A bit of History...

Hazel is a women who I work with every Thursday afternoon. She is the founder of Charis House and someone I've grown to admire deeply. While working with her I often get frustrated that she lives in a world without schedules. There is no time other than the present and her office upkeep is a reflection of this. My very first task with Hazel was to "organise and manage" her file cabinet. It was a tedious job to say the least, and after I'd finished I just wanted to sit and have a chocolate. Instead, I was offered a cup of tea and an opportunity to learn a bit more about Hazel and how she'd come to be living a life filled with a daily ministry to a group of women often marginalized and sent away by many other organizations.

It wasn't until I traveled with Hazel to a church's Tearfund supporter meeting that I learned the complete history of Charis House. Hazel tells a wonderfully entertaining story about how she had been making a birthday cake for one of her children when a women appeared at her doorstep. Abused, hurt, and living in a generally empty lifestyle this women needed a home. Hazel called her church. Her church had no answers or solutions. Hazel was frustrated with this answer and began complaining as to the lack of the church's help in situations that seem so obviously in need of a sharing of God's love.

I really like how Hazel describes this story and I won't really be able to do it accurately, but she says that it was because of the birthday cake that Charis House began. When Hazel was little, her mom made a big fuss over birthday cakes and Hazel always had a beautifully decorated and tasty cake on her special day. Hazel admits she is less skilled at cake making than her mother, but she's always tried to do the same for her children. The homeless women at Hazel's door said to her, "I've never had a birthday cake." Hazel says it was at this moment that she stopped complaining about the church and realized, she was the church. She opened her home and Charis House began.

Currently Hazel and her family live in a flat in Charis House. This means that while most other staff go home at the end of the day, Hazel is always there. There is an amount of privacy, but Hazel lives her life alongside the women at the refuge. On special occasions, Hazel and her family share it with the women living at the House at the time. On Christmas, we all shared a meal together. Every Sunday evening Hazel and her husband join any willing residents to a time of fellowship and prayer in the Dining Room.

It's because of Hazel's willingness to live in the moment that she is able to just flow along in the situations she's faced with daily. The women I have meet so far are all wonderful individuals filled with a desire to do what they see will help them to survive. Hazel has created a home for women who often enter the house with hostility towards a world that they feel they've never belonged in. During my short time here, I've learned that Hazel has a lot, a LOT of patience towards each of these women. She is able to look at each one as an individual and not just another teenage mom or alcoholic.

I ask for your prayers for Hazel and for all the women living at the House now. Currently the House is filled with a group of women that I truly admire. There is a single mom, just recently escaping the abuse of an ex-husband. A young, gypsy traveler and her daughter, rejected by her family and learning how to live in one area for more than a month at a time. A wonderfully talented mother of four who daily fights a battle with alcohol and its temptation to escape to it yet again. A women running from an old, abusive partner where she spent the entire first four years of her daughters life camping in tents all over the UK. I ask for prayers for each of these women, who despite having these past experiences are able to live together at Charis House and have Saturdays where we all sit together and laugh over a dinner.

God's Peace over these last few cold months of winter.
With love from Buxton : ) Aubrey