JIM FITZGERALD’S STORY AS TOLD BY NIGEL SYKES
At the book launch of the Moggerhanger Chronicles Part One on Sunday, 1 December 2024, many people were visiting Moggerhanger Park for the first time for a number of years. They were greeting each other as long lost friends sharing reminiscences of their days participating in the community or the Ministries at Moggerhanger. I (Clifford Hill) was privileged to listen to a number of these conversations.
One of the stories that I found particularly interesting was in a conversation between Nigel Sykes and Jim Fitzgerald. Nigel Sykes was a Research Fellow at Warrington University when the work at Moggerhanger Park in the early 2000s was at its height. Jim Fitzgerald was the Senior Chef in the restaurant that he served which was highly popular with the public. Lunchtimes were particularly busy and if you really wanted to ensure a table it had to be booked in advance.
Nigel had a man at Warwick who was in deep personal trouble. Everything had fallen apart in his life and he was in deep depression and potentially suicidal. Nigel felt that the best thing he could do for him was to take him to lunch at Moggerhanger Park where there was a tranquillity that most members of the public noticed as soon as they entered the estate. This was borne out in numerous testimonials in the Visitors’ Handbook. It was clearly due to the presence of Jesus in the community of believers who were there to welcome all who came, even if they only came for a walk through the woods and a cup of tea in the tea rooms.
Nigel and his visitor were sitting quietly at a table waiting to be served when Jim came out of the kitchen area and came to their table. This was nothing unusual for Jim who loved to talk to the guests and seized any opportunity of sharing his faith in Jesus with them. He never forced himself on any of the visitors, but his spiritual sensitivity to the various needs of people around him prompted many little conversations. On this occasion he came to the table where Nigel and his visitor were sitting quietly and Jim suddenly went down on his knees in front of the visitor. Reaching out his hand and taking the man’s hand Jim began praying for him.
Jim’s prayer evidently penetrated into the deep spiritual distress that was troubling the man and it broke through the darkness in his life like a ray of light piercing the gloom and pouring the love of God into his soul. It was exactly the spiritual healing that was needed which immediately transformed the man and lifted him out the slough of despond into the presence and reality God’s Fatherly love. Jim did not even know the man’s name or anything about him. He simply responded to an urge in his spirit to pray for this man.
It is this kind of sensitivity to the needs around believers every day that should be the driving force of our lives when we are servants of the Lord Jesus. Nigel had never forgotten this little incident and he related it to Jim at the book launch at Moggerhanger Park. Jim himself had no recollection of the incident – for him it was no doubt all in a day’s work at Moggerhanger Park. In the kitchen he was a chef preparing delicious food, but in the restaurant he was an evangelist for the Lord Jesus.