Article
Change
Freedom of Belief
4 min read

Away from home, cut off from home

As Refugee Week concludes, Belle Tindall moves beyond the headlines and learns the story of Azer and the thousands of churches who are providing a sense of home for those who have fled theirs.
A man walks away down a drab street
Welcome Network

No refugee alone – that’s the vision, that’s the hope, that’s the end game.  

That is what is fuelling Welcome Churches, a charity that is encouraging, equipping and resourcing local churches to support refugees up and down the country. In the past twelve months alone, over one thousand churches have partnered with Welcome Churches to help ensure that their corner of the UK is a home fit for the people who are seeking sanctuary within it.  

As a result, nearly eighteen thousand people have been welcomed into and supported by local churches in the past year.  

One of those people is Azer.  

Azer came to the UK in 2022, along with his wife, to study in Birmingham. The plan was to stay in the UK for two years, complete his studies, and then return home to Iran with the qualifications he needed to obtain a promotion in tow. However, just two months into his time at the University, Azer found that his bank account had been frozen, and he was unable to pay his fees, and therefore attend his classes. After assuming that this was down to some kind of technical fault, or perhaps a legal complication, Azer was horrified to learn that it was the Iranian authorities who had intentionally cut him off from his finances. Not only that, but they had also raided and seized his home in Iran, as well as raiding the home of his wife’s family.  

He and his wife had been targeted.  

Azer and his wife are Christians, which is a dangerous thing to be in Iran. Christian gatherings are prohibited, and any rumours of secret Christian activity is heavily monitored. In fact, practising Christianity can lead to imprisonment for ‘crimes against national security’. The pressure that Christians are under in Iran has led Open Doors to rank it as the eighth most dangerous country to be a Christian in the world.  

Azer describes it this way,  

Being a Christian in Iran and participating in the communities will have consequences, such as prosecution or execution. Converting from Islam to Christianity will have a price and your life is entitled to be taken by Islamic government agents. That's why house churches are held secretly. Absolutely, you fear. That's why everything is done in confidentiality regarding the worship services, and Bible readings. 

As Helen, an Engagement Officer for Welcome Churches, says, ‘for some people it (Christianity) is literally life threatening, the persecuted church is a real thing’.  

Despite the immense risks, Azer’s wife covertly practiced her Christianity while living in Iran, keeping Christian literature in her home. Something which, it seems, did not go unnoticed. As a result, returning to Iran is no longer a safe option for Azer, nor his wife. When asked how it felt to learn that his own government had targeted him and his family in this way, and to realise that his home could therefore no longer be his home, Azer described it this way,  

We felt like all the organs of our body dismembered, and on the other hand, like something inside you has been lost which was your identity obtained during past years by your efforts.  A mixture of helplessness, frustration, being thrown into the void, and implosion inside.  Dealing with losing all your possessions and all your plans is very hard. Like somebody who survived after an earthquake and lost his family and home. On the other hand, feeling your life is in danger is harder to tolerate. We feel at any moment you can be killed by the agents. These threats last for a long time which is more difficult to cope with. 

Because of the profound dangers that Azer and his wife face, they have applied for asylum here in the UK. Azer speaks powerfully of how being a refugee feels,  

Even though being an asylum seeker carries legal status all over the world, you immediately have no social status and must navigate this extreme loss of identity in an unknown territory. Sometimes I cannot talk, think, or even concentrate and my wife and I often feel lonely and homesick for our parents and siblings. 

The UN Refugee Agency reports that in November 2022 (the most recent statistics), there were 231,597 refugees, 127,421 pending asylum cases, and 5,483 stateless persons in the UK. Each with their own stories, their own fears, their own hopes. Each one having to juggle copious unknowns on a daily basis, navigating risks that many of us cannot fathom. The depth of emotion in Azer’s words as he speaks of his experience, it is hard to comprehend such trauma multiplied by such huge numbers. Yet, that is the reality that many local churches are coming face to face with, supported by Welcome Churches.  

