Christ's window cleaners

‘If you’re an Oxford history graduate, how come you’re a window cleaner?’ is one of the questions Jerry Fowler is frequently asked when he chats to a new client.

‘What an opportunity to talk about Jesus, who laid down his life for us!’ He is the inspiration for Aquila Window Cleaning, the business that helps refugees work themselves out of poverty. Jerry helps refugees to provide for their families as well as helping them with their English as they clean windows together.

First rung of the ladder

Kurds are especially encouraged to apply: ‘This summer a Kurdish friend did a two-month stint with me. We operated half in English, half in Kurdish — which was a great help to us both’.

Aquila works in partnership with Refugee Resource, who refer people on to Jerry for interview. Jerry gets phone calls, too, through church: ‘It’s great for a church to have at least one business which can hold out a hand to the marginalised.’ This is what drew Jerry to window cleaning, a trade in which refugees with minimal English can be taken on and be productive from day one.

At the moment Jerry can only take on one full-time assistant at a time, but there is room for growth. Aquila has 500 clients on its database, which is how Jerry has been able to help Jack into his own handyman business. ‘I’m on the look-out for refugees (or students) who can offer value-for-money cleaning, computer help and odd jobs like painting and gardening.’

‘Our priority must be to help those in our local church’, Jerry explains. ‘But I also gladly take on refugees of other faiths. One man I employed strongly opposed doctrines like the Fatherhood of God, but was fascinated to see how differently our family lived. After a while he was asking to come along to church.’

Converted at school

Jerry was converted aged 17 while at boarding school — he went on a Christian camp because he wanted to get his Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Award and it was the easy alternative to a week serving in an old people’s home. He then joined St. Ebbe’s, Oxford, as a student: ‘I still remember those hard-hitting sermons — it got me and a friend thinking, “Would we be prepared to be dustmen for the sake of the gospel?”

‘I discovered the gospel opportunities that manual work can bring chopping carrots in Sydney. I stood there for hours talking to the Chinese immigrants in the factory about the Lord. It made me think, ‘Wow, you can evangelise all day long and get paid for it as well!’

Meeting a church planter working in Iraqi Kurdistan opened his eyes to the need for labourers in the Kurdish harvest-field and so he started a prayer group at St. Ebbe’s for them. ‘Just a few months later’, Jerry explains, ‘Kurds were rolling up the M40 in the back of lorries. We should keep praying to the God who can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine!’ Jerry started visiting Kurds in Oxford and recording everyday conversation which he would play back over and over again to improve his pronunciation.

Setbacks and progress

It hasn’t all been plain sailing. ‘I was very discouraged failing in a number of career options that I tried. But God used those failures to humble me and leave me calling out to him for his help.’ There’s been much to thank God for over the last three years: ‘We’ve had several newspaper articles about ‘the Oxford graduate window cleaner’, as well as interviews on local TV and radio. This has been a good gospel opportunity — and good for business!’

They left their nets

Jerry has had to ponder the examples of Peter, who left his nets, and Paul, who took up his tents, in both cases to further the work of the gospel. Together with the Headington plant of St. Ebbe’s, Jerry and Joy felt it right to apply to Oak Hill Theological College and then go on to serve the gospel among Kurdish people. ‘Being told recently by a refugee that he would only work 16 hours a week for me — for fear that he would have to start paying his own rent — has reminded me how desperately wicked and slothful our hearts are. Refugees, like all of us, need to be born again, and we want to spend more time studying and preaching the Word of God, which can alone bring about that transformation.’

New manager needed

Aquila is now looking for someone to take over the business in August 2007. For more information, go to http://www.AquilaWindowCleaning.co.uk.

If you know Kurdish people and would be willing to give them a Scripture calendar or a gospel, email jerry@aquilawindowcleaning.co.uk or write to him at 8 Thistledown Close, Oxford OX4 7HA.