For many Zimbabweans arriving in London with little more than a suitcase and a phone number, it is the church — not any government service — that becomes the first real point of contact, offering everything from a spare room for the first fortnight to a WhatsApp group that doubles as a job board.

Congregations across the city have quietly built parallel welfare systems: burial societies that cover the cost of repatriating a body, informal loan circles for deposit shortfalls, and a network of members willing to vouch for newcomers on tenancy applications that would otherwise be rejected outright.

"The government doesn't ask if you're okay. The church does, every Sunday, in person," said one congregation elder in Croydon, who estimates his church alone has helped resettle more than 200 families over the past decade.

It is, congregants say, a social safety net built entirely on trust — one that has had to expand faster than any of them expected as migration from Zimbabwe to the UK has accelerated.