Believing that refugees are people to be supported, not problems to be solved, churches have been providing for their new neighbours in numerous ways: providing toys, clothes, food, warm spaces, games nights, social hubs and so much more. They have taken the biblical mandates to ‘welcome strangers’ and ‘love their neighbours’ incredibly literally, showing hospitality to people of all faiths, and none.  

Of course, there is a political component to this that cannot be ignored, and one of Welcome Church’s core values is institutional justice for refugees and asylum seekers, believing that the Church/Christians should be at the forefront of ensuring that the Home Office is in a position to hear every case presented to it and respond with compassion. As Helen says,  

It’s not for us to decide the validity of their claim. But neither is it for us to deny the validity of their humanity. 

This Refugee Week is an opportunity to move beyond headlines, statistics and culture wars and ensure that people are seen, and stories are heard. It therefore seems only right that Azer gets the final word,  

We ask Humbly that the UK (government) put themselves in our place, and then judge and treat us. In the meantime, we are thankful for all the love and compassion we have received from most of the British people. We pray to God to help and give us the power to reciprocate for this nation in the future. 

Article
Attention
Change
Community
Loneliness
6 min read

Take some risks, invest in your friends

At the other side of risk is a precious thing: the overcoming of distance.

Tom is a physician and completing a theology doctorate. 

Three friends in the street laugh together.
Jed Villejo on Unsplash.

In the year 2000, political scientist Robert D. Putnam published Bowling Alone. Putnam analysed the decline of “social capital” in America, observing that relational networks, community involvement, and civic engagement were all waning. Why “bowling”? Well, for Putnam, the decline of involvement in bowling leagues was representative of his findings. It served as a microcosm of a bigger picture—the broad downtrend in social engagement. 

What of “social capital” in 2025? Everything, it appears, is different. The arrival of the online ecosphere has reframed how “social” is best understood. We are more “connected” than ever. Indeed, the proportion of society attached to a virtual social network, I suspect, outstrips the proportion of society involved in bowling (or other) leagues at their peak. And even in the short history of the world wide web, the nature of social engagement has developed at breakneck speed. A once revolutionary platform for connecting with past pals from school (remember “Friends Reunited”?) now seems prehistoric. We can “connect” in ways that no bowling league could ever have manufactured. Today, the array of relational possibilities is endless. Awaiting your acquaintance are inert artificial friends, with whom—we’re assured—“You can form an actual emotional connection.” Yes, the Replika app offers virtual companions “for anyone who wants a friend with no judgment, drama, or social anxiety involved.” 

What counts as “social” has expanded beyond measure since the year 2000. No doubt Putnam’s book would look different were it released today. But has the tide of social engagement really turned? 

The bond of friendship is precious. And, like many precious things, it is hard-won.  

Does today’s social mindset encourage us to pursue relationships marked by depth, confidence, nearness? The digital realm makes it extremely difficult not to treat connection as a commodity, more a product in the marketplace of life than a good to be pursued for its own worth. It generates a fantasy of risk-free relationships. “If a friendship isn’t working out, leave it; there’s always another one available”—one without “drama”, as the wisdom of Replika would have it. The measure of a good relationship here is not the strength of the bond itself. Such ties are a means to another end. Perhaps how well the relationship serves individual interests or meets personal preferences. And if we swallow this kind of “you do you” pill whole, we shouldn’t be surprised if our basic assumption is that people do not belong together but apart. 

When friendship becomes a commodity, enduring friendship is nothing short of a miracle. We are all too changeable for consumer relationships to last. Our preferences change. Our life-stages change. Once upon a time, lasting non-romantic bonds were perhaps a more given feature of life. When lifelong relationships and local community overlapped far more, the troughs of friendships were less easy to avoid but had to be faced. It wasn’t so easy to dodge “drama” and move on. But if today’s online social realm shapes our expectations of relationships, the long road of friendship becomes—unsurprisingly—uninviting. Seemingly viable alternatives to our present friends are always available. Indeed, if the “you do you” mantra holds, friendship most likely will not. Or at least not of the precious kind. 

