As the first ”hands-on project” for the newborn Priory St Ansgar, we co-arranged an Easter lunch for some of the homeless people in Stockholm. We have also established a joint venture with the organisation Stockholms Stadsmission (”Stockholm City Mission”), a Christian organisation for homeless people, youngsters and people with a variety of psychological problems among other things.
Nearly 50 out of nearly 1500 homeless women and men joined us together with four employees from Stockholms Stadsmission and had a fantastic Easter lunch and coffee together. The lunch was the typical Swedish Easter ”smorgasboard” with several dishes, coffee, and biscuits. There were people from several countries who ended up in Stockholm. The age span was from 30 to 70 years old. But despite all the differences and fates, all the guests enjoyed the company and the lunch.
Sitting with those fantastic homeless guests and having an interesting conversation was a really mind blower and we all realised how easy it is in modern society to become homeless after a personal crisis such as your company goes bankruptcy and your wife or husband leaves you. Not everyone has some really good friends to lean on when the life cracks. By my table, I had a man from Iran, a former captain from the army who probably deserted the army. Now his wife was dead and he had also lost the custody of his two kids age 6 and 8 since he had no work and no place to live.
We informed them what we are doing in the Order and why we want to reach out a helping hand to the needed. Together we had many laughs and we all agreed that we should invite them again. All our guests left us with a joyful smile on their faces even if they knew that they were going out from this lunch without knowing where to sleep this night. This is one example of what you can do with a little effort. The cost of the event was approximately 700 Euros.