Feature

Embracing the new together

Lieutenant Wan Gi Lee shares how St Albans Corps is journeying with families from Hong Kong

SEEING many east Asian children in the photo on this page, you might be wondering where this church could be. St Albans is widely known as a white, middle-class city, but our corps has witnessed many families from Hong Kong come here over the past couple of years.

According to recent government figures, more than 110,000 visas have been issued to Hong Kongers to live in the UK under the British National Overseas scheme, which was launched in January 2021. It is expected that more people will come due to the growing political unrest and limitations on civil rights in Hong Kong.

While many of these people are finding new homes across the country, they are refugees who had to leave behind families, friends, workplaces and schools. They need urgent support to be integrated into new communities. We have been praying over this situation as a corps, asking for God’s guidance and wisdom to help us support them and reach out to them.

This prayer was answered powerfully, as we welcomed four new Hong Kong families over the past few months and started to share God’s love. Our journey with them came to fruition as a threeday summer camp, mostly for children from Hong Kong. The new families of the corps came out in force to help with organising and leading the camp. They actively participated in all stages of preparation and delivery, planning the programme and sharing Bible stories about God’s love.

Twenty new children registered for this adventure and the new missional opportunity opened a door to their parents as well as the wider Hong Kong community. Throughout the camp, God poured out his love on them all and we shared such joy and fun together.

Exile is a key theme in the Bible. Throughout Scripture, God scattered and sent many people across borders for his purpose. They had to leave the familiar and embrace the unfamiliar, which was often a risky business. We see this in the stories of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Daniel, the exilic periods of Judah and Israel, and even Jesus. From the divine to the mundane, these stories of exile reaffirm God’s plan of restoration and salvation.

Today we live in a new exilic period, marked by global political tension, war and the Covid-19 pandemic. The challenge to us all as the Church is how to respond to this exilic time and discern God’s purpose and plan. Are we responding to the message of God’s love?

On a local level, this exilic period opens a significant opportunity for us to embrace displaced people, reshaping us as a diverse and inclusive church. Some people might mourn declining attendance at Sunday worship, worrying about the future of the Church and engagement with a new generation. Many might feel they face an impasse. We, as a church, need to leave the familiar behind. It is time to embrace the unfamiliar in total trust in God. In this sense, what we need today is – as Tod Bolsinger asserts in his book Canoeing the Mountains – ‘a spirit of exploration’ as we walk through uncharted territory together.

This new missional opportunity for St Albans Corps with children and families from Hong Kong confirms that God is bringing his people through the exile. Whatever exiles we witness today, we are called to explore together for God’s restoration and renewal.

Through our three-day summer camp, the seed of God’s love was sown. We will continue to explore with the children and families for God’s way – like Joshua and Caleb in Numbers 13 who, unlike the 10 other people sent out to explore the new territory of Canaan, did so with courage, purpose and trust in the Lord.

Let us stand firm with one another and take the road ahead in a spirit of exploration to find what lies ahead in God. To do so, we have to embrace the unfamiliar together.

LIEUTENANT WAN GI LEE LIE

Corps Officer St Albans