During Christmas Carols we took up an offering to support the work of Hope City Furniture which is based in Derby. Here Richard let's us know a bit more about HCF and sheds a bit of light on the work which they do. 

HCF is a charity which provides furniture for people in our city who have been rehoused due to crisis. That can be any major crisis from someone whose home has burned down, someone who has been rescued from Human Trafficking, someone whose fled domestic violence, so really any major crisis. 

We furnish their homes for free with good quality, used furniture and the heart is this, it’s not about furniture really. We want to give the best furniture we can to bless people but the heart is to bring the presence and the love of God and intimacy of relationship into people’s home in their moment of crisis. To be with them when they most need it at that moment of crisis and to bless them in the name of Jesus.

One example, this past week there was an 83-year-old man, he was flagged up by a local resident as perhaps being vulnerable and not quite having it together. It turned out that this man was just sleeping on a mattress which was so old that the springs were almost coming through, it had no bed frame at all. He’d found that life had simply just gotten on top of him. He had no family left, no relatives left and he was isolated. So, we as a charity, have the privilege and honour of being able to go into homes like this, and deliver to people like him some furniture. We were also able to give our time to sit with him and to talk to him, to pray with him and to tell him he’s not alone, to call him up and say, have you got anyone coming over at Christmas? Have you got any food for your Christmas meal? We were able to tell him that God loves him and to step into his broken situation and bring the love and the light of Jesus.

To find out more visit: hopecityfurniture.org.uk