Getting to know our overseas workers

For a few years now our generous catering crew at the Warwick UC have provided a lunch on the first Sunday of the month which we call TWEATTT – Those Who Eat Alone Talk To Themselves. This is an opportunity for those who eat alone to have a meal in company of other ‘singles’.

Usually it is mainly older females, but recently it is drawing a new clientele – some of our overseas workers – from Fiji, New Guinea and South Korea. All these younger workers are away from their families and while they join us for morning tea each Sunday this often doesn’t provide the type of conversation that goes further than a friendly chat.

The chance to sit by someone for an hour or so and swap stories about their life and families at home builds friendships that help fill the gap of what they have left at home, and another point of interest for oldies to hear about lives quite different from their own. Our workers are usually younger than our home-grown TWEATTTers and this makes the relationship just that bit more special. Many of them come from multi-generational homes and are quite unfamiliar with our culture of singles living on their own. But it’s certainly a two-way street. Tanya and Geoun Won are regular attendees both at our worship services and TWEATTT.

So we’re all learning a little bit more about these sometimes shy, always friendly workers who are living in Warwick and away from their homeland and families for months to years at a time. It has certainly enriched our congregation and helped everyone to widen their idea of life and worship on the Downs. Long may it continue.