A New Life: Kevin Fox's troubled youth is an asset in his new job. He tells Sylvia Thompson about reaching out to the young.
Kevin Fox (25) emanates a kind of warm glow that contrasts starkly with his burly stature.
As a youth worker in one of the toughest areas in Dublin, he would need to be fairly thick-skinned and perhaps even more so, when he explains how through his work, he is also spreading the message of God.
"They'll push you as far as they can and when they find out that you won't lose it with them or retaliate, they stop," he says of the children and teenagers he first befriended while playing football on the streets of Killinarden in Tallaght.
"In the first six months or so, I didn't have anywhere to work from, so I used to hang out with the kids on the streets.
"I quickly learned that they just wanted a grown up's attention and someone to talk to about their problems. Even the smallest conversation is a blessing to them," he says.
So when An Solas, the Methodist Church and Community Centre opened in Jobstown, Tallaght last year, Kevin had a workplace to go to and a centre for youth groups to meet in. "Some people thought it was a methadone clinic - not a Methodist church when it first opened," says Kevin.
The job was a big change for the young man who grew up in Kill, Co Kildare, working in a breaker's yard for horses as a teenager and then driving racing cars in his spare time while making a living driving a furniture removals van for a small removals firm in Punchestown, Co Kildare.
"Driving was always a passion of mine. I got my car licence at 17 and passed my truck test at 18. I did up old cars from a garage at my parents' house and raced for a season at Mondello when I was 20," he says.
It was this passion for cars that led to an early turning point in Kevin's life.
"I used to get into trouble at school for stealing things and fighting. And one night a friend crashed a car into someone else's car and fled the scene. I took the car and burnt it out for him. This got me into trouble with the gardaí. It petrified me and I kept very low key after that. Shortly afterwards, I decided to give my life to Christ," he says.
Kevin explains how he had met some born-again Christians around that time and had started going to Gospel services. "My parents saw a difference in me and were quite happy I wasn't getting into trouble," says Kevin, who was brought up a Catholic.
His interest in living a Christian life continued alongside his busy job with the furniture removals firm for seven years.
"By the time I left that job, I was responsible for co-ordinating the removals. I had three guys working with me and I had to estimate the time it would take to pack up, load up and unload, decide which trucks to use and do all the costing on each job.
"It was tough work as I hadn't that much experience handling people."
Meanwhile, he had met Shirley Brooks, the primary school teacher who would soon become his wife, and together they bought an apartment in Naas, Co Kildare.
"We were looking for a church to go to. We had decided we wanted a small fellowship so we found a house group [bible study group] in Killinarden Estate in Tallaght run by the Methodist Church," he says.
Over time, this weekly bible study group grew into a community of worshippers which led to the building of the aforementioned Tallaght Methodist Church and Community Centre.
"I started to get more and more involved in the church and I felt I wanted to do something that had a personal impact on people, not just work for which the reward was just money," he says.
Kevin's interest in the church caught the attention of Des Bain, the current president of the Methodist Church in Ireland, then secretary for Home Mission in the Methodist Church, who told him about the new position for a youth worker in Tallaght.
"Within two weeks, I had the job. I didn't know anything about working with young people. I was amazed to be asked to do the job. I was never a popular guy at school. I thought this will be a nightmare situation but I said yes even though I had doubts," says Kevin, who took a 50 per cent drop in income to become a young worker.
Now, two years on, Kevin says that he loves the job. He estimates he has had sustained contact with between 80 and 100 children and teenagers over the two years.
"The job has changed in that since we moved into this building, I also have responsibility for looking after the building and the groups that use it.
"I've also started preaching in church and leading bible studies. I believe my position here is changing more now and that I'm called to do pastoral work and the youth work role might be handed on to somebody else," he says.