Blog

The Wayside Club Centre at 32 Midland Street, Glasgow, G1 4PR, has been supporting the homeless and vulnerable in Glasgow for over 70 years. Our ethos has remained constant, maintaining the truths of our Catholic faith, and emphasising that we are in no position to judge anyone or indeed be upset by others who don't always agree with the One from whom we draw strength.
 
The club opens its doors every evening all year round, and on Saturday afternoons. Our Presidium Group, Our Lady of the Wayside, has 18 regular members who volunteer in turn to work on a particular evening or to do a Saturday afternoon shift, so that the club is consistently open for our patrons (the word we use for club users). We are a very diverse group of lay Catholics of varying ages and backgrounds who unite in supporting patrons in many aspects of their lives.
 
An average of 60 - 70 patrons come to the club each time we open. Patrons of many faiths and none are given food, access to clean clothing and if needed, haircuts. They can enjoy light entertainment and company and if they wish, can spend some time in our oratory.
 
On Sunday evenings, clergy always come along to support us. They are so generous with their time and as well as chatting with our patrons, they offer Mass, which gives them the opportunity to share in the Sacraments.
 
The patrons, many of whom have personal issues or have had difficulties throughout their lives, are often a great source of learning and can be inspirational.
 
I recall a cold wet dark miserable January evening when the doorbell rang and we opened the door to a patron called Grahame. Grahame doesn’t often come to the club and he was looking rather downtrodden. He asked ‘Do you have anything holy you could give?’ We handed him rosary beads, he thanked us and left, but a few seconds later the bell rang again. It was Grahame again, and he asked ‘Can you say that prayer thing over the rosary?’ We worked out with Grahame that he was referring to blessing of the rosary beads, which can only be done by clergy. As he looked disappointed when we told him this, I asked ‘Would you like to say a prayer together?’

He answered ‘I don't know any prayers and have no religion,’ so I said a simple prayer that my mother used to say each evening before we all went to sleep: ‘God Bless Grahame and keep him safe from all harm.’

It is very easy to forget in this busy confusing world of ours what and who we are. If we take each other and God for granted we are missing great times and opportunities to strengthen the gifts of faith.
 
On that dreich busy Friday evening, the conditions were challenging. But God's real presence was there, radiating and supporting someone who life had thrown a few curveballs, leaving him homeless and an addict. With no religion and little knowledge of regular prayers, Grahame still had faith in God and he was an inspiration.
 
Jesus has promised He will return. I often wonder where He will grace with His presence and what will He look like. Will I choose to ignore him if he challenges my prejudices or fears, or will I be like St Thomas who asked for proof before I believe?
 
Sometimes we need to have thinking time to reflect on the gift of faith that many of us have inherited from each other and from generations of the faithful who have supported the club with their generosity and more importantly, their prayers.
 
May we be strong in our trust in God during challenging times, just like Grahame, confronting injustices directed at the needy and particularly towards our faith, even if this means being a lone voice in a busy room.

Like us on Facebook https://en-gb.facebook.com/The-Wayside-Club-138896972878691/

or visit our website http://www.thewaysideclubcentre.co.uk/

To mark Sea Sunday on 9th July, our new blog is written by Doug Duncan of Apostleship of the Sea (AoS), an agency of the Catholic Church that looks after the faith, pastoral and practical needs of seafarers.  Doug has been supporting the stranded Indian crew of a ship detained in Aberdeen since June 2016. 
 

The words of St Mathew’s gospel “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” probably best sum up my involvement with the abandoned seafarers from the offshore supply ship mv Malaviya Seven, which has been stuck in Aberdeen port for almost a year now.

The men are all Indian nationals and some of them have been on the ship for that length of time. Not surprisingly, it has been really difficult for them.
 
I have been supporting the seafarers since their vessel was detained. They were last paid in July 2016 and the crew on board as well as several of those who have now gone home are owed more than $650,000 in unpaid wages.
 
The seafarers’ predicament not only affects them, it also affects their families back home who have food, living accommodation and other costs to pay.  Several have school children and higher education fees to pay. This is one of their main worries and stresses – how to support their families back home in India.
 
I had a phone call from one seafarer’s wife asking me “What can you do?” It’s really sad to hear someone at the end of the phone crying and pleading “When is my husband going to get home?” Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer.
 
AoS ship visitors and I have gone on board the ship daily, talking to the men, providing practical help such as taking them to the dentist, hospital, arranging to get their hair cut – just making sure they’re not forgotten and are cared for during this anxious time.
 
