Patrick and Lin have been hosting with us in London since 2021. Here, Patrick shares his experience hosting over Christmas, and his advice for anyone doing the same.

Before volunteering as a host, Patrick was no stranger to the needs of people looking to rebuild their lives in the UK.

“For several years I was working for Freedom from Torture,” he said. “All our clients were refugees or people seeking asylum and it made me realise what a need there was for housing. I had met a couple of young people who were hosted by Refugees at Home and liked the way they worked with them, so I signed up to host.”

To date, Patrick and his wife Lin have opened their home to five people, one of whom spent last Christmas with the couple. Although Patrick had worries about how their guest would feel about their festive celebrations, he was beloved by the couple’s family and embraced the holidays.

Patrick said: “Even though he’s not from a Christian background, he had a kind of spiritual part of his life, and he enjoyed our traditions. Not just the religious ones, but the secular ones too – the meal, the presents and all that stuff.”

For anyone hosting at Christmas, Patrick has a few words of advice: “Aim to try and include them as much as possible in activities. Last Christmas we all went to my daughter’s house in the day and then back to ours for dinner. He came to church with us as well. My grandson is very fond of him and always glad to see him. He could have opted out of any of it but he was happy and pleased to take part in everything we did.”

Despite their very different lives and experiences, they’ve stayed in touch with their guest, and discovering a shared interest has been a key part of their enduring friendship.

“He’s been through a lot and one of the ways he copes is by riding his bike. We’re cyclists too and we all enjoy going on rides together.”

“He’s culturally very different from us but we have this overlap of interests and so we get something out of being with each other.”

“Since he stayed with us, he’s taken some cookery courses and he’s actually quite an imaginative cook – he cooked for us recently and it was a very nice meal. He might even help us with Christmas dinner. One of the lovely parts of his personality is that he wants to help all the time.”

Even though some of their friends have labelled their actions as saintly, Patrick believes it’s not a hardship for them and is happy to do what he can.

“I suppose the best thing is knowing that if we didn’t do this then our guests’ lives could be quite grim – spending their time living on night buses or even sleeping rough.”

“We’re lucky because we’ve got space. We’ve got a house, we’ve got two bathrooms, we’ve got spare bedrooms and this seems like a no brainer. For us, it’s not something that’s hard to do.”

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