secular neighbour, a retired British Gas manager, told me he thought it was “very pretty” and suggested holding a dedication service and inviting the neighbours. He told me the other day that although the statue was directed towards my flat, he felt consoled that his door was also in view and could be seen out of the corner of Our Lady’s eye. He even suggested putting out a petition box for people’s prayer requests. God’s Crew This year generally has felt like a time of great grace. Helped by a couple of friends I have had a couple of outreach barbecues (one on the feast of Divine Mercy and the other on the eve of Pentecost) where we ended up praying for several of the young people. Now we also have set up a regular God slot time on Wednesdays called “God’s Crew” evenings when teenagers who are interested in talking about God or praying can come. A fantastic group of email intercessors has also emerged to pray for the Endz and the work here and, after all this time of praying that God would send someone who could be a male role model to help, one has arrived! Also in the last six months I seem to have built some new good relationships with people in the area, so watch this space for what God is going to do and please keep praying for me.
|
|
|
 |
||
|
|
|
