Month: July 2016

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News & Announcements

A crucial inquiry into the abuse of young people in prison

The President of the Uniting Church in Australia Mr Stuart McMillan has welcomed today’s announcement of a Royal Commission into a youth detention centre in the Northern Territory.

The Royal Commission was announced by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull following the broadcast of shocking footage obtained by the ABC’s Four Corners program of the abuse and torture of detainees in Darwin’s Don Dale Youth Detention Centre.

“The treatment of these young people in detention is unspeakably appalling and a national disgrace. Such abuse is inexcusable. It must end now,” said Stuart.

“I thank the Prime Minister for his swift response. I also urge him to set terms of reference that will allow a comprehensive examination of juvenile detention, not just limited to the Northern Territory, and including the policies and practices that lead to so many young indigenous people ending up behind bars.”

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News & Announcements

Questioning homelessness stigma

UnitingCare West has revealed a shop window in Forrest Chase, across from the Perth train station overpass, which draws attention to the growing number of homeless women in Perth.

Four well-dressed female mannequins hold up cardboard signs, stating to the shopping public “One of us is homeless”. Over three months a story will unfold, revealing which woman has become homeless due to life’s circumstances.

The public is invited to view the display and follow the story of the women via the UnitingCare West Facebook page www.facebook.com/unitingcarewest/. Each story will highlight just how quickly anyone in our society can find themselves living on the streets.

The shop window is part of UnitingCare West’s 2016 Winter Appeal which aims to raise over $100,000 to further assist people experiencing homelessness.

Currently around 10,000 people in Perth are experiencing homelessness, with around 61% being women.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Made on Earth: how gospel writers created the Christ, by Lorraine Parkinson

Made on EarthWe are so fortunate, biblical scholarship reveals two gospels. The gospel of Jesus, whose teachings to counter the sin of human violence led to his unjust death. This gospel of Jesus’ teachings became incorporated into gospels about Jesus as the Christ sent by God to die as a sacrifice for our sin.

Lorraine Parkinson, an ordained minister of the Uniting Church, with a PhD from the French School of Biblical and Archaeological Studies in Jerusalem explains both gospels in her two books.

The first, The World according to Jesus: his blue print for the best possible world (2011). Then Made on Earth: how the gospel writers created the Christ (2016) presents detailed evidence that the Christ of the gospels is the creation of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, plus later editors.

Thus the gospel writers bequeathed to Christianity two contradictory gospels. The one about Jesus the Christ, increasingly irrelevant to most people, while the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth addresses the escalating violence, which we are all called by God to resist.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Standing on holy ground

Rev Eira Clapton recently visited Sri Lanka with UnitingWorld staff, to see the work of the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka, which is supported by a partnership with the Uniting Church WA. She shares stories from her trip with Revive. 

I start a new notebook for this Sri Lanka trip, because a pen and paper are quickly accessible when you want to make notes in a foreign country. On the title page I write the words: “What if we were standing on holy ground?”

Holy ground is difficult to get to. For us it involves a very early start. At 3.51am, I climb into a small bus and we set off on crowded roads out of Colombo to the more remote north-east of the country. These are the areas which have been devastated by the double disaster of civil war and tsunami. There are fewer people to do the work in these areas – many of the young were killed in the war or the disaster, or left disabled by them. The roads are poor so the villages are hard to get to, isolated from each other and from government services. The bus rollicks over dry creek beds and picks its way at a snail’s pace around deep potholes.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Truth and life for those worn down

In Micah 6:8, the prophet challenges us, “What does the Lord require of you? Surely it is to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Six years ago, my daughter – who is a professional midwife – was advised that her unborn child had a high risk of Down Syndrome and was advised to consider abortion. She struggled with this advice and in her prayers turned to this text. She and her husband decided to go ahead with the pregnancy and to face whatever consequences may lie ahead; acting justly, loving mercy and walking with God. As it turned out their son, who has been named Micah, was born without Down Syndrome.

I write this because we so often make our choices for our own personal benefit, rather than for justice, with mercy and in humility. It is a difficult balance and we often get it wrong.

