A House Built on Love

The enterprising team creating homes for the homeless

Ed Walker,ED WALKER

• Publisher: SPCK Publishing
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780281081202
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

In 2010, Ed Walker founded Hope into Action, a charity with a vision - of the church at the forefront of the fight against homelessness. A House Built on Love tells the remarkable story of Hope into Action's rapidly-growing mission and how it has worked in partnership with churches to supply homes, support, friendship and love for the homeless and marginalized, earning the Guardian's Public Service Award in 2017 and an award from the Centre for Social Justice.This is a powerful, eye-opening Christian autobiography that provides insight into the difficult reality of homelessness in the UK. With raw honesty Ed relates the struggle as he and his wife Rachel stepped out in faith, developed a new theology of sharing and saw both tragic and wonderful outcomes, and shows how we can meet and grow in Christ as we interact with those in the shadows and those hidden in darkness.Visionary, inspiring and touching, A House Built on Love is a book for anyone who wants to know more about Hope into Action and their mission of housing the homeless. Their story will leave you with a stronger understanding of one of the most important social issues of today, and show how reaching out with love and compassion can have a life-changing impact.

1

New horizons

‘Take the first step in faith.

You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.’

–Martin Luther King Jr.

Masterei, Darfur, Sudan,

The cool morning air was rapidly fading away. Soon the temperature would pierce through the 30s and gradually swathe us in the suffocating heat of the high 40s.

I sat on a large outcrop of rock gazing down at the market in Masterei. I watched the hustle and bustle as the beleaguered population took advantage of the few hours of truce afforded by market day. Here I could see the whole strata of society, distinguishable by the height of the animals they rode. My eyes fell on a group of women, their swathes of clothes a riot of colour, selling a few last provisions to a group of men loading their donkeys. The donkey owners were the privileged ones. Most never reached such ranks, getting by with nothing more elevated than their shoes–or even just their bare feet. As I looked down, I could see the elite, with thin scarves wrapped over their faces to shield them from the sandstorms, riding in on stallions and camels. I watched as they dismounted, took down their guns, slung them over their shoulders and then walked into the market. It was like the Wild West on speed, Sudan-style.

I had scrambled up the 10-foot high rock earlier in the day, when the temperature had been more conducive to such efforts. By my side was my colleague Tim, who was soon to take over the reins from me in leading and supporting the Tearfund teams in Darfur. Now we were perched in a perfect spot to survey our surroundings. I gazed out across the land that had been the backdrop to the challenges and rewards of my efforts to bring some humanity to the ravaged lives of the people of Darfur.

We had time on our hands. It was our day off, and there was nothing to do in Masterei but wait for the heat to abate, after which we’d be able to take a walk as the African sun set over the sandy Chadian plains to the west. It was the ideal moment to review our past and look ahead to our futures. Tim knew what lay before him. It was here, in front of him. My future lay off in the distance, hazy and unknown.

My mind reflected on the scenes that had made up my life here in Sudan for the last three and a half years. I thought back to my meeting the day before with the leaders of one of the many armed rebel groups: all wearing bandanas, bullets strapped to their chests and AK-47s dangling over their shoulders, all looking about 14.

I thought about how such negotiations had become so much more complex over my time here. When I had first arrived, most of the area had been controlled by the ‘Government of Sudan’, known as the Janjaweed–Arabic for ‘devil on horseback’–due to their attacks that forced tens of thousands from their homes and killed thousands. Their control of the area had at least given a relative sense of calm and security at that time. Now they had splintered, as had the rebels, and there was a cross-border war with Chad, a land just visible in the distance. As I scanned the scene around me, I estimated that within six miles of our location there were over six separate armed groups, factions or rebel forces.

Within that same distance was the scene of the most disturbing security incident I experienced in all my nine years of working in war or conflict affected areas. In my early days here, we had been able to carry out our humanitarian activities with the expectation of respect. But that had all changed on 1 September 2005 when our Tearfund convoy had been attacked and our staff personally assaulted: beaten with rifle butts, threatened with guns to their heads and subjected to sexual violence.

I looked down to my right. Less than 500 metres away, I could see the compound of the UN peace-keeping force, with its high barbed wire fence, large block of concrete across the driveway – to prevent drive-in suicide bomb attacks – and its high wall behind. The security measures weren’t without reason: a few months earlier a rebel group had launched a rocket-propelled grenade through their compound and killed a UN peace keeping soldier.

I shifted my gaze to my left, where I could see our compound, with its bamboo fence and no protection other than a gate. We had had two large 4X4 Toyota trucks stationed there, but now we just used donkey carts to get around the town. We had changed our policy after another rebel group (not the ones we had met yesterday or the ones who had attacked the UN) had stormed our compound, forced our staff onto their knees and held guns to them until the keys had been handed over. As far as we knew, both trucks were now being used in the cross-border war with Chad.

