Malt Cross Trust - Stories
Ang’s Story
“Without the Malt Cross and the support and encouragement of their staff I may never have found God and got through my depression”.
In 2005 Ang became deeply depressed following the death of her Grandfather (who was a real hero to her) and an accident that left her with limited mobility for many months. During the previous year Ang had discovered the Malt Cross Café bar and through becoming a regular visitor had developed a number of personal relationships. These friends supported Ang through her depression by spending time with her, listening, praying and offering practical help. One day Ang decided to try some meditation and visited the Prayer room at the Malt Cross. It was here that Ang met God in a powerful and intimate way – she felt God say ‘It is going to be OK, I know your struggles, you can ask me to help you’.
From this point on Ang began to experience a joy and peace she had never known before. She began to explore and develop her new found faith through the MX Community and then moved to one of the City based churches. Ang is now an active ‘Street Pastor’ and is involved with prison ministry as well as children’s work at the church she regularly attends.
Fiona’s Story (name changed to protect anonymity)
“My father was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 1999 and I was involved in nursing him right the way through to his early death in 2002. I found this incredibly difficult and the only way I could cope was by spending the weekend in a complete haze of alcohol and drugs. After he died it got further out of hand as I buried my anger and pain with even more alcohol and drugs.
Then my friend, Julie, told me about the Malt Cross and I became a regular visitor. Through being involved I widened my social network to include a whole new bunch of people whose lives were not centred on drugs and alcohol. Their influence, friendship and encouragement helped me get my alcohol consumption under control and my life back on track.
I’ve also rediscovered my faith and become an active member of the Malt Cross community. I meet and pray with a small group on a regular basis and am planning to train as a Street Pastor so I can reach out to those using alcohol and drugs to drown their difficulties and pain”.
DJ Danny's story
When Danny first started DJing at the Malt Cross he had no interest in talking about God. However at one time he was having real problems sleeping and a member of staff offered to pray for him - he had the best night’s sleep ever! Since then there has been a more spiritual element to many conversations and Danny says “there’s no doubt that talking to people in the Malt Cross has made me more open to faith and religion as a whole”.
Gina's story
Gina works on a club door in the centre of the city, she says: “It is really great having the guys from the Malt Cross around. On one occasion they helped defuse a difficult situation by walking a problem customer away and calming him down. What I really enjoy though is the chance to have a proper conversation rather than the banal banter we get on the door. We talk about all sorts of things including God – I don’t think I’m sincere enough to go to church but they keep telling me I am!”
Sophie's story
About 18 months ago Sophie was at an extreme low point, a mixture of frailty from her past, difficult questions and utter confusion had led to anxiety and mistrust of anything related to God.
Around this time Sophie was getting more involved with the Malt Cross community and found it somewhere she could consider spiritual things in complete safety. As Sophie says ‘it’s a place where I feel truly 100% myself, non-anxious, really loved, as if I really matter and I’ve been able to reciprocate that and hopefully give others in the community that same feeling’.
Through this Sophie has been able to tentatively continue her journey with God - “It’s like I was holding vast quantity of ‘rubble’ before, and now I hold a small but solid rock in my hand”.
Sophie also feels the Malt Cross community is relatively easy to share with others. This is because Sophie is confident that it is somewhere that people feel accepted - because that was her own experience.