Hi. My name is Rachel and I am in Tenerife. I moved to Tenerife with my husband last year and it was during the restrictions that we moved out. We didn’t know anybody and it was a really difficult time not having any social connections or any social support. On top of that, the restrictions meant that it was difficult to have meetings with people and do normal events or even just to get to church was really challenging for the first few months that we were here. We missed out on that support.

We managed to get to the Carol Service at Tenerife Family Church where Johnny & Helen were based. They spent some time getting to know us, offered us both support, practically, they wanted to help us with things like food. They were able to bless us with a food parcel and everyday essentials such as shower gel which we hadn’t had because we couldn’t afford it, so we felt really blessed to know we had people looking out for us.

So since then we’ve both been getting some 121s with Johnny and Helen. So my husband struggles with addiction and he needed 121s to work through this recovery and to have some accountability so Johnny has been supporting him. Helen has been supporting me as well dealing with the situation but also practically: dropping in with food, just for a coffee, introducing me to people, making sure that I get out and get to church, giving me lifts and it has really, really been a blessing for both of us.

We’ve also been part of the Celebrate Recovery zoom group that has been running each week, which began in person but moved online with the restrictions and that’s meant that we can join from anywhere and get support through and work through the 12 Steps Recovery for Christians called Celebrate Recovery and that’s been really good to work through that together get support informally as a group and build relationships with other people and know that we’re not in this alone.

So that’s been really useful. We are really blessed to be helped by Restored2Hope and be part of their projects that they’ve been doing.

If you do need help and support yourself, definitely reach out to them because they are such big hearted people, so much kindness, so much love for others and yes, a real big blessing.