I finally got the chance to spend some time with Joe Donnelly, director of the Anchorage Community Project in Dublin. As I chained my motorcycle to a streetlight in front of the place, I wondered if the bike would still be there when our time was over. In the shadow of the docklands, Ringsend is one of the more depressed areas of centre-city Dublin.

I walked through the gates from off the dirty gray street and was immediately hit with a rainbow of colours and sounds from the exotic birds and beautiful flowers being cultivated for the community all around the building. Joe refers to the Anchorage as a reminder of hope.

Joe’s no newcomer to the area. He grew up in Ringsend. In fact, back in the day when this building was a Protestant mission hall, he used to pass the time vandalizing the place. As he told us the old stories, he was just shaking his head and smiling at God’s sense of humor in it all. He had spent his first years as a follower of Jesus on the streets of Dublin doing street preaching. But the frustration of trying to win arguments while losing the battle of winning their hearts made him search for a better way.

The Anchorage is a radical shift from telling people what they need to think toward helping people recognize that God’s kingdom has come to town.  People in the inner city aren’t as opposed as you might think to what you believe as long as you’re willing to walk along side them and live it out.

The Liffey River in front of the Anchorage is salty, bracken water. The sea is only a few hundred feet away so it pushes upstream to mix the fresh with the salt water. Joe says there’s a backwards pressure of the reality of God’s eternal Kingdom breaking through all the time into what’s happening now. God as a loving parent wants to give tangible reason to hope for the future he’s already prepared for us. And that’s what the Anchorage is all about.

One early morning, as he was reading from the gospel of Matthew, he recognized that the birds of the air and the flowers of the field were reminders of hope when the pressures of life and worry press in. That’s when he came up with the idea of raising flowers for the community and introducing the neighborhood to the songs of exotic birds housed at the centre. The hard, almost toxic soil of Ringsend needs to be revitalized so that the seeds of the hope of the Gospel can grow locally.

The Anchorage runs a child-care creche and this summer a coffee and internet cafe. The flowers are sold around Dublin as well; the proceeds of everything going to send Ringsend youth on humanitarian service projects in Africa. Last year alone 20,000 euros was raised for overseas projects. Recently friends of the Anchorage gather weekly there, meeting every other week to gather for worship, prayer and bible study, and the alternate weeks going out into the community to serve with specific projects like street parties, gardening and clean-up. There’s also a development project to open a family counseling centre next to the coffee shop where friends and neighbours can find a more private place with a listening ear and encouragement to help rebuild broken relationships.

Seeing my bike waiting for me where I’d left it reminded me of my attitude about the area only a few hours before. I’m not sure what changed me most: the children from the creche breaking out into a spontaneous chorus of “You are my sunshine” to the centre’s one and only rabbit or Joe’s stories of hope and restoration.  All I know is that I left the Anchorage feeling hopeful for Ringsend. “Hope” has moved into the neighbourhood and lives there and it sounds like good news to me.

Durand Robinson, Dublin

(PHOTOS: Upper: Joe Donnelly with Cheryl Kingsley, Lower: Joe with Phil Kingsley)