Tim and I reflected on how crazy this scene was, how hard it would be to explain it back home and how privileged we were to have lived through these past years. This was my final trip to Darfur. In total, I had lived and worked in Sudan for six years. Its climate and topography were the hardest of any I had worked in, and the incidents and ‘evil’ (for that is what it was) I’d experienced either directly or vicariously had left me emotionally marked. I still loved my job and life and was upset at the thought of leaving. Yet my wife, Rach, who was carrying our second child, and I somehow knew it was time to go. Our prompting had come as we had read the book If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat.1 We had both felt convicted that our current environment had become our ‘boat’.

I loved and respected Tim as a man, a friend and a colleague. It was a joy to be handing over to him, and I knew he would do a better job than I. The sun was now rising and I breathed in, savouring, as if for the last time, the sights and sounds below me. Then we crept off the large rock and started sauntering back. We both avoided talking about work, which had dominated so much of our conversation over the past couple of years.

As we got near the compound, Tim said to me, ‘You’ll never have anything like this in the UK, Ed.’

‘I know,’ I replied sadly.

It was true; I loved my life here. The future in the mists of the horizon is harder to love than the present in one’s clear grasp. Uncertainty, apprehension and doubt tugged at my confidence as I looked ahead. But when you sense the call, you have to try to follow. No matter the joys and challenges, striving to be in the centre of God’s will is the inspiration and aspiration of all who want to follow Jesus.

It was time to step out of the boat. A new adventure awaited.

2

The man on the bench

‘When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them.’

–Matthew 14.14

We arrived back in the United Kingdom while Rach was still pregnant. After reconnecting with our native land through a caravan trip, which included taking our daughter Iona to Iona, we settled in Peterborough.

However, some things were a definite improvement: playgrounds, for example. I hadn’t found a single playground for Iona to play at in Khartoum. So to pass time, I would walk her down dusty streets, trying to excite her by pointing out the odd stray bird or maybe . . . well, I can’t think of anything else I would distract her with. Most children her age could mimic the sound of farmyard animals; she would make a donkey sound every time we heard the bells of a milk cart hustling down the other side of our high compound walls. Arriving in Peterborough, she passed hours of her days climbing rope ladders, growing confident on slides, whooshing on swings and engaging in no end of other adventures.

While she was enjoying this part of our transition, I was wrestling with other aspects of it–in particular, how our lives fitted in our new and very different surroundings.

During the six years I spent in Sudan, the verses that had inspired, sustained and strengthened me the most were from Isaiah 58:

‘Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice

and untie the cords of the yoke,

to set the oppressed free

and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry

and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter–

when you see the naked, to clothe them,

and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?’1

A few verses on, the passage continues, ‘The LORD will guide you always;

he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.’2

I can vividly remember trying to work out how those key verses related to the UK in the 21^st century. ‘How, God, do these words apply?’ I would pray. In coordination meetings in Khartoum, we would discuss our response to the destruction of villages and the resulting displacement of thousands of people. My first coordination meeting with the council in Peterborough involved listening to a woman passionately arguing the need for improved Peterborough playground provision.

Really?

‘Is this what I have to get enthusiastic about now, God? How exactly do my favourite verses become relevant here? I know you must need Christians in this city, but to do what exactly? What should a Christian be doing in a place such as this?’ The verses seemed to apply so aptly to Sudan, where one’s passion would so often run hot and one’s sun-scorched frame would need strengthening. Windy fenland Peterborough, by contrast, felt cold and somewhat muddy.

All such existential wrangling subsided on 23 September 2008 when Rach heroically produced our second beautiful daughter, Elana. I set about recovering from the particularly long and traumatic labour, while Rach manfully nursed and fed our new bundle of joy and vulnerability, who somehow, already, held such power over our hearts.

One morning while on paternity leave from my new job, where I was working with homeless hostels and young people’s projects, I was merrily playing with our first daughter in yet another playground we’d found, this time near the city centre. The autumnal air was still fresh, yet to be fully warmed by the rising sun, when I saw a man sitting on a bench by the edge of the playground. He looked a bit like a tramp (if you will excuse the term) but not quite; he was clean, his beard was short and his hair looked recently washed. We got chatting and I asked him his story. His experience was typical of what thousands of people go through every year in this country. He had left prison that morning, full of hope and determination for a fresh start. As he was leaving through the prison gates, the prison officer said to him, ‘We’ll see you back in three months’ time, mate.’ At which point, his fragile self-esteem crumbled as he faced the reality that he had nowhere to go. He had taken the £47 prisoners receive on discharge and, by the time I met him, was halfway through a bottle of something pretty strong. He’d probably made a logical decision. What else was he to do? What would I have done in his shoes?

‘Where were you before you went inside?’ I asked him.

‘I was in Cambridge.’

‘Why don’t you go back to Cambridge?’

He rolled his eyes at my naivety. ‘Because if I go back to Cambridge, I’ll end up surrounded by the same old mates in the same old hostel and I will end up back inside in three months’ time.’

‘Well, don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll try to help. I work with three hostels.’

My naivety persisted. I presumed I would be able to sort this. His eyes, however, betrayed a better understanding of the system. I couldn’t trace a glimmer of excitement in them.

I tried each hostel. None would take him: ‘too old’, ‘don’t take ex-offenders’. Dispirited, I tried one in Norwich: the same response.

As I...