Coffee, Dry Cleaning and Finding Asylum.

This afternoon I met a friend for coffee, preceded by a walk in Victoria Park which is in process of bursting into daffodil yellow, the trees and shrubs showing buds equally impatient with Spring, and bursting with the promise of newly green leaves. Coffee followed, and a longish conversation about many things we've had in common for many a year.

 

Then came the sacramental moment. One of our Iranian friends who has been given permission to stay following a successful asylum application has opened a dry cleaning and tailoring business just down from the coffee shop. We went in to say hello, and along with the never far away smile, and before the conversation, he dipped beneath the counter and came up with a big box of not quite finished ferrero rochers!

 

As we munched happily, talking and catching up about how business was going, I was aware of this man's long journey, his almost two years amongst us, and the recent reunion with his wife and family who have joined him to make a new life here. And yes, it was a grace moment, sanctified by a fellowship deeper than words and signified by the simple act of eating and laughing together.

 

All of us who have involvement with people seeking asylum know perfectly well the complexities and ambiguities of the system, the pressures on Government and the human cost to those caught up in circumstances they didn't create. To support and accompany people through all this is a ministry to which our church has been called and to which it has responded with generosity, imagination, hard work, faithful prayer and the full realisation that, while it is more blessed to give than to receive, most of the time we receive as much, if not more, than we give. That's how grace works.