A Second Chance

A Second Chance

We work in a place called Second Chance Charity Shop and Café in our home town of Sleaford. (https://www.facebook.com/SecondChanceCharityShopAndCafe) It is “exactly what it says on the tin”. The shop sells used clothes and goods to anyone who will take the time to step out of the great big busy and impatient world into our little calm and Jesus-filled world. The café sells fresh home-made snacks and meals plus the usual range of hot or canned drinks.

Our mission is “To reach people with the love of Jesus in the local community and around the world and let them know that there IS hope, there IS freedom, there IS Salvation in Jesus. Our mission is to be the hands and heart of God extended to a dying and hurting world.”

People come in and we engage with them. If they want to be left alone – we leave them alone. If they want to chat – we chat. Sometimes we sense another reason for coming our way, so we ask a few questions and even offer prayer. This is nearly always appreciated and accepted. Many of them have said there is a different atmosphere about our little shop. We tell them it is Jesus. We try to carry His presence there.

People find amazing bargains too – others bring us the most amazing things to sell to support our charities. We support a Christian school and feeding program in Mombassa, Kenya for 800+ children. We support a very much local Christian drug and alcohol rehabilitation unit. We support a famous international agency in Romania. We help other charities too but these are our main ones.

We have some wonderful supporters too. They bring us amazing “throw outs” and they buy stuff too. One lovely person supplies us with a stream of new things, expensive new things, that are bought just so that we can sell them and so someone else, who perhaps may not be able to afford such things, can buy them at a fraction of the retail price – often about half the Amazon price !! Isn’t that just mind blowing?

Throughout all this, customers present or not, we even hold daily short prayers at opening time. Most people love it and just soak up our atmosphere. Those who don’t want to join in just carry on browsing until we are ready to serve them. There is a lot of laughter in our small world too.

Yet we seek to serve the hurt, the wounded, the disadvantaged, the sick, the widows and orphans of both our world and of the outside world too.

We offer free drinks and food to some who cannot afford them today. We plan to have a prayer room upstairs where prayers for life and healing may be offered. We want to be Jesus eyes, ears, hands, and feet – to anyone and everyone who comes across our path. He died for us. Is it too much for Him to ask us to do something in return. Not because we have to but because we want to do so and to put something back.

Come visit us in Boston Road, Sleaford. You may get more than you came for.