Jesus set us an example of how to walk this balance. It did not mean that his view of equity for all made him a soft touch. Indeed not! He was angry at injustice, he rejected favouritism, and he overturned the tables of the crooked moneylenders. And yet he called a tax collector, loves sinners and forgave those who killed him.

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Social Impact

UnitingCare Australia calls on re-elected government to prioritise investment in vulnerable people

UnitingCare Australia has congratulated the Turnbull Government on its election victory and calls on the Prime Minister to lead renewed efforts to address key issues affecting the lives of vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians.

“We believe that the close election result has demonstrated that a focus on jobs, growth and business, while vital, is too one-dimensional for our community,” UnitingCare Australia National Committee Chair, Peter Bicknell said.

“This term is an opportunity for the Government to increase investment in people and the services needed to grow productivity and build a decent future for all.

“We particularly encourage the Government to commit to new directions in aged care funding, housing affordability and homelessness, unemployment, and early childhood education,” Peter said.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Belonging in Port Hedland

The Port Hedland community is often called a working town, a community in isolation, whose main focus is work. This makes for a community that is transient and, particularly in the current economic climate, unstable. This dynamic is reflected in the church community. We find ourselves experiencing ‘belonging’ with a completely different group of faces and personalities every 12 to 18 months.

The people, while they are in Port Hedland, work, at times, long hours and long weeks without a break. Those who work in community services work hard, long hours. This church community is one like I have never experienced before. We are small, but we are made up of such different people with rich and disparate beliefs, creeds, and philosophies which inspire and guide our lives.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Students serve in South Africa

A group of St Stephen’s School students have brought smiles to the faces of hundreds of underprivileged children in South Africa, following their recent service learning trip during the April school holidays.

The tour, co-ordinated by St Stephen’s School secondary teacher Dale Kelly, saw the Year 10 students cart bricks, paint and perform manual labour to upgrade sporting and other facilities at the Jehovah Jireh Haven (JJ Haven) orphanage on South Africa’s Sunshine Coast.

They also visited homeless shelters and townships to gain insight into the living conditions of disadvantaged South Africans; played soccer games against local teams; and delivered 250 pairs of soccer boots donated by the St Stephen’s School community.

“It was an amazing experience for all of us,” Dale said. “To be able to give something to the children who have so little was a huge reward. Our students showed great maturity and compassion throughout the trip and learned an appreciation of how privileged we truly are in Australia.”

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Stories & Feature Articles

Raising a village in Camillo

We’ve all heard the saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child.’ Louise Pekan, part-time outreach worker at The Billabong Uniting Church, puts this into action and more; believing it takes a village to support mums too.

With a passion for children and families, Louise felt called to start a Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) group in Camillo, a suburb in the City of Armadale. With assistance from members of The Billabong Uniting Church, the program launched in May last year and meets at the Kelmscott Church of Christ.

“Surrounding the area is Armadale and Kelmscott which have a lot of programs running out of them, a lot of infrastructure, support groups, and community centres and things,” Louise said. “But Camillo itself has kind of been left alone to a great degree.

“So we have seen that space, where particularly the schools and the families are struggling to gain support from outside sources, and have kind of gone, ‘how can we bring in some of the things that we know and know how to do well, encourage others, equip them and empower them to do that themselves?’”

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Stories & Feature Articles

On-site chaplaincy

It is no secret that the mining boom in Western Australia is over. The resource industry has slowed and hundreds of former fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) workers are struggling to adjust to life after FIFO, still more remain on resource projects in remote Western Australia. So how do FIFO workers who are still on projects deal with the pressures of a slowing industry, along with isolation and increasing money problems?

Rev John Dihm provides services as a chaplain to FIFO workers at a number of Rio Tinto mining camp sites in the Pilbara, with the Uniting Church WA’s Remote Area Ministry, Tom Price. John moved to Tom Price three years ago from South Australia where he ministered to people living on stations.

“I thought I’d be doing station work again, and very little mining work. I met the mining manager here and we became very good friends,” he said.

Three months into his time there, his manager friend called John to ask for his help; one of the mine workers at the site had died by suicide. This was the beginning of John’s ministry to FIFO workers in the Pilbara.

According to John, “FIFO workers talk to you about three things: one is their relationships back home, two is about their financial situation, and the third one is about their anxiety of being on site.”

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