(1) What would you feel like if ... life at Coventry Jesus Centre

What would you feel like if:

You had to make an emergency 999 call and you couldn’t speak English …

Your child comes home from school, aged 5, and can read better than you …

You had an interview for a job but were unsuccessful as you didn’t understand the questions you were asked …

We meet people every day at the Jesus Centre who face predicaments like these and we try our best to help them out. After all, that is exactly what Jesus has told us to do. He told us to love people and not ignore their human needs. Remember … that story of the Good Samaritan?

Let me tell you about a few people that come to the Jesus Centre (no one’s real name is used.)

Malika is from India. Although she is about forty she had never had a paid job as she spent her time looking after sick relatives. She applied for a job in a care home and was terrified when she heard she had an interview.

Preet, my helper, and I gave her lots of interview practice and all three of us were over the moon when she got the job.

Malika is coming to see me later today. I’m longing to hear how she is getting on.
 James is homeless. He wanted to set up an email address and learn how to email so he could contact people. We spent an hour or two with him and now he can use the computers at the Jesus Centre and email whoever he wants ..

Brigita is from Latvia. She feels really unconfident in her English skills. She understands, but struggles to speak, English. She comes twice a week to the Jesus Centre to learn and she is doing really well. We love having her in the class. When it was her birthday she bought us all some chocolate!

Recently Brigita helped us with the cleaning at the Jesus Centre. We made sure she knew a range of cleaning words: toilet, sweep, mop etc. She really wanted a job, a job doing anything.

Today Brigita’s friend came to the Jesus Centre for breakfast. He had a smile on his face. “Brigita has got a cleaning job,” he said.

He told us that Brigita had received a phone call about the job. He said it was because she has been learning at the Jesus Centre that she understood the call.

Elwira and Wincent are from Poland. They were homeless and joined our Bond Scheme and now they have a home. They also come to learn English regularly. They are very grateful and Elwira gives me a hug when it’s time to go home.

Benazir is a young Pakistani woman. She is separated from her husband and lives in a hostel.

Benazir can only read and write a little so she comes to learn. She’s doing really well and picks things up very quickly. On Monday she was very happy. She read a sentence unaided! Benazir has also joined the Bond Scheme.

The thing about working at the Jesus Centre is ... you never know who is going to step through the door  next… and it’s stretch, streeetch, streeeeeeetch all the way … mmm … as long as we’re being stretched, pulled, fashioned into having the heart of Jesus i think it’s OK …

 The ‘Bond Scheme’ is run by Coventry Jesus Centre to enable people who are homeless to access and hold onto private rented accommodation