Vidas & Rita Rimkus

We always keep our door slightly open, so God has brought many nations including locals to our home. We believe that our home should represent the Kingdom of God, thus hospitality has become a main activity for meeting people.

Rita became a Christian after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Vidas met God in the UK, while Rita was studying at Redcliffe College in Gloucester and in 2010, this missionary family from Lithuania joined ECM.  

Initially they worked with Polish people in Gloucester, but this ministry soon widened to showing hospitality to all nations through the World Café ministry. They handed this over to local leadership a few years back and started working on an extension to their house to be able to welcome more people in. The completion of this allowed for a new faith community to be started in Gloucester called Shalom House.

In early 2023, a handful of people started gathering in their home for prayer, to eat a meal, and to read Scripture together. They sensed God began building a safe place for people to explore apprenticeship with Jesus. They have been truly amazed by God‘s grace in bringing people along with no faith at all who are genuinely interested in who Jesus was and is in their lives.

Rita says, “We celebrate life, intentionally inviting friends and family with no faith. We encourage believers to pray and seek a person to begin a journey of discipleship. Shalom House is a place of friendship, welcome and hospitality. We contemplate the teachings of Jesus and work on how to live by His example. We welcome and embrace people even if they are just passing through by simply blessing them.

At Shalom House we aspire to be people of prayer with generous hearts in the way we practice our faith amongst the people of Gloucester. We believe God will grow our little community through our practice of hospitality and aim to welcome people from all walks of life.

Shalom House is an international community made of people from Africa, mainland Europe and the Brits. We pray that our continued involvement with the refugee and asylum seekers community will bear fruit. “