Four wardrobes in one day (and other stories)

It’s been a while since our last blog entry, so here’s Becky Lewis, our Co-ordinator, with a bit of an update…

In both in March and April, it was awesome to have the Revive team from Vineyard church giving their time to help a couple of families decorate their homes. In one home, there was one wall with four layers of chipboard and wallpaper to take off – the team worked incredibly hard for hours, and the recipient was really pleased! They have also painted her kitchen and bathroom for her.

The second recipient the team helped was a mum-to-be and they spent an afternoon decorating the baby’s bedroom, getting it ready for her arrival. As this was happening, two members of the team collected a carpet that had been offered and brought it back to lay in the same recipient’s hallway. It was great to hear how the team helped her make her flat feel more like home.

We’ve had several van runs over the last couple of months, delivering everything from beds and kitchen utensils to four wardrobes in one day! It’s been amazing to help so many people give, and to have a new van giver too as I also learnt to drive the van this month (as you can see below)!

This week, we had a team of students from G2 church give their time to help clear a garden. The garden was full of rubbish, and they spent their time bagging it up and making the place safe for the children to play in. They did a brilliant job. Here is a before and after photo.

As a national organisation, the Besom has been sorting out how to be compliant with the new GDPR laws. This month after a few meetings, we’re particularly grateful to our trustees and all the hard work they’ve put in, helping us establish new processes and policies to be compliant.

We also collected lots of children’s bikes from Archbishop Holgate’s School. One of the teachers there runs a bike restoration project with some of the pupils and it’s been wonderful to give the bikes to children in York who don’t have any.

Over Easter, we were really blessed to receive not only some money from one congregation in York, but lots of Easter eggs! We had a really joyful time giving them to recipients all over York, so a huge thank you to those who donated them.

If you’d like to get in touch, our contact details are here. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

 

 

 

 

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The difference a table and chairs can make

A spot of office team painting

It’s getting towards the end of February, so it’s probably about time we updated our blog!

We spent the beginning part of January recovering from Christmas! Christmas hamper season was so very busy, but absolutely brilliant. It was a joy to help so many give hampers across the city.

So far this year we’ve had a team from Trinity Church give their time to help a hamper recipient decorate his flat. It was such an encouragement to us that they wanted to help him in this way. Afterwards, the recipient told us he was ‘over the moon’ with his flat. They’d even managed to lay down some carpet for him when they finished.

The office team have also been painting! St Columba’s Church in which we are based is renovating one of the rooms here, so we all pitched in to help decorate. It was a really great day, working closely with volunteers from The Island charity who are based in the office next door.

We’ve also had bit of trouble with the van! Unfortunately it broke down on us and had to have a new clutch – an expensive fix. We prayed and God provided. Amazingly, we were given three times the amount of money we needed to fix it. God really does provide in abundance.

James Odgers speaking at the Northern Besom conference

At the beginning of February we went to the Northern Besom conference on the Wirral. It was wonderful to see the growth of the Besom there, learn about the area and meet to encourage one another. It was great to hear James Odgers, who founded the Besom nationally, speak too.

We have also had the ReVive team from York Vineyard church carry out their first project this year. They spent an afternoon stripping lots of wallpaper off a hallway for a young mum. They hope to go back and paint it next month too.

My favourite story of the year so far has been helping to give a table and chairs. The family had two young children and nowhere for them to sit and eat. We dropped a table and chairs to them on the Wednesday, generously given by a gentleman in Clifton and went round to see them on Thursday. “You won’t believe how much difference the table and chairs have made to our lives in just 24 hours!”. Their little boy was sat at the table eating his breakfast. It really made me think about how we take furniture like a table and chairs for granted. It was such a blessing to see their gift being used and making a huge difference in such a small space of time.

Becky Lewis, The Besom in York Co-ordinator

 

 

 

 

Service not services

A few encouragements from October.

It was great to help St Paul’s Church in their annual ‘Service not services’. Each year they cancel their regular Sunday services and spend the time helping those in need instead. This year, they made some beautiful bundles up for Bundles of Joy. They were full to the brim of wonderful gifts and looked absolutely amazing!

We’ve had Vineyard church giving their time again this month to help a mum unpack and move into her new home and help another recipient with his garden.

And some students from G2 gave their time to decorate for a recipient this month too! Look out for a blog about this soon.

And thanks to some generous money givers we’ve also been able to buy new curtains and homely gifts for a single dad in York, a V pillow for a recipient with arthritis, help a recipient with their heating bill and pay for a recipient to have their flat fitted with carpet and lino.

This week, some of the team are heading to the National Besom Conference in Witney – a great way to end October. We can’t wait. Stay tuned for a blog about it!

It was really great to see God orchestrating things for us

September was a busy month!

We’re really excited to have four new time givers in the office. They have been absolutely brilliant. Tara, Katherine, Catherine and Katie have together prayed, been on assessments, answered emails, facilitated giving and taken on the huge task of systematically going through the cupboards making sure everything is tidy and ready to give out! Absolute heroes!

We’ve had several evening van runs – our great van team have been out as far as Tockwith this time, collecting people’s furniture and delivering them to those in need. Two of our team, on a car run one night, told us how they’d got chatting with a recipient about Jesus and had prayed with him too!

