Emily’s story

I first came to ACT when I did the St Aldates School of Ministry in 2017. 

I’d literally just become a Christian and I didn’t really know what that meant for my life. 

ACT became family to me.

Everyone was so real. They showed me what it looked like to have a friendship with Jesus in this non-performative way. 

That year was so healing.

During it, I got to know rough sleepers in Oxford and noticed how much harder it was for women to access services – or even just survive. 

Life expectancy for homeless women is 42. 

Sexual violence rates are so high that of course women gravitate towards a relationship to protect themselves.

But when that protection turns on you – it's a scary thing. 

Women are often primary caregivers, so they’re less likely to ask for help amidst addiction for fear their kids might be removed. 

I felt frustrated, like my work wasn’t able to meet women’s needs. 

I think ACT Women came out of this discontent. 

There needed to be more in Oxford for women.  

God began speaking to me about staying in Oxford to train as a social worker. I wanted the training to equip me to work for ACT long term but assumed that’d mean working with men.

Then, at a prayer meeting, housing manager Jemma said she’d had a dream of twins being born. 

She thought it was prophetic for ACT – birthing a men’s and a women’s ministry. 

After hearing this, I felt so emotional. 

I remember thinking, ‘That’s where I’m supposed to be in the future.’

ACT Women began through a beautiful and slow process. 

I started working at a women’s residential treatment centre in Gloucestershire. I met women there I’d known when they were homeless in Oxford. 

It felt so significant, and to see how a service can journey with women out of addiction and into recovery. 

Then at a church gathering, I started praying for women in Oxford. 

After I prayed, women started queuing up to talk to me.

God had been speaking to all of them about a work among women. 

Jo Mitchell was one of those women. I connected with her beautifully. She said, ‘We need to get the praying women together.’ 

So, a group started faithfully praying. I think all of ACT Women has happened from that place of prayer. 

A few years later, Jo and I both joined the ACT team.

It felt like it was all becoming a reality. Which was beautiful and scary.

Homelessness and prison can remove so many choices from your life. So, we started hosting wellbeing days where women choose between lots of clothes, spa treatments and cafe drinks. 

It’s a space where nothing is expected of them. The women themselves help shape the events, too. 

Last year, Oxford Probation Service approached us to host their women’s workshops. 

These events are really humanising. 

We serve a full breakfast spread. The space is homely. It’s not a clinical, harsh environment, like many of the institutions women face. 

We wanted the environment to be healing – where women aren’t what they’ve done. Where they can just be.

God does beautifully particular and small things through ACT Women.

Like one woman at a wellbeing day saying, ‘I’m gonna be okay, aren’t I?’ He gives the strength for another day, which is huge.

He also does big, powerful things. 

I know one woman who encountered Jesus, then got into recovery. She got her kids living back with her again and now she’s moved into her dream home – all within 18 months.

ACT Women is sometimes quite confronting for me. I spent years thinking I needed to earn God’s love. I’ve had to learn I’m enough for God. I need to remind myself this every day, so that I have integrity when I tell other women that God loves them. 

When I read about Jesus’ interactions with women, I think the women we journey with would've been some of his best friends.

It's easy to lose hope when hearing the horrific things women experience. But I think hope is all we’ve got sometimes. 

And hope isn’t just a nice thing to have. It’s defiant. It’s like a weapon. 

If all I can do is just give people hope, then that feels enough to me.

The dream for ACT Women is to form a free community of women that knows friendship with Jesus, and leads other women into freedom.

That’s the dream.