Birmingham UK: Phone calls, visits, Sunday Services and Sisters Meetings

Youth activities become a bit more sporadic, and difficult to organise during the holiday period. Several young people hope to attend the Special Workshop in Korea, from August 1st to 21st. Tommy and Patrick Pritty travelled to South Africa with Robert Williamson to assist in Youth Programmes and Workshops for 2 weeks. Wales. We took 7 of our older 2nd Gen to Wales for almost a week, staying in the house in Porthmadog which we can rent from an Anglican priest and his wife. We had a variety of ‘up and down’ (like the Welsh accent) experiences, including going down a deep slate mine in Blaenau Ffestiniog, and up Mount Snowdon on our last full day.

Witnessing and Outreach

We continued our Family Evenings with 10 advanced guests hearing about The Life of Jesus, and 15 guests coming for an Introductory Talk. Half of the 15 comprised two Syrian families who recently arrived in Birmingham. It was such a joy to meet them, although the pain is lying just underneath the surface. The elderly mother of one family sometimes could not hold back her tears.

We really want to try and look after them, to the extent that we can. We hope that they will feel inspired to come to the Blessing next year.

We tried to visit as many of our Muslim friends as we could during the final week of Ramadan, bringing an Eid card and a small gift to pay our respects. We often came home with more gifts than we had set out with, such is peoples’ generosity.

We were invited to several Eid celebrations, and attended one with the Shia community which we are a part of, at the Al Mahdi Institute, and another in the home of a lovely elderly couple. If only everyone could have these kind of experiences to take away the fear and mistrust through meeting one another

heart-to-heart, and sharing our joys and sorrows together. We also learned of two tragic deaths in families we know, and Patricia attended both the funerals which was very much appreciated.

A former Mayor of Wellingborough, who we met in India in 2003, and who came with his wife to the Blessing last February, invited us to be the guest speakers at the AGM of the Wellingborough Interfaith Group. He is the current Chair of the group, and asked us to speak about our interfaith work with UPF and WFWP. Their group has been finding it difficult to build relationships with Wellingborough’s Muslim community.

It was a wonderful evening, and I think we could convey quite a lot from our various activities and ‘methodology’, as well as making new friends in the outer reaches of our Midlands region.