Moving on

Palm Bay - Margate

In 2006 I followed a call to the Isle of Dogs, I was working at Sky News and had to make a choice - to stay at Sky and get a mortgage and buy a house or to move to Isle of Dogs chasing after a more purposeful existence - a vocation. We chose the move and have been living there ever since, but now we are having to move on. 

We have loved staying here, the people of the Isle of Dogs are truly wonderful - I have very little negative feedback to give - I see a wonderful community, we have loved being a part of City of Peace church - for sure we would not have had such a great time without this beautiful bunch.

First Love
Foundation

If you are reading this and wondering about living here, I suggest you connect with this church - they are graceful, forgiving, generous and walking the walk. You will find a space where you can be useful. 

I have also loved working with First Love Foundation, over the last year. What an amazing team - so enthusiastically reaching, engaging and uplifting those who are through circumstance or mistake facing threats of eviction, hunger, poverty and showing them hope and connecting them to solutions that can return them to self-sufficiency and dignity. I've loved meeting the clients and seeing their appreciation, their hope and their diginity being restored - it has given me hope too, you can so easily become despondent if you do not interact or engage with organisations like this, see that they exist, learn how they are doing things. Long live FLF! 

The Bellingers will be moving to Margate, the girls are all at a local school and loving it. It is a peaceful place and everywhere there's sky. The beaches are long and sandy and we have a wonderfully big back garden. To get here we've been through the mill, and with a lot of help from very loving friends and family we are now about to move. So the East End chapter closes, we will miss you London. But it's not goodbye, it's see you later.

Winter snow! Turn up the heat!

 I was woken up yesterday morning at 4.30 by the central heating kicking in. At night when I go to sleep I always lower the temperature of the thermostat to 18 in the kitchen so that we don't all boil in our beds. Needless to say I was quite tired by the time bed came around again. Well, it did it again, and before you ditch this story and turn away with a tiny violin playing for my suffering, there's purpose in this story. SO I lay there in my bed annoyed at the noise. I lay there thinking about it.

There's a chap called Andy who I met sitting on the ground outside Tescos in Poplar High st, he had put out a wonderful display of his hand drawn art. He's thin as a rake and has an unshaved face. I stopped by him and asked what he was doing. He said that he does the pictures in the hope that he can sell them so that he can use the money to top up his central heating as he has none. He wanted to raise £18. Canary Wharf and it's wealth loomed in the background. I wondered as I lay in my bed how Andy is doing right now.

Andy's Art

I thought what it would be like to wake up in the morning, as I occasionally have when the fuel card has run out of funds, and not be able to nip up to NISA and top it up? What would it be like if my kids woke up to find the house cold - they actually amaze me at how low a temperature they run around in just PJ's, but I bet the house would be less of a home if we had no heating at all. Probably find ourselves huddling in one room with an electric heater and loads of blankets! Imagine being a parent and having to choose between eating and heating?

Thankfully for the moment these are only nightmares, not realities for us. But for some people, although they live in one of the wealthiest cities in the world, it is a truth. I see the steam rising from the heating on the glass towers of Canary Wharf, warming the empty space in lockdown. I know there's hearing and there's listening and a God who is just. Loving your neighbour isn't just a spontaneous thing - spontonaeity is good but I think that to really love you need to be thinking into how things are going for others, and if they have needs how you can address them. I'm thinking about Andy (and I'm glad my heating is on) and the other Andy's out there. The organisation I now work for, First Love Foundation runs on a motto, it is from the bible - it is "Let us not love merely with words, but in action and in truth". 

New job!

 14 Years ago, on the 6th of August 2006, Natalie and I left our home in Harrow-on-The-Hill and moved to the Isle of Dogs to begin working at Café Forever. We had no children and with that very little possessions (especially the barbie dolls)! We didn't know what to expect, I left a job as a news editor at Sky News because I wanted to get involved in community work, following a vocation. Well that work for the London City Mission is now at an end, the café has ceased trading due to the missions strategic plan change. I can't say I was enthusiastic about the change. I know there are many local people who we worked with who are feeling very lost without the café, who don't know of another space quite like it. They were often the marginalised of society, those who didn't quite behave as the world would have and didn't quite fit in.

I worked with some amazing people at Café Forever, in the early years Jo who brought so much character and was frequently visited by her children after school, Elise who always had her eyes on peace and hope and the supplier of many quick chirps to keep Paula and Iain in check. Thai Pim who showed us all what hard work really was, also always with a little humour to add. Andrew, Esther and Abimaro who helped relaunch the café and get systems in operation - and added a little style, along with Spof who sang to the kids. Our cheerful Hungarian chef Gabby who was followed by superhero Dot, with Duncan and Sarah in supporting roles with a side order of gateau and pc repairs, Jolly to cover whenever someone was ill and finishing off with Justyna and Stevie! And of course all of the amazing volunteers who helped us, many of them American!

Outside Café Forever with Dot and Sarah

What a great bunch - I know there were many more!

But for myself, I and my beautiful family are still on the Isle of Dogs, fortunately as part of redundancy pay out we get to remain in the house for one more year, so we are on the lookout for how things might change, praying that something will become apparent in our accommodation needs before December 2021. As for work, well I have landed beautifully, onto the warehouse floor of the wonderful First Love Foundation foodbank in Poplar. It is such an encouraging team, so needed! The motto of the place is from the apostle John's first letter, "let us not love with words or speech but in action and in truth", now that works for me, maybe I'll learn a thing or two.