THE HANOVER ESTATE is located on the outside edge of Sheffield's Inner Ring Road. The estate consists of nine low level blocks with one- to three bedroom flats/apartments, and a 17-floor tower-block, providing a total of 440 units and accommodation for more than 1,100 people. Twenty per cent of the estate consists of Somali Muslims, who fled the Somali wars in the early 1990s, 40 per cent are long-term residents, and the rest are refugees/asylum seekers and young adults passing through.

In the summer of 2003, we hired a local community centre on the edge of the estate and faithfully turned up each Sunday evening. To no avail - very few locals crossed the road to join us.

Throughout the winter we prayed about how to reach out to this multinational community. We were encouraged to persevere by a word that we would see fruit this second year, just as a bi-annual plant produces flowers in its second year. We were also guided to "be ourselves" - so we decided to meet for a picnic outside the tower block, on the green by the children's area, early on Sunday evenings.

The whole household, with other members of the church, weekly encamped in our new location from late April to late September. The result: up to 20-30 residents from the estate joined us each Sunday evening: our non-Christian contacts, other Christians, their non-Christian friends, people in poverty needing food, asylum seekers and so on. The provision of a barbecue brought out even more adults and a lot more children. We quickly learned the need for vegetarian food for the Muslim families.

One of our friends organised a whole day of play for children on the estate which we joined in, with the sisters involved in Jesus badge-making and face-painting. Approximately 180 people, mainly children, attended the day and we fed most of them. Our format was simple: food, personal conversations, easy-to-sing songs, bread and wine, Jesus-shouts and lots of hot tea and coffee! The results were easily apparent: more contacts made, more new friends coming along, well-attended friendship meals on Thursday evenings back at our house and more Christians attending discipleship classes on Wednesday evenings.

December 2004, and we are back in Sunnybank Community Centre, now fully refurbished, as we are gaining more people, week by week, and need a bigger venue. Back where we started in a way, but larger in number. And the Green is still there waiting for us in arrive in the Spring.