Category: Stories & Feature Articles

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Stories & Feature Articles

Detention adds death to distress and despair

Part of what makes our nation and our society so great is the Australian concept of a ‘fair go’, along with the willingness to ‘lend a hand.’ It is part of our core business as churches and community organisations to care for the vulnerable, for the stranger. Indeed you could suggest it is part of every Australian’s DNA to care for those in need. It is with great sadness then that we must admit that we have neglected to lend a hand to asylum seekers and we are not providing them with anything closely related to a ‘fair go’. Instead our detention policies are actually adding distress to despair – and now death as well. Mohammad Nazim Najafi, aged in his mid-twenties, died a lonely death last Friday evening.

The Coalition for Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Detainees (CARAD) has been working with a number of churches and community groups visiting asylum seekers in Yongah Hill Immigration Detention Centre (IDC), on the outskirts of Northam since the centre was opened in 2012. We have come to personally know many of the asylum seekers who are detained there, with friendships formed and affection shared. Their stories are all unique, and yet share similar threads – longings for loved ones, memories of war and persecution, journeys of peril, and always, a desire to work, to contribute and ultimately give back to Australian society.

So it is with troubled hearts that we share this reality: detention and the length of time it is taking to complete the claims assessment process is killing our friends. We have slowly watched the despair rise to levels we did not dare believe it could go. Just last week the debilitating hopelessness that indefinite detention brings contributed to the death of a young asylum seeker at the Yongah Hill IDC. In the past year two men with Bridging Visas have taken their own lives in Perth. We cannot let such tragedies occur so quietly. We invite you to share our dismay, our outrage and demand another way. The halls of these detention centres and the processes of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) have too many shadows for a democracy such as ours.

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Travelling north: our new president

On 12 July, Stuart McMillan was installed as the new president of the Uniting Church in Australia at the 14th Triennial Assembly. Matt Pulford interviewed him recently and shares Stuart’s  journey with Revive.

Six weeks after being interviewed in Sydney for an accountant position at the Uniting Church in Australia’s (UCA) Northern Synod, Stuart McMillan found himself standing alone with his swag on the edge of a dirt airstrip at Ramingining, 560 km east of Darwin. No one got the message that he was coming. No one knew who he was, and more practically, no one was there to pick him up. So he hitched a ride into the community with some locals.

The year was 1982. Stuart McMillan was 27 years old. He and his wife Ros, a behavioural scientist, had made the big decision to leave their comfortable community in Sydney’s suburban northwest to move to Darwin with their young family. For some time, Stuart and Ros had known that they wanted to do something in their lives that would make a difference in the world and to live out the values of  their shared Christian faith.

Stuart remembers feeling a deep concern for Australia’s First Peoples from the time he was in primary school in the 1960s. By the early 1980s Stuart and Ros were active in social justice issues at the Chester St Congregational Church in Epping, and keenly followed news about Aboriginal land rights that would filter through from Darwin via Rev Jim Downing, a local minister there. From time to time Jim would send telegrams to his friends down south, urging them to advocate for various Aboriginal causes to their local Members of Parliament. After consideration and discernment, Stuart and Ros’s opportunity came when they spotted the Northern Synod’s job ad in the newspaper one Saturday. Six weeks later, as he stepped off that deserted airstrip in the middle of Arnhem Land, Stuart McMillan began to live out his lifelong passion, and form his personal covenant – to use the modern UCA expression – with the First Peoples of Australia.

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On the road to Emmaus

Rev Dr Emanuel Audisho, multicultural ministry co-ordinator at the Uniting Church in WA, led the Bible study on Wednesday 15 July at the recent 14th Triennial Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia, held in Perth. His study on Luke 24: 13-35 is below. In this study, Emanuel focused on the perspective from Middle Eastern culture. 

Station One: Travelling with Jesus in the 21st century

When Jesus ministered in Israel, he and his disciples walked everywhere. This was their only means of transport. Walking was the usual way of travelling in the Middle East at that time.

