Angie Andrews

The thing I have held most dear through the years is

a vision of hospitality as a way of life.

It is a vision I have nurtured

in my self,

in my nuclear family

and in my extended family.

I believe it is the legacy of Jesus,

which I want to pass on

to my children

and to my children’s children.

From 1973 to 1985

Dave and I lived in communities in Afghanistan and India.

These communities provided us with wonderful opportunities

to learn how to live out a vision of hospitality in the vortex of chaos:

comforting each other in our brokenness in the context of our battering,

encouraging one another to find a way forward through our bewilderment.

I used take refuge on the roof of our house every day.

I’d pray for God to give me the strength to live with the pain.

I’d turn for advice to my spiritual guide, who – at the time – was Mother Teresa.

I’d read her writings, reflect on her words, and seek to `do God’s will with a smile.’

Gradually our intentional communities grew into therapeutic communities.

The addicts we met in drug dens,

the patients we visited at the hospital,

the prisoners we welcomed from the penitentiary

found their way to our house, found their way into our heart and found it a place of healing.

And in their healing we found our healing.

In 1985

Dave and I returned to Australia.

We were determined to live in Australia

in the light of the lessons we had learnt in Afghanistan and India.

We prayed that we could preserve our vision of hospitality

and reinterpret how we could live out the value of compassion in this place.

I knew I could only start where I was with what I had.

Where I was – was in a neighbourhood with all these wallahs[1] who were marginalized.

And what I had – were all my rels[2] looking on to see what I was going to do.

So with some forty first cousins in all watching over my shoulder

I began to write the next chapter of the history of our family in this area.

Had I given it a title at the time, I would have called it ‘Inclusion’.

I knew that if I was going to translate my experience

of hospitality in Afghanistan and India

into my community in Australia,

it would need to start with inclusion.

Inclusion was important for me,

because I had learnt that at the heart of hospitality was compassion

and that compassion with open arms always started with inclusion.

So I began by including

the marginalized people I met in the neighbourhood

into the core of my family

by treating all the wallahs I befriended as my rels.

As you can imagine many of my rels

would stop me in the street and ask me:

`Angie why are you doing this?

You are a good girl, why are you hanging around with these (bad) people?’

I would tell them that:

`They are not bad people. They are troubled people.

Because many of them have had bad things happen to them in their lives.

And you’d be troubled too, if the same things had happened to you.’

`Yes. Angie. That may be true.

But why should you be involved with them?

After all, you are a mother, with your own children

and you should be caring for your own children.’

`That’s exactly the point.’

I would say.

`I believe God wants us

to care for our children

and to teach them to care for others

just like their own relatives.’

I was really happy

when my daughters Evonne and Navi

began to bring troubled people home.

I remember Evonne going out of her way

to befriend lonely kids at school

and brining them home for me to meet

so we could talk with them

about how we could support them.

I remember Navi bringing home

a fourteen year old girl

who was pregnant.

She was under a lot of pressure

to abort her baby.

So we talked with her about her options.

And said that

if she wanted to keep her baby,

and needed a place to stay,

She was more than welcome to stay with us

One of the basic rules in community work is:

never do on your own what you can do with others.

So when I began including

the marginalized people I met in the neighbourhood

into the core of my family

by treating all the wallahs I befriended as my rels,

I invited others to join me on my journey.

A group of students

told me they were interested;

so we decided

to go on the journey of together.

We used to meet at my house

study a passage about the importance of inclusion

from a book I had by Mother Teresa,

remind ourselves of the people in our neighbourhood who were forgotten

then visit a group living with disabilities in a hostel

run by Norma Spice in Russell Street West End.

One day I remember saying to these students

that if we were really going to relate to these wallahs as our rels

we needed to not only visit them in their hotels,

but also invite them back to our own homes.

The students said they were happy enough to visit people in the hostels,

but were afraid to invite people back to their own homes.

But I said to them, as followers of Jesus, we are called to ‘not be afraid:’

to ‘not be afraid’ to relate to these ‘brothers and sisters’ as our ‘family’.

I knew one of the students was having a house warming party that weekend.

And I encouraged her to invite the hostel wallahs as well as her other rels.

Eventually she decided to include them, and they had such a great time

that they became good friends and have stayed good friends till today.

It was the beginning of a revolution of inclusion.

As word went around about what we were doing

others asked to join us.

We would talk to them

about the legacy of Jesus,

about his vision of hospitality as a way of life,

about his call to be filled to overflowing with a spirit of compassion.

We would specifically talk to them

about Jesus’ challenge to include people in our parties

who were left off other people’s party lists.

As a result of these discussions

we decided to host an open community meal

on a Friday night at someone’s house every fortnight.

Right from the start we decided this would be

a shared meal –

where everyone was encouraged to bring something to share,

rather than a soup kitchen –

where everything was provided by someone else.

So right from the start there was an expectation

that not only would everyone be included

but also everyone would contribute.

Those who had more brought hot pots.

Those who had less brought tea bags.

And the tradition continues to this day.

What has changed over time is how people interact.

