What's life like for a boazhost? Here are some thoughts from regular people who've opened their homes to destitute asylum seekers and seen real changes in their lives as a result.

:: Matt & Kate Clements, South Manchester Family Church

There's a Steven Curtis Chapman song [What Now? from the album All Things New] that has these lyrics:

/ I saw the face of Jesus in a little orphan girl / She was standing in the corner on the other side of the world / And I heard the voice of Jesus gently whisper to my heart / Didn't you say you wanted to find me? Well here I am, here you are / So what now? What will you do now that you've found me? / What now? What will you do with this treasure you've found? / I know I may not look like what you expected but if you'll remember this is right where I said I would be / you found me / What now?

Back in our early teens the first Live Aid brought images into our homes, but it was still all a bit distant. A generation later, it feels like some of the world's most pressing and tough-to-solve issues (civil war, famine, political injustice...) have arrived on our doorstep in a very human and personal form. What now?

Our response was to dust down the spare room, to reflect on what the Bible says about hospitality and to picture ourselves in the shoes of the men and women who were crossing our path. Pregnant Eritrean women sleeping in the park in November, opponents of Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, refugees from the bloodshed in the Congo. People who'd felt the sharp end of life in Africa trying to get their bearings in our kitchen, to remember what it was like to cook for themselves, or to share a meal, or be listened to, or just dwelt with.

There were profound conversations about profound things in simple words. In English, French, whatever we could manage. There were highs and lows (which is to say, there was life) and lots to learn about ourselves along the way. One evening we'd be trying to work out how best to help someone who'd found out on the phone that his parents were killed eighteen months earlier; a few weeks later it'd be Christmas Day and the same guy's celebrating his latest victory in some board game and wondering if the squirrel outside wouldn't make a perfect roast.

You couldn't script it any more than you can script your own life. In widening the cast of characters in your home you open your heart to what God wants to work on in you (like patience, perhaps, or kindness) and to check how the fruit of that life lived by the Spirit is doing, just like it says in Galatians 5. There's that thing about declare the gospel: occasionally use words, but it's amazing how many good, spontaneous conversations about God there were along the way, so we got to find out just how much putting something into words, plain and simple words, strengthens your belief in it.

Some people stayed with us for a night or two, just while something else was sorted out. Others stayed for several months under an arrangement that gave us alternate weeks and weekends off, working in partnership with another couple, which we definitely needed to continue our own lives and recharge our batteries. And when we took a break from hosting to get things ready for the birth of our daughter, we felt fine about doing so, knowing that our idea of "family" had already been broadened by our time as hosts.

:: Mike & Kat Arundale, St James & Emmanuel Church, Didsbury

Mike and Kat's experience hosting an asylum seeker from Zimbabwe is already available online, so rather than reproduce it in full... >> click here to read

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