IT’S a Wednesday morning in Sighthill, Glasgow, and St Rollox Church is buzzing. A
second-hand shop selling everything from clothes, shoes and toys to domestic
appliances and textiles is doing a roaring trade, while in another room 20 women are
learning sewing and dressmaking skills.
Yesterday the church – a modern, Brutalist 1980s brick building – hosted a
befriending cafe, a computer skills course, a fruit and veg stall and an advice service,
and later today volunteers will teach English to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants
who have settled here. The church also gives emergency crisis funding when it can,
and provides basics such as food and heating to an increasing number of parishioners.
The people here today using and running the activities are a noticeably multicultural
bunch from Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and, of course, Glasgow. Most are
female and many of the locals are elderly. All, however, exhibit a similar sense of
belonging.
"I love to come here," says Asmaa Hamed, a mother-of- three who came from war-
torn Sudan six years ago. "I learn new skills and feel like I have am achieving
something. I have made many friends here. I feel part of this community."
She's sewing alongside Sandra Lashghary, a 60-year- old grandmother who has lived
in Sighthill for most of her life. "The church brings people together," she says. "It's
important that we welcome people with open arms. How would folk here feel if they
had to leave their homes and flee thousands of miles?"
Holding all this together and providing spiritual guidance at services, prayer groups
and Sunday school is the indomitable Reverend Jane Howitt. The multilinguist arrived
here six months ago with almost 20 years experience as a minister and is determined
to grow the reach of the church to ensure it serves its community in the most useful
and practical ways. Yet she is aware that the sort of work that goes on here day in, day
out, in one of Scotland’s poorest and most multicultural communities, is probably not
what many of us would associate with the bread-and- butter work of the Church of
Scotland.
This is the modern face of the Kirk. There’s no Sunday best being worn, no genteel
garden fetes. But the work being done here is clearly vital.
St. Rollox