(This article was taken from the Autumn/Winter ’09 issue of flow Magazine)

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Do I feel like a missionary? No, not really – I just live here.’

Twenty-one year old Harriet Atkins makes the challenge of living on Eden in one of the nation’s most needy estates sound like the most natural thing in the world.

But her journey from a middle-class home in one of the nicer parts of Manchester proves that this is a woman
sent by God and called for a purpose.

‘I grew up in a Christian home but to be honest I felt like God was passing me by. I knew he was the reason I’d had a great childhood but I didn’t have an understanding of who he was to me. ‘One day a person I really admired asked me, “Have you got a relationship with God?” That was where my journey with Him started.’

After feeling God speaking to her at a Planet Life event as a teenager, Harriet was accepted to the Genetik youth training course at 18.

‘Genetik was the most amazing time of my life – understanding the promises God had made over my life, getting to know the Holy Spirit, learning my Bible – I couldn’t get enough of it.’

As a passionate Genetik graduate, her skills in youth work were quickly in demand at her parents’ church.

‘It was a nice middle class area so the kids who had been brought up in nice Christian homes were really engaged. But the ones who were either rebelling or hadn’t been brought up in such great homes seemed to be neglected. I found my heart was broken for these girls.’

Harriet began a small prayer group in her basement with three of the girls. Before long this became six.

‘Because I was only a couple of years older than them, the issues they were going through were the same ones I had gone though and had seen breakthrough in. My heart ached when I heard them say things like “God does things for other people but not for me.” That is exactly how I used to feel.’

During this time it became clear to Harriet what God wanted from her life:

‘Being in a youth group, working with the hard-to-reach ones made me realise what I was supposed to be doing: realising potential in young people.’

Harriet’s involvement with Eden Harpurhey came through a chance conversation with then team leader Lucy Smith. As she described her heart for mentoring young girls, it became obvious that she was a perfect fit for a new role as a mentoring coordinator.

‘Studies have shown that mentoring is the number one need in Harpurhey for young people. There are so few role models for the kids who have been left behind.’

Harriet fell in love with Harpurhey’s people, the community, the church and the way Eden functioned as part of the church.

‘The Eden team in Harpurhey “do” church. Before, I thought you “went to church”. But they live church out in community with the people, the kids, the families.’

Harriet’s work is a crucial part of the Eden team on the streets of Harpurhey. With the team, she interacts with dozens of young people on a weekly basis from detached work on the streets, a drop-in centre run in partnership with the local Lighthouse Group centre, and one-on-one discipleship and prayer with young people.

‘We work with a lot of young girls who have no self-esteem whatsoever. One girl in particular we’ve really seen blossom. She had been told all her life she looked like a man which was patently not true. Yet whenever I saw her she was covered up head to toe in baggy tracksuits. Over weeks and months, we gradually got her to realise that she is in fact beautiful and to understand that her identity doesn’t have to lie in covering herself up. It was about getting her to a place where she had heard and she knew that she was totally loved by God.

‘We helped her make a ‘God wall’ which she plastered with scripture and God’s promises to her. On a particularly low day, she took it all down saying she no longer believed any of it. One of the other young people came in and said “Don’t you dare take that down”, and read them all back to her, one by one. Her confidence has gone up ten-fold. Educationally, she’s doing really well. She passed her exams and got a fantastic job she loves. Everyone she knows is just overwhelmed with the change they’ve seen in her. God wants to do that kind of transformation every day.’

How does she feel about living in one of the most deprived parts of the UK where health is poor, unemployment is high and police sirens are part of the ambient noise?

‘There are some people who say to me, “How is it living in Chavland?” which is a common view. And it’s funny listening to other Christians talk about their problems and thinking, “You have no idea!” But I’ve never once felt unsafe. I know we have a massive God. It’s home.

‘Eden is great because it gives people a format for how to live as a Christian on an estate among people who are broken. I just feel like if Jesus were walking around now, this is where he would be living.  He wouldn’t be living there as a mentoring coordinator, he’d literally be just living there, being light in the community and doing life with people. That’s Eden.’

Find out more about Eden at the Eden Network website.

Tags: Community Action, Eden, Eden Network, Manchester, testimony, young people, youth ministry