Our Thursday mornings are usually spent in one of the local churches where a little cafe is set up in the church hall. It's a good chance to chat with people, which we can't always do when the drop-ins are on, and there is the added advantage of lovely home-baked scones and shortbread!

For a few weeks after we re-opened in late August, the cafe was really quiet and we were beginning to wonder if we should rethink how that part of the week was spent. Reluctant to make any hasty decisions because it was an important part of the week for those who were coming, the small team involved began to explore other options and to ask God for confirmation as to what the way forward should be.

In the past few weeks, we have been quite busy again. We have around 8 regular clients and around a dozen others who come and go. It has provided a good, regular meeting point for me with one of the Kurdish ladies who had moved house, started college and was not as often free to meet up. Quite a number of people from the local estate (refugees, immigrants and local Scots) have also dropped in after seeing the signs around the church; people we have not had other contact with.

Today, around half an hour before closing time, a man wandered in and began chatting to the church pastoral assistant and another volunteer. Soon, Paul and I detected a familiar accent and not the Glasgow one we had been anticipating. Bobby, from Portadown in Northern Ireland had been driving past on his way from the ferry that had brought him across the Irish Sea. He saw the church was open and decided this was the place where he might begin to fulfil the reason for his trip, which was to find an Iranian guy that he had met in Tralee in the Republic of Ireland through another mission agency. (We're presuming that his friend was transferred back to the UK under European law which means asylum seekers must have their claim examined in the first EU country that they enter.) He had the address where his friend had been moved to but didn't have any church contacts in North Glasgow and felt strongly that he should come over and make the effort to find some Christians in the area who would be able to connect with his friend. He was delighted to discover an evangelical church close by, and even more thankful when he discovered that the church had a specific interest in refugees. It certainly seemed that it was no coindence.

We now have the contact details for his friend and hope to be able to meet up with them both next week, learn more about the situation and begin to work out in what way God is calling us to be involved.

It was also pretty funny to hear Bobby trying to talk to one of the Iraqi ladies who struggles enough with a Glasgow accent which is now familiar to her. "Alrighthurwhataboutye?" didn't seem to mean much to her.