Shei-Lin wouldn’t have chosen Leicester but, thanks to those who walked with her through hard times, this is where her roots have truly grown.

A surprise encounter 

I had never even heard of the Navigators, but that first meeting in some guy’s house (with a bunch of slightly strange but lovely people) changed the course of my life.  

My plan was to spend 12 months in Leicester doing my Masters, then move back to London. Adam and I were engaged and we had our future planned out, but two weeks into my course I met the Navs.  

I was perplexed by the genuine openness in the Bible study group I sat in on. These people talked about the Bible in a way I had never experienced. It was real and important to them. It was alive. I was completely drawn in.  

I wanted that tangible relationship with Jesus. I wanted to know the God who came alive in the words on these pages, which were so familiar to me but which I had never engaged with like this.  

Learning as a community 

I was learning to relate to God in a way I had never imagined and I was doing this within a community of people who walked alongside me through the ups and downs of normal life.  

I knew that one year around the Navs wasn’t going to be enough, so when Adam and I were married we remained in Leicester to stay involved.  

We both continued being part of the small group and those people continued helping us to meet God in the Bible and in all that life brought our way. Very organically we started walking alongside others to encourage them in their walk with God.  

Bringing my brokenness into alongsiding 

We are still here in Leicester 23 years later. We’ve been through many different seasons and challenges, but those same people have walked with us, praying, encouraging and pointing us to Jesus in moments of doubt or despair.  

I’ve learnt (and am still learning) that it’s often our own encounters with the difficult, challenging and heartbreaking things in life that offer substance to those we walk alongside. My own experiences, particularly with depression and anxiety, have helped rather than hindered. 

I believe that all our experiences help us walk alongside others with understanding, compassion and empathy. To me, being an alongsider is simply living as a broken human being, in a broken world, relying on the love and grace of God and pointing others to the wholeness that can only be found in Jesus Christ.