‘DESTITUTE SIZE ME’ - Day 1 in association with Northern Ireland Community of Refugees and Asylum Seekers

So on Friday I was set the challenge of living this week solely on a £10 Tesco food voucher.  But why I hear you ask?  Well,

In Belfast, in 2012 would you believe that NICRAS is supporting 16 destitute asylum seekers with £10 a week and a small food parcel from NICRAS?....They  have absolutely no access to mainstream benefits, housing,  a G.P and are not allowed to work, to earn enough money to live above the poverty line?

Many of you know that I often talk about how important it is for the Evangelical church to not only preach the gospel but to live it in terms of social justice issues.  So the time has come for me to step up and take one small step myself.  

Shane Claiborne has commented ......

“We do need to be born again, since Jesus said to that guy named Nicodemus.  But if you tell me I have to be born again to enter the kingdom of God, I can tell you that you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said that to one guy, too.  But I guess thats why we invented highlighters, so we can highlight the parts we like and ignore the rest.” 

Either we as so called ‘evangelicals’ believe, practice, and live the whole scripture or we at the very essence hypocritical, we can’t pick and chose.  

The original challenge was to live on the £10 voucher though I have added an additional challenge for myself, to fully experience what life is like for those who enter Northern Ireland seeking Asylum, I will also be spending one night sleeping rough on the streets of our city.  

I feel this challenge is one that will be extremely daunting at times, I usually live on around £70 a week, enjoy traveling around in my car and really enjoy the added benefits of city centre living such as the cinema, theatre and gigs (in fact the wine I drink during the week  with dinner comes to more than the total I am allowed to live on for the whole week) .... so I can only imagine what it would be like to loose all of these luxuries.  

In fact I am so far removed from such destitution that I needed to run a spell check on the word ‘asylum’ .... I am sure for those who live this way on a daily basis, they do not need to run a spellcheck, because for them it is a living and breathing reality.

Speaking to an Asylum seeker today the following words, really moved me, living like this, ‘you loose track of what you need but have to put up with what you have...... when you think you are moving forward with your life - you just don’t move.’

So journey with me if you will this week as I seek to try and experience in a small way what life must be like on a daily basis for those who enter our country as Asylum seekers and refugees.