After Saturday off it came to my final day in Yorkshire, and it was great to be able to meet up with Andrew Grinnell. It was through a lot of what he said at Roots last year that my thoughts came together about this, well, desire to serve the poor I guess. His Forgotten 5% presentations about the work of NEO Salvation Army centres in particular (an area of ministry for which he has overall control), demonstrated the stark need of many areas and pulled at my desires and many of the things I had been thinking about during my time in south London.
We met for a chat and a coffee and then headed back to his local area, East End Park, which apparently is in the bottom 7% of areas in the UK as measured by the Indices of Multiple Depravation. If it's that high I wouldn’t like to see those places below it. Row after row of back-to-back housing, which, to give a picture, unless you're at the end of the terrace then you're surrounded by three houses. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure you could fit about least three of these houses in my back garden. Windows boarded up, metal grids on most windows and doors, unswept streets and nowhere for anyone to play except for where a few houses had been knocked down.
One girl we passed was a friend of Andrew’s daughter and was sitting outside playing with a few friends. He told me how his daughter was shocked going round her house and discovering she had no toys, and set about trying to get her some. The starkest thing for me was seeing one boy walking through a field on his own, wearing, on Easter Sunday, his school uniform. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but if someone has to wear their school uniform in the middle of the holidays then just how little must that family have?
We met for a chat and a coffee and then headed back to his local area, East End Park, which apparently is in the bottom 7% of areas in the UK as measured by the Indices of Multiple Depravation. If it's that high I wouldn’t like to see those places below it. Row after row of back-to-back housing, which, to give a picture, unless you're at the end of the terrace then you're surrounded by three houses. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure you could fit about least three of these houses in my back garden. Windows boarded up, metal grids on most windows and doors, unswept streets and nowhere for anyone to play except for where a few houses had been knocked down.
One girl we passed was a friend of Andrew’s daughter and was sitting outside playing with a few friends. He told me how his daughter was shocked going round her house and discovering she had no toys, and set about trying to get her some. The starkest thing for me was seeing one boy walking through a field on his own, wearing, on Easter Sunday, his school uniform. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but if someone has to wear their school uniform in the middle of the holidays then just how little must that family have?
We spoke about the possibility of me going there myself next year, and it seemed like it wasn’t necessarily the best option, but still a possibility. If nothing else it was good to have an idea of just how stark poverty can be in the UK. As Andrew said to me it’s nothing when compared to Africa, but when you see the relative luxury we have in many parts of the UK, it really does beggar belief how places like this can exist. I really pray that Andrew and the other Christians living in the community can bring the light of God into such a dark place and that He will be glorified on that estate.
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