The UK is expecting 300,000 Hong Kongers to migrate to the UK from 31 January this year, up to 3 million Hong Kongers are eligible for this BNO (British National Overseas) Visa. This is the largest migration of people since Windrush.
Many of us would have noticed the banner by the steps of the Portico and we had a Hong Kong Welcome launch with the Bishop of London and Dr Krish Kandiah on 12 February – the first day of the Chinese New Year. While Hong Kong might have been a British dependent territory until 1997, Hong Kongers arriving in the UK will be facing linguistic challenges as well as cultural challenges. St Martin-in-the-Fields has always been a place of welcome for many centuries, but we hope to become a spiritual home for these new arrivals.
Recently, I recalled a welcoming encounter when I was a teenager in my first month in the UK. An older Chinese Christian lady who was a friend of my neighbour in my family home in Hong Kong invited me for a day trip to Birmingham and bought me a Dim Sum lunch. Noticing that I did not have enough layers to keep warm, she bought me a trench coat from House of Fraser! It was one of the few items that I found it hard to let go last time leaving the UK.
I hope this is the kind of radical welcome the government might roll out with the Welcoming support scheme for the new arrivals in need, but the actual soul fulfilling action must come from the community – the spirit of St Martin’s!
St Martin-in-the-Fields is a Hong Kong Ready Church. The next meeting of the Hong Kong Ready Committee is on Thursday 20 May at 7pm. Please contact me for details.
Revd Harry Ching
