This week we chatted to Alex Brito, who heads up English for Everybody as part of the local outreach from Mosaic Multicultural Church in East London, UK. Find out what he has to say about English, mission and outreach and how some students have started coming along to their Sunday gatherings. Take a couple of minutes to read through and be inspired…

Hi Alex! Great to meet you. How and why did you come to the UK?

We (the Brito family) moved to London, from Brazil, in 2015 to plant Mosaic Multicultural Church and before we began teaching the Bible, we taught English as a second language in order to engage with the community.

On your website you state Mosaic Multicultural Church is a local church for the global community. What does that mean?

The vision of our church is to be a global church (multicultural) able to plant churches in global cities (missional) for the glory of a global God (biblical). To turn this dream into a reality, we chose Elephant and Castle because of its diversity.

Can you tell us how running international cafes came about?

Many of those we engage through English for Everybody (ESOL) often leave us when they reached a good level of English. So, we decided to create a project to give them the opportunity to keep the friendship and practicing English.

That’s sounds like a great idea. What typically happens on any day that the café is running?

The format is very simple. We start with introductions and warm welcomed, play a game, build their vocabulary and finish by splitting ourselves into small groups. This gives the guest the change to practice their speaking and give us the opportunity to build relationships.

What’s been the biggest joy or happiest moment you and your team have seen?

The aim of each project (English for Everybody and The International Café) is just to engage with the community. However, many of our guests and students have taken Bible studies with us. Some of them attend our Sunday Gathering as a result. This is a great encouragement for all of us.

OK, that’s really encouraging. However, how has COVID impacted on what you been doing?

The church struggled a lot with it because we haven’t been able to meet in person, as the venue where we meet is closed. On the other hand, we have been engaging and evangelising people as never before.

So what’s been the biggest challenge?

Our biggest challenge, at the moment, is that we don’t have many people to help us to prepare the soil or to reap the harvest. In other words, we are engaging and evangelising a lot of people, but we our team is very small.

Are there any prayer requests you’d like to share with our Christian TEFL family?

Yes, do pray for the Lord of the Harvest to send us more labourers to help us with the English classes and the International Café, please.

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Thanks Alex, we certainly will be praying for you and for your team of teachers and helpers to grow.

What next?

Inspired by this story, and are in the Elephant and Castle area or close by? Could you help in any way? Contact Alex on alex@mosaicmulticulturalchurch.org

For more info on Mosaic, see their church web link here: https://www.mosaicmulticulturalchurch.org/internationals

Mosaic is a Christian TEFL partner church, with training for English language teaching and ESOL outreach. Would your church benefit from training and support? If so, find out more here and get in touch >>