We’ve been blessed with lots of household items being given, including some beautiful new home boxes from York Vineyard. It has been real joy giving them out. We took one box to an assessment last week, not knowing what the recipient wanted. When she asked for a kettle, we were delighted to tell her there was one in box full of household items, all for her, in our car! She was so grateful for the gifts and it was really great to see God orchestrating things for us so that she could receive that box when she did.

Money giving has meant that we were able to help two recipients out with their heating bill, a family in a homeless shelter with a food shop, a recipient who needed paint to redecorate, a recipient sleeping on the floor with a brand new mattress and a family with new school shoes and coats for their children as they went back to school.

We’re incredibly thankful and blessed to see God working each day. He’s doing some amazing things in York and we can’t wait to see what more He has in store as October continues.

Becky Lewis, The Besom in York co-ordinator

The stories keep on coming!

We’re excited to announce that 32 Stories – the second edition, is out now!

32 Stories is a booklet of stories from 19 different charities across York (and one story from York Central MP, Rachael Maskell). It has been put together by Wayne Golder at The Fulcrum Foundation and us here at The Besom in York and the intention is simply to encourage people in their giving.

The booklet follows last year’s first edition and we pray it will encourage readers across York and beyond. You can view both booklets here.

There is so much giving that happens in our city, so many stories of how God is at work, and 32 Stories is just one way of sharing them.

We were so encouraged to hear from one giver who has been using it in their family story and prayer time each evening. It has also been used as a basis for prayer in church house groups.

Our second edition is available to buy from us at 50p each. Please drop us an email if you or your church would like to buy some.

Charities who share stories in this edition:

TLG Early Intervention

Restore – Housing Charity

The Archbishop of York Youth Trust

York Neighbours

Bundles of Joy

Big Breakfast at St Crux

Eat Well, Spend Less – York City Church

Kidz Klub York

Railway Mission

Chaplaincy at York Races

Friends International

Carecent

Joseph Trust

Street Angels York

York Foodbank

Riding Lights Theatre Company

Family Matters York

The Besom in York

 

School Uniforms

Rob Ainsworth, co-ordinator of The Besom in York, reports on some very timely giving.

It’s September, so that means back to school for many children in York. And for many of them it will be their first time at school or nursery.

I’ve loved seeing the photos of my friends’ and family’s children posted on social media proudly wearing their new uniform (with plenty of growing room in them).

Last week, as these photos of the children appeared on my social media news feed, we had a number of encouragements about school uniforms in the Besom office.

Many families cannot afford new school uniforms for their children and, only the week before, a referrer from the child-in-need team at the council had asked if we could help buy uniforms for a number of children in York. Earlier that week we’d received some money in the post to be spent “on the next need” so we were really encouraged to be able to use that money to provide vouchers for uniforms and shoes.

I love how God loves to provide for families! He had already provided the money that was needed to provide families and children in York with the uniform they needed for the beginning of the new school year.

In the same morning, we were sitting in the office wondering what to do with a big American-style fridge freezer (see picture above) that had been collected the night before.

It was an answer to prayer for us to find a home for it and a real answer to prayer for a family with 7 children to receive it! God really does provide for his children!

Later in the week I bumped into a Besom time giver in York city centre. She has become good friends with some of the refugee families in York and she showed me pictures of some of the teenage boys who were just starting at secondary-school in York.

Out of all of the photographs I’ve seen of kids in uniforms this last week – these were the ones that encouraged me the most (even more so that my 3 cute nieces!)! Why? Because they were pictures of children who, if not for the intervention and giving of people in York, would not have had the opportunity to even go to school, let alone be able to buy or wear the same uniforms that others were wearing.

Money making a difference

Rob Ainsworth, co-ordinator of The Besom in York, looks at how we have been able to use some financial gifts.

At the Besom we specialise in helping churches and Christians in York give what they have to those in need. A lot of the core team’s time is spent equipping individuals and families to give furniture and household items, or enabling church groups to complete time-giving projects.

This week we thought we’d highlight some examples of how and where money donated by givers in York has made a difference for those in need in the city.

1. £50 bought a stroller-pram for a young mum and daughter struggling without one.
2. £240 ordered three tonnes of blue slate chippings to cover the garden of a recipient who due to disability struggled to keep it on top of the weeds.
3. £300 bought a new cooker for a grandma, mum and baby son in a specific neighbourhood in York.
4. £202 meant that we were able to pay for a skip for an elderly man to clear his garden. A number of people had taken advantage of him and fly-tipped there.
5. £165 installed two cookers for two families.
6. £40 bought top soil to fill holes in a garden left by a gardener who took advantage of a mum and didn’t finish a job.

   

   Rob Ainsworth

7. £14.99 purchased a pair of anti-allergy pillows for a dad without any, £20 bought bedding to go with them. This combined well with a bed given and delivered to him.
8. £160 bought a set of bunk beds for children in Clifton. (The price was discounted without our asking!)
9. £110.31 meant we could order three mattresses for three cots to add to three bundles that were given out to new parents in the city.
10. £69.99 was spent on a new microwave for a young family needing to sterilise bottles.

If you or your church is interested in giving with the Besom in York, click here for more information. Our contact details can be found here.