Category: Stories & Feature Articles

Uniting Church WA mourns the loss of Rev Garlett AM

Post author By revivewa
Post date November 25, 2019

It is with great sadness that the Uniting Church WA mourns the death of Rev Garlett AM.

Rev Garlett AM, a Ballardong Wadjuk man born in the Western Australian Wheatbelt town of Bruce Rock in 1957, enriched the lives of thousands of people during his service as a Uniting Church minister, both in the church and the wider community.

Rev Garlett AM was a Stolen Generations survivor and a founding member of both Bringing Them Home WA and the WA Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation to advocate for survivors and their families. At age six, Rev Garlett was taken from his parents by Native Welfare to live at Mogumber Methodist Mission, where he stayed for 12 years. During this time he rarely saw his parents; a situation that caused lasting pain.

Tags First Peoples

Stories & Feature Articles

Book Launch: A Kimberley Collaboration

Post author By revivewa
Post date November 13, 2019

The book, A Kimberley Collaboration” The Story of the Boab Network 2008 – 2018, will be launched in Floreat, on Sunday 17 November with author Rev Dr Robert Hoskin from Melbourne and Boab Network members.

The book is a history of the Boab Network. This group of volunteers originated from All Saints Floreat Uniting Church, but now involves people from the wider community and other states who work together with the Mowanjum Aboriginal Community, near Derby in the West Kimberley.

Tags Books, Films, Art, Awards and Recipes

Stories & Feature Articles

70 years of the Christmas Bowl: Australian churches unite

Post author By revivewa
Post date November 6, 2019

1300 churches spanning 15 denominations across Australia have come together to stand-up to injustice and respond to the urgent needs of men, women and children who are fleeing conflict and disaster worldwide.

“It is heart-warming to see that in an age of increasing division, churches in Australia from a wide range of faiths and traditions have pledged to take action together in order to share God’s love with our brothers and sisters in urgent need around the world,” said Hannah Montgomery, Act for Peace, the International aid agency of the National Council of Churches in Australia.

The pledge has been made to support the 70^th anniversary of the annual Christmas Bowl appeal – a pioneering fundraiser launched in Australia in 1949 to provide support for the millions of refugees suffering after WWII.

Tags Christmas, feature

Stories & Feature Articles

Looking for people with room in their hearts and their homes

Post author By revivewa
Post date October 24, 2019

UnitingCare West’s Futures Foster Care service is looking for people with empathy and compassion to provide a home to young people with high care needs who are no longer able to live with their families.

Futures provides long-term disability and therapeutic foster care options for children and young people who may have significant trauma and abuse histories, as well as developmental, physical and/or medical care needs.

Neil and Beth Reynolds fostered their first child around 18 years ago, after raising five children of their own. They now share their lives with five foster children, aged 29, 11, 10, seven and five.

Tags A Helping Hand, feature, Inclusion, Youth

Stories & Feature Articles

Celebrating history at Northcliffe

Post author By revivewa
Post date October 23, 2019

Northcliffe Uniting Church recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of their church building. On Sunday 22 September, guests attended a special worship and lunch to mark the occasion. Naomi Backhouse, member of Northcliffe Uniting Church, presented this history of the church, and shared it with Revive.

Tags Church and Community

Stories & Feature Articles

Review: Survivor Memorials: Remembering trauma and loss in contemporary Australia

Post author By revivewa
Post date October 21, 2019

by Dr Alison Atkinson-Phillips, 2019, University of WA Press

I was surprised by this book. I know Atkinson-Phillips’ work from previous associations, so it wasn’t the high quality readability that surprised me. It flows beautifully and carefully.

I also knew it would be compassionate. As she travels to survivor memorials around Australia, Alison records the persons involved with empathy and the aesthetics of each site with sympathy. I often found myself quite moved, not because of any journalistic milking of my sympathy, but in the competent record of the story.

Why was I surprised? I just didn’t think that I would like the book all that much. It is a survey of record and I thought it would be laborious in detail and philosophy. Yes, it records in detail who did what and why, as a good researcher should. Yet it is skilfully framed within a history of memorials.

I half expected that the subject of memorials might be irrelevant to where I am at. However, as the story was placed out and the distinction between memorial and monument emerged more clearly, I found parts of myself.

Tags Books, Films, Art, Awards and Recipes

Stories & Feature Articles

Sustained by faith, hope and love

Post author By revivewa
Post date October 2, 2019

Rev Nalin Perera, Chaplain at Wesley College shares his reflections on faith, hope and love through the journey of life.

Throughout my adult life journey I have discovered with each passing year that life, first and foremost, is a journey of hope, with its twin companion, faith. Ultimately, by necessity, life has to also be a journey of love, otherwise it will lack depth and any real sense of purpose.

In the early weeks of January, I was struck down by a mystery illness, so serious that I was rushed to hospital and admitted to intensive care.

Tags feature, Our People and Agencies, Schools, Youth

Stories & Feature Articles

When I die

Post author By revivewa
Post date September 30, 2019

In the last edition of Revive, we printed an opinion piece submitted by Rev Ken Devereux, Uniting Church Chaplain at Royal Perth Hospital, supporting the drafting of a Parliamentary bill for Voluntary Assisted Dying. Premier Mark McGowan introduced a Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill to the Parliament in August this year.

This edition, Prof Brian Hill, member at Billabong Uniting Church, responds to the current conversation.

Tags Ageing and Community, Church and Community

Stories & Feature Articles

Stack of stamps raise funds for Frontier Services

Post author By revivewa
Post date September 28, 2019

One Sunday afternoon our front doorbell rang, and in came Kelvin Woodward, Treasurer of our congregation, Kardinya Uniting Church.

“Hi Betty,” he said. “Are you still collecting used stamps?”

“Yes,” I replied, “For Frontier Services!”

When Kelvin said he had a few boxes for us, I gestured with my hands a box the size of a shoe box.

“No,” Kelvin said, spreading his arms wide to indicate a very large box.

Tags Church and Community, Disaster Relief

Stories & Feature Articles

Working together to support international partnerships

Post author By revivewa
Post date September 25, 2019

The Uniting Church WA has a number of positive international partnerships that congregations and individuals can support through the International Partnership and Development Commission – formally known as the UnitingWorld WA Commission. One of these partnerships is with the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka; the Uniting Church WA has currently agreed to help financially support their ‘Interfaith Preschool Project’.

South Perth Uniting Church and Wesley College recently teamed up to hold a Bollywood Dinner raising funds for this goal – building a partnership, not only with the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka, but with each other. Ten Wesley College students participated on the night, welcoming guests, serving food, clearing tables and selling raffle tickets. The school also provided the venue and decorated it in stunning Bollywood style.

Tags Church and Community, International