We try and keep their spirits up and provide much-needed escape by taking them out and about to see local places of interest. So far we’ve visited local castles including Balmoral, Crathie, Fyvie and Dunnotar. We also visited nearby cities and villages including Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Stonehaven. Just recently, we took a few of them to Pittodrie Stadium and to an indoor cricket match.

We've also taken them to Mass - we attended Stations of the Cross during Lent, the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services, and Easter Mass during Lent and Easter. They thoroughly enjoyed it. One Hindu seafarer requested a visit to a Sikh temple to celebrate a special day for him so we made the necessary arrangements.

 
Last November I arranged for Bishop Hugh Gilbert to go on board the ship. He spent time with the crew, shared a meal with them and blessed both the seafarers and the vessel. The crew said “It was the most remarkably auspicious event for all of us. The ship’s atmosphere is now well charged with great positivity, divinity and great blessings of Almighty Lord the God.  Divinity has approached us miraculously.” 
 
The local parishes and community have been very generous, buying groceries and toiletries and making the crew feel welcome. The men spent Christmas with the Goan community, who invited them to a gathering, prepared Indian food, and shared dancing and games.
 
Pope Francis calls on those who work for the wellbeing of seafarers and their families to “be the voice of those workers who live far from their loved ones and face dangerous and difficult situations”. Seafarers are often referred to as 'the invisible on the margins of society'. By highlighting the situation of the Malaviya Seven crew AoS hopes to make them visible. Let the Lord bring light into their situation.

 

*Sea Sunday falls on July 9. Find out more about Sea Sunday and the work of AoS and how you can play a part in supporting seafarers at www.apostleshipofthesea.org.uk

picture by Mark Leman

Rose sang us a song. It was a gospel number - more Janice Joplin than Charlotte Church, despite her young age. Before pulling her scarf to her face and breathing deeply into the material stretched across her hand, she said she’d sung in her church choir.

 

After a few minutes in 14-year-old Rose’s company, my nose began to run. I felt nauseous and dizzy and remembering my days as a journalist investigating substance abuse some decades ago, I knew these were the classic symptoms of sniffing solvents. Rose’s ‘substance’ smelled like the cheapest of lighter fuels.

 

In Scotland, laws have prevented the sale of glue and butane gas to children for many years. But in Zambia in 2017, the economic downturn has increased the street children problem, and the substances available on the street have become more deadly. The children – some as young as eight, many in their early teens like Rose – use empty plastic bottles to concentrate the poison. Or like Rose, they simply pour it onto a piece of cloth that passes for a scarf or the cuff of a ragged sleeve. Then they breathe deeply to assuage their hunger and anaesthetise them into a disturbed sleep that helps pass the night.

 

One of Rose’s friends was heavily pregnant. It was difficult to judge how old the boys were - their bodies pre-pubescent because of the lack of nourishment. At other sites around Lusaka, Zambia’s capital city, we met boys huddled around braziers and children who swarmed around the gratings of supermarkets. The temperature in Zambia can sink as low as 5 degrees during the night at this time of year.

 

When Fr Renato Sesana, known as Fr Kizito, set up the Mthunzi Children’s Project in 2001, the street children problem was bad. I had attended a pan-African AIDS conference in Zambia at the end of the 1990s when it had been discussed as an outcome of the HIV-AIDS pandemic that would have to be addressed. I was introduced to the Mthunzi orphanage in 2002 and in the coming years set up a charity in Argyll to support the education of its residents. As our role changed, so did our name and we are now ZamScotEd, supporting education of vulnerable children in the wider community. Support in our diocese and beyond has been generous.

 

The first residents at Mthunzi had sniffed glue. But few of those children had been addicted and their progress (some now work in a range of jobs including social work, accountancy, journalism and nursing) was not impeded once they were well fed and nurtured at the orphanage.

 

The world economy, however, has intensified the effects of poverty in countries like Zambia. Jeremy Corbyn asked if it was right that so many people in the UK have no home and only a street to live in. Of course it isn’t. But with Nigel Farage calling for a curtailment of overseas aid, it is little children in countries like Zambia whose very lives are threatened .

 

Rose may die before anyone gives her the chance to sing in her church choir again. Meanwhile, Mthunzi outreach social worker Edward Kambole hopes 11-year-old Joseph can be admitted to Mthunzi before more harm befalls to him. Joseph had been beaten up the night we met him and was terrified.

 

Our chain of action offers rescue from the streets, rehabilitation, followed by education that can break the poverty cycle. But ZamScotEd can only spit against the rainy season. A decent overseas aid budget that seeks to address gender and poverty issues can affect real differences in terms of migration and peace. Meanwhile, we’re working for justice for Rose, Joseph, and all the Zambian kids whose bellies are empty.