The Besom Project

At the risk of blowing my own trumpet, we did something fantastic last week - "The Besom Project".

Besom started small over 20 years ago and now operates in 30 locations around the country, Cambridge being one of them. It aims to "provide a bridge between those who want to give money, time, skills or things, and those who are in need". For more info on Besom visit their website. I organised a group of ordinands to do something to help a Cambridge family, and all we had to do was give our time. Besom put us in touch with a family in need, and provided the tools and equipment we needed to do the job.

The story is best told by plagarising my own material, so here are edited highlights of my daily prayer updates that I sent to the Ridley community. The names of the family have been changed to preserve their anonymity.

Wednesday

Thank you for your prayers for us in chapel today. A team of five managed to clear an overgrown back garden and painstakingly weed a gravelled front garden. Along the way a fair amount of time was spent chatting and praying with our 'recipient' Sarah, who is happily publicising to anybody who passes what a wonderful job these trainee vicars are doing for her and her family.

Sarah is a single mum who has struggles with aspects of life and with bringing up her two daughters Dawn and Charlotte. Dawn seems to be the one who manages to combine schoolwork with keeping the household going, and is remarkably level-headed for it.

Today the social worker visited and suddenly there is an increased interest in the family, which we hope is unrelated to our presence. We are also making efforts through the appropriate channels to draw attention to a broken soil pipe with Sarah's disinterested faceless landlord, The Council, and have uncovered a bees nest for them to deal with too!

Tomorrow we continue with the gardening, and move on to re-painting Dawn's bedroom, but we have taken the family to our hearts and want to do so much more for them than we can possibly achieve in 3 days.

Becca and Charlie have both prayed with Sarah on her front doorstep, something that she welcomed.

Please continue to pray for the team, both those who will be joining us tomorrow for the first time, and for those who are exhausted from today's efforts. Also that we continue to deal tactfully with issues that arise, and resist the temptation to totally blitz the house to bring it to our own personal standards. Finally, for Sarah, particularly worried about the sudden increase in interest from Social Services, and turning to us for advice.

Thursday

Day 2 in the Big Besom house was as productive as yesterday. We took a van full of rubbish to the tip, some progress towards Sarah's desire to get a skip for most of the stuff she doesn't have the ability to dispose of. Work in both gardens moved on, and we're starting to feel that we're getting on top of it all.

Our main target today was the redecoration of Dawn's bedroom, and we got further than I expected we would. The room was totally emptied (but given how jam-packed full it was this took nearly an hour) before being thoroughly cleaned and painted. So far we've got two coats of paint on the ceiling, one on the walls and one on the woodwork. Tomorrow we need to raise that count to 2 coats of everything, along with returning the furniture and belongings to some sort of order.

Yesterday's 'prayer on the doorstep' was superceded today by Andy’s 'Bible Study on the doorstep', reading some parts of Matthew's Gospel with Sarah. I'm not sure how we can top that on Friday, but we continue to pray with Sarah as and when she needs it.

Please continue to pray for Sarah, Dawn and Charlotte, with whom we have a great relationship. Sarah was really touched by our prayers for her yesterday, and we're finding it difficult to remain emotionally detached. Again, we're all tired after another day's hard work.

Friday

Phew - it's all over! Today we finished everything we'd set out to achieve. With the final coats of paint done by lunchtime, all that remained was lots of finishing flourishes. It's not quite like it is on the TV, where they have lots of money to throw at it, but today produced three rose bushes and a rotary washing line for the garden and some fresh furniture for Dawn's bedroom.

Charlie prayed with Sarah over the new 'rose garden' for a new beginning, blessing the garden and the house. The roses came after Sarah told one of us that she loved them, but that her last rose bush had been dug up some time ago. She now gazes out of her kitchen window at her flowers.

We replaced her dilapidated washing line with a new rotary drier, which we now know is one thing that she's been wanting to save up for. Dawn loves her revived bedroom. With everything having come out and gone back in for the redecoration she can now see the floor, and is having a good clearout as things go back in. A quick search of Besom's limited stock of donated furniture found a desk, CD shelves and rug for her. The desk provides her with an unprecedented place to do her homework, and is already proudly and neatly outfitted with her stationery.

Dawn gave me some insight into the social worker's increased involvement this week - this was extra support being provided as they weren't sure how her mum would cope with all the work being done in her house.

Before we left, Sarah told me that we've moved her closer to God this week, and that as a result she's taking Charlotte to Sunday School at her local church this Sunday. She also told that the support we've given has made her stronger - she acknowledges a problem with alcohol, but has visited 2 shops today and avoided the temptation of buying any. It's her 50th birthday in a couple of weeks time, and she's now planning a garden party to show it off to her friends!

This sort of stuff is where things happen - on the frontiers demonstrating Christ's love. We've learnt loads - but it can be summarised as "be bold, seize the chance"

Monday

As I write this blog entry, we might never know the impact that we've had on that family's life. We do know that Sarah and Charlotte went to their local church yesterday, despite the pouring rain, and that they are intending to go back. Several of my fellow students are attached to that church and each one has told me this morning of how Sarah's spirits have been lifted by this team of trainee vicars. I'm sure we haven't heard the last from her, but we will have left the area long before the story ends.

So the question for us, both students and staff here at Ridley is "what next?". For you, dear reader, in your churches and homegroups, it is "what can I do that will make a difference?". Even if there isn't a Besom project near you, what is stopping you from doing this yourself?

The blog software prevents me from putting as many pictures as I'd like here, so please go to my Facebook photo-album (you don't need to be a Facebook user to go there)