For the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, walking and talking was perhaps a means of managing their grief and distress. Many people today go for walks to manage stress but without Jesus walking can be lonely.

As they walked the two disciples discussed the events of the past three days. It is clear from Luke’s account that they didn’t understand all that had happened. They were disappointed. They told Jesus that they had hoped that the man who had been crucified would have been the one to redeem Israel v21. They also told him of the rumors of the Resurrection, but it seems that they found this too hard to accept.

Luke tells us that: “They were kept from recognising him.” v16. We can’t be sure why this should be so, but it is within God’s sovereign will to decide when and where and how he will reveal himself to his people.

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Sharing life’s stories

It is somewhat unique for me to be asked to contribute to a theological spot. For the past 20-plus years, I have found myself in front of 1200 to 1500 students weekly, talking about our  spirituality. I have also spent time at camps, sport and in the chapel. The choice of words reflecting centuries of theological insight has little if any meaning in this setting. Perhaps some would  say, ‘that is because the words aren’t used enough.’

I’m not convinced. I think Jesus was faced with this same dilemma as he spoke to the foreigner, tax-gatherer, child or outcast each day.

The theme of this issue, being ‘beyond your circle’ prompts us to ask ourselves, ‘how do we relate to others?’ I believe it begins with simply being with them and listening. The gospel often refers  to Jesus knowing what ‘they’ were thinking and then responding. He spoke through story and chose his stories to carry a meaning that they could identify. More importantly, he cared  what they thought and understood. Jesus would speak and tell stories about their world because it was his own incarnation – he was born as one of us.

Our stories at Scotch College are about things that the students are familiar with and to which they can relate. It may be the story of Disney’s animation film, Big Hero 6, or Dido’s song, Life for  Rent. When a School Captain shares his reflections on the ANZAC legend and a student shares a letter written by a young man to his mother from the trenches at Gallipoli – seven days before he  dies – others begin to understand the different ways people sacrifice.

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From the Archives: World War I chaplains

Throughout 2015, to mark the centenary year of the ANZAC landing at Gallipoli, Revive will be publishing a series of articles highlighting the men who provided chaplaincy to those who served  in WWI.

Rev Eric Hans Orton Nye was born on the 18 May 1896 in Victoria. In 1915, Rev Nye and his wife moved to Narrogin Methodist Church. On 16 July 1916, he enlisted in the Australian Army as a  chaplain and sailed to the United Kingdom and France on the HMAT Miltiades A28 on the 9 August 1916. He saw service in France on the Somme until his return to Australia on 13 March  1918.

On the night of the 16–17 of October 1917, he was responsible for the rescue of RMO Major NJ Bullen and was awarded the Military Cross. On his return to Western Australia, Eric continued his  ministry in Bridgetown, Claremont, West Perth and Fremantle. In 1937, he returned to Victoria and continued in ministry until 1954.

Rev Eric Hans Orton Nye died on 9 January 1968.

Sheena Hesse

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Moderator’s column: beyond the circle to neighbour and stranger

Bono is the lead singer of U2, one of the biggest rock and roll bands in the world. In an interview he describes how he and his wife visited an orphanage in Ethiopia. For a month he and his wife  Ali held babies, helped nurse them back to health, and then donated money to equip the orphanage.

When he returned to Ireland he noticed that the tone of his prayers began to change. They  became more defiant and he found himself accusing God of not caring about the children in Africa. Slowly his accusations began to fade as he sensed God speaking back to him a rebuke, “Bono I  do care… get moving, you do something.”

A little like Moses who protested when God called him, Bono called back to God “I am a rock star, not a social worker!” Eventually, Bono came to see that, rock star or not, God was calling him  to do something about poverty and injustice. This began a remarkable journey that led him to universities, parliaments, Presidential interviews and on a massive campaign to elevate the plight  of the poor.

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Ramadan: a spiritual journey

From Thursday 18 June to Friday 17 July, our Muslim friends will be celebrating Ramadan. Our non-Muslim readers may be wondering ‘What does that have to do with me?’ In a multicultural, multi-religious society, it’s all too important to move beyond our circles to love and understand those we might normally walk straight past.