Recently, Sheridan Voysey launched the Friendship Lab. Its aim? To make friendships thrive. Voysey, an author and broadcaster, has developed this new resource alongside a team that includes academics in psychology, law, and statistics. The Lab offers both live and on-demand courses to equip individuals and friends with wisdom and skills for fostering reciprocity and deepening connection. The Friendship Lab is Voysey’s answer to a question he asked himself: "Who can you call at 2am when everything has gone wrong?" Hence, its mission: “to see every adult have at least three 2am friends.” 

The Friendship Lab is on to something important. I suspect that something is, at least in part, that friendships require perseverance

In friendship, it takes time to be understood and to understand. We are all so remarkably complex. Our pasts are so multifaceted. There is no straightforward access to another person. No algorithm can achieve it. No personality test can name it. The deep roots of a relationship are established in attention and commitment. They are reinformed through loyalty and perseverance. The resources provided by the Lab point to the fact that friendships form over time. Like a muscle strengthened through repeated use, they are shaped by practices. Developing connection is more like slowly sculpting clay than sharing in a series of transactions.

At the other side of risk is a precious thing: the overcoming of distance. That precious feeling of being at ease. Unguarded and unafraid

This leads to something important: on its own, perseverance is not enough. Something else should be named if friendships are to thrive and last. And it is less common: risk. 

The bond of friendship always involves risk. Friendship is hard-won because it is risky. To let one’s guard down is a step into the unknown, a “drama” that can never be neatly calculated, because we can never know the outcome. And it is a particular kind of risk: the risk of making oneself vulnerable. Of exposing our hopes and fears, our wounds and weaknesses. Or facing these in others. And of course, we are all so aware of what can go wrong. Sometimes putting yourself out there results not in depth but in misunderstanding or, perhaps, rejection. And to be rejected in one’s vulnerability can be humiliating, even devastating. 

But the bond of friendship is established in these daring footsteps of risk. Friendship does not take shape by side-stepping risk but by taking the road through it—a road not free from but marked by missteps and disappointments.  

Yet such steps are not an end in themselves. They lead to a place that addresses a deeper longing—the ache for connection. At the other side of risk is a precious thing: the overcoming of distance. That precious feeling of being at ease. Unguarded and unafraid. The knowledge that you’re in safe hands.  

In an age where seemingly risk-free alternative connections are available, who would dare to take these steps? Some ancient wisdom might be needed here most of all. 

Around 30AD, a man called Jesus of Nazareth walked the road to hard-won friendship like no other. One of his followers described Jesus’ life as one of commitment to his companions “to the end.” Whilst Jesus’ profound teaching and demonstration of love often gets plenty of attention, there is something precious to be mined here. 

Risk and perseverance belonged to Jesus’ life. The risk of misunderstanding and of rejection—both of which he experienced at the hands of those closest to him. He was not immune to these. In fact, what it meant for Jesus to persevere in his commitment to his followers was for him to endure their abandonment of him. They modelled the opposite of friendship. But Jesus’ risk-taking perseverance knew no limit. It led him all the way to death. It persevered through the failure of his friends to reciprocate to the end. This is why it is just so startling that, in rising from the dead, Jesus says to his followers: “no longer do I call you servants… I have called you my friends.” 

If Jesus has walked the ultimate road of befriending us human beings “to the end”, could looking to this source unlock friendship in a new way today? 

There is a woman in the church community I’m part of who was once asked: “why are you part of this church?” Her answer: “I decided to come here.” She is in her eighties and has been part of that community for decades. I envy the simple sense of risk-taking perseverance in her approach. She is not side-stepping the “drama”—the inevitable missteps that belong to life with others. I do not belong to a generation or an age that puts a premium on risk-taking perseverance “to the end” in friendships. But another look at ancient wisdom might give us just the freedom to do so. And if the road to deep connection goes via some kind of “judgement, drama, or social anxiety” then I, for one, am all in. 

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