When we started the community meal

there was very little direct eye contact.

People used to come in silence, with no smiles.

With their heads hung down, they would collect their meal

eat their meal without talking to anyone and leave as quickly as they could.

Now, people arrive hours early and stay on as late as they can.

There is lots of hubbub as people greet each other and give one another hugs.

There are still some people who choose to sit in silence;

but most people laugh and cry as they talk over their meal about their week.

And most people are happy to pitch in with setting up, serving and cleaning up.

Over the years it has become clear

that through the spirit that is at work within us

– somehow or other – none of us knows how –

we have discovered the power

to help one another and to heal one another.

One night when I was sick

Ted came to my house.

He stood outside in the dark.

I could not see him; but I could hear his voice;

saying he felt for me and he was praying for me.

It was as if an angel had come to comfort me.

Another night, when my brother died,

(after he had thrown himself off the Storey Bridge)

Dave was telling people about his death.

And Dean came up to Dave,

wrapped his arms around him and said:

`Don’t worry Dave. I’ll be your brother-in-law’.

When my (adopted) daughter Navi

(who was born in Nepal)

was being taunted by racist skinheads,

it was people from a nearby hostel

who came to her aid

and offered her their protection.

And when my daughter Evonne

decided to marry Marty,

she extended an open invitation

to all the people from the hostels.

Many of them attended the wedding

and some of them were in the wedding party.

The presence of these wallahs

together with the rest of our rels

was a small glimpse of heaven on earth.

I always wanted to be mindful of

those who were far away,

as well as those who were nearby.

When we bought a house,

we bought at the bottom end of the market

and decided to pay the mortgage off little by little

so we could set aside money to give to others overseas.

When Navi turned eighteen, she wanted to track down her birth family.

We flew to Nepal and tracked down her sisters and their families.

Two of the three sisters were very poor,

so we helped them buy small plots of land and build their. own houses.

I wanted to welcome strangers — particularly refugees — who came from far off lands

so I joined the Refugee Learning Centre in West End.

There I was able to meet refugees, welcome them to Australia, teach them English,

talk with them one by one, listen to their stories, assess their needs

and then find volunteers in the community who were happy to help them.

These volunteers eventually became known as the West End Refugee Support Group.

Twice a year for the last twenty years

I have taken a session in the community orientation course we run

when I talk about the work of the West End Refugee Support Group.

I continually stress that the core role of our volunteers

is to use the opportunity of helping refugees

to be with them, befriend them and be faithful to them in their time of distress —

dispossessed of country, property, family, friends and even their own identity.

Sara Parrott and Ewen Heathdale started a no-fees no-interest revolving loan scheme

to enable refugees with visas but no money to pay for their fares to Australia.

About a hundred refugees have come through that scheme.

And there have been zero defaults on loan repayments.

Peter Westoby and Russell Eggins supported many refugees from Latin America:

meeting arrivals at the airport and settling them in houses they found and furnished.

We started a special torture and trauma support group with them.

Waves upon waves of refugees came to Australia fleeing war-tom regions:

Indo China, Central Asia, South Asia and The Horn of Africa.

So we started an interfaith dialogue group

for Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims to get to know one another.

And the work goes on.

Recently I helped in a complex two-year refugee settlement case,

assisting the reunification of an Eritrean refugee in Australia

with her fiancé ~ in a refugee camp in the Sudan.

Then I organised volunteers

to help her through her complicated pregnancy,

and subsequently arranged work for her and her husband.

But often there is no work

or the work that is there is not suitable —

(for single parents who have lost their partners in wars

and need to work at home so they can supervise their children)

so Judy Collins-Haynes and I have negotiated contracts

for bulk orders of conference bags

then organized volunteers

to train refugee women to sew at a professional level

and to supervise the production of the conference bags

by the refugee women sewing in clusters at home.

Most of the work I have done

has been unfunded or has been underfunded.

So we have had to have to put on

lots and lots of fundraising events

to raise money for our work with refugees.

And I’ve never been happier

than working alongside my daughters

putting on dinners for hundreds of people

to raise money to support refugees.

One of my most significant memories

was when Evonne, and her husband Marty,

were living in the Bristol Street Household

with our younger daughter Navi,

their childhood friend Olivia,

and a couple of others.

The Bristol Street Household,

located on the main street of West End

was a place devoted to developing an everyday spirituality

that gladly put itself at the disposal

of the people who came to the door of their house looking for help.

And they invited Dave and  I to move in with them.

The next eighteen months

proved to be one of the best times of our lives.

We got on well.

We prayed together, laughed and cried together,

cooked and cleaned together, and grew together.

And I was able to see how my children

had grown into adults

and were now including their rels

into their lives,

along with all the other wallahs.

It is my prayer

that all of us who have been involved in the network

(we now know as the Waiters Union)

will all find our own way

of living out our vision of hospitality in our community.

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[1] ‘wallahs’ is an affectionate Indian word for ‘people’. It is one of Angie’s favourite words.

[2] `rels’ is short for ‘relatives’. It is another one of Angie’s favourite words.