Getting known and getting to know

That’s really what we are about at the moment – getting ourselves known while getting to know our neighbours, our community, what’s happening and what’s not. So we were chuffed when the Newham Mag (a local council publication that gets delivered to every household in the borough) expressed an interest in doing a feature on what has brought us to Stratford.

To be honest the response has been amazing, really encouraging and quite humbling. As a result of the feature we are now regularly being ‘recognised’ in the street, in the doctors surgery, at the local schools - seemingly wherever we go. While many people have phoned or emailed just to welcome us to Stratford and to encourage us with their own stories of living and working in the communities that make up Newham.

Two such calls were from Paul and John. Paul works locally for Involve - a drugs programme/team working to raise awareness, while educating and aiding rehabilitation. An ex-addict himself he exudes an all-consuming passion to reach those on the margins of society and share from his own experience the hope-filled possibility of an alternative story. As it happens he’s also dead keen to get involved with what we are up to!

John manages a local church-led community centre and he got in touch to encourage us with stories of their own community-focussed journey and to invite us to have a look at their ‘place’ and to learn from what they are up to. Having been across it was great to meet John, to hear how God had blessed what they were up to and to glimpse a little of their future vision. Oh and I also saw my first ‘toy library’. It was really encouraging to see how from fairly small acorns a pretty large tree had grown.

We continue to be humbled by the response to ‘our little feature’ and the warmth of welcome we’ve received since arriving. We’re chuffed that John and Paul felt compelled to get in touch, it’s great to be getting known, but its better still to get to know others. Who knows, perhaps the very article which prompted these new connections will itself prove to be a fruitful little acorn.