I met my friend Terry during the Christmas of 2008 when he was a guest of "LifeShare", Manchester and I was a volunteer. Like many of the guests my friend had been made homeless after difficult personal circumstances and now slept rough. If he was in the right place at the right time he might find a shelter for the night - on camp beds in a draughty, noisy hall with many other homeless men and women.  

Only three months before he had been working as a chef in Stockport and living at home with his wife. My friend and I had a few things in common. Recent marriage breakdowns, financial difficulties, despair.  The reality was that there was not much separating us. Yet he was living on the streets.

Two years on, in 2010, and I was living in St Albans. Terry called me to say he was sleeping rough at Marble Arch. It was winter and bitterly cold. I met him for a coffee. The nightly chill on his kidneys was clearly making him very unwell. It was necessary to consume things that numb pain. 

At the end of our conversation I was free to head back to St Albans and my home and central heating and fridge full of food.  Terry was heading back to an ice block of a paving slab, that's if his space had not been pinched.

I called Emmaus St Albans. They had one position spare but they were saving it for someone with a specific skill-set. 

What did they need?

They needed a chef to run the kitchen. 

Praise God!

The next day my friend was at Emmaus St Albans with a warm room to call his own.