My wife and I have known Sian for ten years now, and we have just enjoyed a brief visit from our missionary friend. She currently divides her time between teaching English to groups of Somali and Afghan women; and … working as a park keeper – not quite what you would think of as ‘missionary work’.
Sian has been a ‘traditional’ missionary (see photo): for six years, she worked cross-culturally in Asia, seeking to help those whose lives had been blighted by disasters; whether natural or man-made. However, when she came home eighteen months ago, the Church Mission Society offered her this posting. But how could she be a mission partner in Britain’s capital city? ‘Very easily’ she says, ‘Southall is 90% BME.’ In other words, by far the majority of the people who now live there come from the Black and Minority Ethic communities: so their faith and culture are often very different from what most of us might recognise as ‘British’. Often Sian deals with women who have had to flee hardship and persecution, but whose problems aren’t over as they find it hard living here. As she says: ‘The women have different English abilities, but I have been really excited to be able to help the Afghan ladies in particular cope with some of the bureaucracy of life in the UK, and it has been heartening to see their language ability improve.’
But as park keeper? Actually, Sian is the director of the A Rocha ‘Living Waterways’ Project. A Rocha is a Christian Organisation that believes the Bible tells us we have a God-given responsibility to care for the earth He created. Sian and her team help run a local park with nature conservation, hedgerow planting and the like. They also go into schools teaching pupils about the environment and doing assemblies.
One question Sian is asked is ‘how does this become mission?’ Her answer is simple: ‘Mission isn’t just Bible-bashing, it never has been, but it is about reaching the whole person. A Rocha is a holistic organisation, and in such a cross-cultural place as Southall, we have wonderful opportunities to reach members of the Sikh, Muslim and Hindu populations with talk of how we see care for our world as part of our Christian concern for them and their world.’
If you want to know more about the work of CMS and A Rocha, see www.cms-uk.org and www.arocha.org.uk