Washing Up With Joy, by JIM SOOK KIM

Jin Sook reflects on how her work with homeless people at the Booth Centre enables her to see God in a difficult situation…

In the Booth Centre we have a lot of activities such as pottery, poetry, painting, model making, walks and so on. We also have a drop-in day in every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

When we have an activity I help the tutor and also join the art activity with people.
As we doing the activity together we can talk more and we can find each other’s talent in some area like painting or poetry. We read our own poems with a mike and I read my Korean poem in Korean and in English. When we are drawing pictures we encourage each other and enjoy ourselves too. While people join the activity they stay away from drugs or alcohol, so even though it is just 2 hours I think it is good for them.

Our centre is very small but I think it’s amazing that we run a lot of activities for people. Maybe because we have small space we can be closer and listen and talk and be friendlier.
Not only are we running the activities and serving food, the team at the centre listen to people with problems who want to talk about their situation.  We try to solve their problems and help them with what they need.  If we don’t have a certain kind of service like shower or laundry and so on, we introduce someone to another day centre so our staff in the Booth Centre are always running all over the place (especially my brilliant supervisor Kevin).

I also see people who have drug or alcohol related problems. Sometimes when someone has taken drugs or drank alcohol, they change but I know that they are good person without it. We encourage service users to volunteer, and when I see them help us, I feel so strongly that they want to overcome their problems and settle down in a normal life.

As time goes by, I can feel Booth Centre really works for homeless people.
so even though sometimes I do very little things I hope my work will be helpful to the Booth Centre and I can do it with joy.  For example, at first I disliked doing the washing up a lot because washing up is the thing I dislike most in the world, but suddenly I thought about how Jesus is always humble and how he was in the lowest place to serve other people. So if he can do it, I can be happy making tea of coffee. I can do it gladly. It is still sometimes it difficult but I try to remember.

Hmm…at this moment, my English is not very good so I don’t understand everything when I hear people’s stories and I feel so very sorry but I hope as time goes by I will be able to understand them better.
I saw one man who comes to the centre and heard that one year ago he was a very serious alcoholic but now he is looking so good. I hope, this year, I see that happen again!!

Jin Sook is from Korea. She can be found smiling over the washing up at the Booth Centre or supporting Prisoners’ families at Manchester Prison Visitors Centre