As one of the biggest events in the Islamic calendar, Ramadan is an important time for people from the Islamic faith. Even though Muslims only make up 2.2% of the Australian population,  there is a lot of fear in the community at the moment as we hear stories about extremists and terrorists around the world. It is right to abhor these events, but it is also right to work towards  building strong relationships with people from all faiths. Most Muslims themselves disapprove of these acts, which go against the teachings of Islam.

While this year, Ramadan is taking place in June, the event is based on the Islamic Luna Calendar and so, like Easter, moves date each year. Muslims believe that their holy book, the Qur’an,  was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad during this month, so it is a holy month which is full of God’s blessings. Traditionally, many Muslims also believe that during the month of Ramadan the  gates of heaven are opened, and the gates to hell are closed – so it is a time where people are encouraged to get closer to God.

Muslims take up this opportunity in a range of ways, the most common being fasting.

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Messy Church Mix-Up

On Sunday 3 May, 10.00am, in Busselton, something really mixed-up was happening at Bryant Memorial Uniting Church. This was not normal.

The usual crowd for a Sunday morning service  were all there, but this was not what they were used to; it was not Sunday church as they knew it. For a start, the music was different – instead of the usual piano and organ, there was a band –  and look, are those our ministers with the guitars? Yes, Rev Brenton Prigge and Rev Andrew Broadbent are both up there in the band, and those  are Andy’s boys, Tom and Ned playing with them.

But that’s not all – there was no sermon; there was a Godly Play story instead. And then there were all these other wonderful young families who usually only go to church once a month on a Saturday for Messy Church. Maybe this service had been planned just for them? Maybe this was a typical Messy Church?

But no, the Messy Church people were also finding everything a bit  mixedup. There was no craft, for a start, and the whole thing was happening in the sanctuary instead of using the hall as well. And there were just pews; no tables and chairs. Not only that, but there was much more singing than at Messy Church and so many more wonderful ‘Granny and Grandpa’ type people… and after  the Godly Play story that was all about the ‘Table of the Good Shepherd,’ they had this wonderful thing where everybody was actually invited to gather around the table, just like in the  story. That never happens at our Messy Church!

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Let your light shine

For many of us, being a Christian is easy… on a Sunday, in a church building, in worship, in the company of other Christians, etc. Come Monday morning and the other days of the week,  however, and all of a sudden we’re afraid of who we are. Why is that?

If we read Matthew 5:14-16 we will do well to remember that Jesus told us: “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father  in heaven.”

As followers of Christ this is what we are: ‘the light of the world’.

In John Chapter 1 we are told that “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”

This ‘true light’ is Jesus, and ‘his coming into the world’ we celebrate at Christmas time.

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Adnyamathanha pilgrimage: Look, listen, there are no straight lines

“You asked about how to approach Aboriginal people,” Aunty Denise Champion picks up our conversation from several days ago. “This is how,” she says as together we step onto a path leading  to a low circular monument.

Nothing would have kept me from walking directly to the sinuous rust stone carving that mimicked the two snakes of Ikara (Wilpena Pound), the vast geological monument that surrounds us.  There were no barriers, no instructions, no protocols, just a stone marker at the mouth of the path announcing, “Ngarlparlaru yata”.

“This is our country,” Denise translates as we walk the two-toned gravel walk that wound its way to the centre. In the Aboriginal world, nothing is direct, the subtleties confound.

I am saved by the saying ‘relationship before stories before questions’, a way so counter-intuitive to the journalist in me. At the brown centre of the monument, however, on a grim grid, no  words were minced, “We lost our traditional way of life to pastoralism and our land to pastoralism–and adapted to an alien culture, a new language and religion.” “My dad couldn’t vote, he was  under the Dog Act. I felt so bad.” “If the missionaries heard us kids speaking our language, they would refuse to sell our mother groceries at the store. She would have to wait for the next week  or travel to the next town to buy flour and sugar.” “After years of pastoral settlement, our traditional life has disappeared.”

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