Church of the poor - Jesus Army

LOVE
IS ALWAYS RELEVANT
IF YOU want to sell a house in
St Ann’s or are looking for a
job you give the neighbouring,
more up market district, Mapperley,
as your postal address.
The public’s perception of St
Ann’s is, in fact, based on quite
distorted impressions. Despite
its reputation I love living in St
Ann’s and working there as an
adult literacy teacher.
For a year Winston spent an
hour with me each week so I
could help him with his spelling
and reading. We had such
fun together as we laughed our
way through the sessions and
his warm-hearted humour and
toothy grin cheered me in a
dark time of my life. Every now
and again after he left I would
bump into him on my way to
work and experience again his
cheerful grin and hearty greeting
as he gripped my hand and
exclaimed, “Hello, my teacher!”
Earlier this year I turned on
Radio Nottingham to hear the
morning news. I couldn’t believe
it when I heard Winston’s
name. He had been charged
with shooting and wounding a
man in a night club after a petty
row and had been sent down
for 30 years. I rushed out to buy
a local paper. Was it was true?
Sadly it was. A large picture was
displayed of the most forlorn
Jesus Life One/2008 Page 26
St Ann’s is the most deprived ward in Nottingham.
It has an unenviable reputation for drug dealing and
gun crime. Julia Faire tells some of its less wellknown
stories – of love in the midst of adversity.
pelled” or “constrained” by it
(2 Corinthians 5:14.) This is the
key: love.
Love, God’s love poured
through His people, is always
relevant to people’s lives.
Instinctively people know when
they are loved.
I am a white middle-aged
woman from a middle class
background – a teacher at that!
Yet, I love to talk to some of the
young black hoodied youths
that hang out around St Ann’s.
At first some of them have
Winston I could have imagined,
with his young, sad, black face
and tortured eyes.
Grief came over me. I kept
looking at the picture (I still
have it up on my wall.) Winston,
why did you do it?
I wrote to Winston. I didn’t
condone him; it was a terrible
thing he had done. I did
encourage him to carry on with
his spelling in prison. I told him
I was praying for him. Winston
wrote to me. He told me he had
done a foolish thing. He was
so grateful to hear from “his
teacher”. He was doing “education”
in prison. I wrote back.
I told him that God is always,
always the God of new starts
(and encouraged him that I
could see his spelling was really
improving!)
I can’t forget Winston. One
day, one day, I pray he will come
to know Jesus and experience
God’s new start for himself.
The message of Jesus must
reach people like many who
live in St Ann’s who have found
themselves on the underside of
life (the message which Jesus
said was especially for the poor
and the underprivileged.) Yet,
words alone rarely communicate
the gospel effectively. Paul
spoke of the love of God that so
filled him that he was “compocket
to spare. Now he was
a helpless addict himself, not
only to drugs but drink as well,
and had known spells of prison,
street begging, homelessness
and living in squats in St Ann’s.
Tony kept coming and some
friends of mine, Alan and Carol,
took him into their home. He
got baptised and on the advice
of his key worker went away for
10 months to a drug rehab. He
wasn’t allowed to contact us. I
had my doubts. Would we ever
see Tony again?
love crosses every
human barrier
looked at me a bit strange but
after a while I have got a friendly
greeting from them and a smile.
Love, the love that comes
from God through us, crosses
every human barrier of race,
age, gender and social difference.
Love is always “relevant”.
It is not just the young who will
reach the young; it is not just
the old who will reach the old or
the white the white or the black
the black.
Tony first turned up at one
of our church’s meetings with a
friend. His friend was drunk and
kept interrupting the speaker
– making the meeting very
“lively and interactive”! Tony sat
attentive and after the meeting I
went over to talk to him.
He was living in a homeless hostel
in the centre of town. Once
he had known “better times,”
being a drug runner to one of
the biggest dealers in the town.
Then he had had money in his
After 10 months Tony returned
to Nottingham. Gone
was the impetuous restlessness
of a young man with no
roots. He steered away from
his old haunts and abandoned
his life of crime and addiction.
He found himself a steady
girlfriend, Tracey, who in time
joined us too and was baptised.
Tony had returned as a disciple.
Love won Tony. But now his
love wins others. At Firstfruits,
our Christian community house
in Nottingham, I am often
greeted by this young man with
a warm hug.
The gospel has to be lived out
in love, and lived out in such a
way that people can see it. Like
Jesus, it has to be lived out on
the street, in the park, on the
precinct, in the shop, at work,
outside, inside one’s neighbour’s
house.
Love, just like Jesus, is always
relevant.
JL
Some names have been changed
www.jesus.org.uk