Harriet, one of our Empowerment Workers shares how churches and tenants have been working together in partnership since the outbreak of Coronavirus.  

I wanted to quickly share a great story about one of our Churches here in Peterborough. One of our houses became empty around November and I was struggling to get any referrals accepted by the church for a number of reasons. As a team we did a great deal of praying to find the right tenants and inspire the church for a number of months.

We are now 4 months down the line and our two tenants from the winter night shelter have been in the house together for around a month. The church support is incredible, taking tenants with them to church every weekend, meeting them for coffee if they happen to be in the city centre at the same time, sourcing odd pieces of furniture (even a laptop!) from the wider church community when the tenants need them.

Now, with the church services possibly being cancelled, the friendship and support group have committed to visiting the house to pray with tenants and have discussions around readings etc. If this is not possible, they’ve set up skype on the laptop for when they are not able to visit. This is an incredible difference compared to the end of last year and with previous tenants. Thank God for this church and their creativity in supporting these tenants!

The tenants themselves spent 8 weeks together on the night shelter so knew each other before moving in, they have done the garden together, they even share the cooking in the evenings to reduce the cost! We are always invited to stay for dinner and our contractors love that they make them cups of teas too. One of the tenants even called the friendship and support group to check that they were ok whilst they were in isolation!

We thank God for these tenants and the friendship that they have built together. We thank God that the love that the friendship and support group have shown to the tenants is being spread further and reciprocated.

Blessings,

Harriet

This was written just before "lock-down".  We are taking every precaution and following guidelines in this rapidly changing situation.

If you want to know more about how churches and tenants serve one another, then why not read our new book: A House Built on Love