Tag: International

Cyclone Gita update

Post author By revivewa
Post date April 14, 2018

Rev Dr Stephen Robinson, National Disaster Recovery Officer for the Uniting Church in Australia, recently visited Tonga, in the wake of Tropical Cyclone Gita, which affected Island nations in the South Pacific including Tonga, Samoa and Fiji. He shares some of his experience with Revive.

On Monday 12 February, Tropical Cyclone Gita devastated the islands of Tonga, with winds of 230km/h whipping the Southern Coast of the main island of Tongatapu. Locals had taken warnings seriously and prepared as well as they could, but lightly built houses were no match for the monster storm.

The fact that it struck at night probably saved scores of lives, as people were bunkered indoors and avoided injury from flying roofing iron and falling trees. The negative is in the lasting memory of families who huddled together through the terror of a sleepless night of pitch darkness and screaming wind, hoping and praying their place of shelter would hold together.

With the dawn’s light, people ventured out to assess the damage and found this particularly confronting. Many houses lost all or part of their roofing, torn metal and splintered wood, thousands of fallen trees and palm fronds scattered. Rain continued to inundate many houses that had escaped the worst of wind damage. Power poles leaned precariously or snapped off completely, and power lines lay across muddy roads.

Tags Disaster Relief, International

News & Announcements

World Day of Prayer: Suriname

Post author By revivewa
Post date February 27, 2018

Since 1887, on or near the first Friday in March every year, millions of Christians have gathered worldwide to pray for the issues of family violence, child abuse, human trafficking, and other forms of injustice, as part of the World Day of Prayer Service.

In 2018, this prayerful support will be directed at the 540 000 inhabitants of the Republic of Suriname, on the north-eastern coast of South America.

Despite a history steeped in slavery and political coups, this tiny nation has achieved remarkable progress since its independence in 1975. Suriname enjoys multi-ethnicity and biodiversity, freedom of religion, free primary and secondary education, and free medical care for children and seniors.

Tags International

News & Announcements

Òngoing renewal in the spirit of the Reformation

Post author By revivewa
Post date October 7, 2017

Rev Denise Liersch, Moderator Elect of the Uniting Church Vic/Tas, travelled to Germany as one of three Uniting Church representatives to the World Communion of Reformed Churches, celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, from 29 June to 7 July. She shares her experiences with Revive.

A couple of months ago, I stood in front of the castle church in Wittenberg where, 500 years ago, Luther nailed his 95 theses to the doors. Well, not to these exact doors; they are no longer made of wood, and Luther’s 95 theses are now cast into the bronze of the doors. As I stood there in front of the doors, repair works were being undertaken to the old stonework around the new doors. The church as a whole isn’t quite the same as it was either; it has had a lot of work done to it since then… I hope.

Tags International, Theology and Spiritual Reflections

Stories & Feature Articles

5 ways UnitingWorld gets big change from small change

Post author By revivewa
Post date July 17, 2017

UnitingWorld is the Uniting Church in Australia’s agency for working with people in Asia, Africa and the Pacific as they build lives free of poverty, and share the good news of Christ. UnitingWorld believe the two can’t be separated; they keep this work connected through ecumenical partnerships with churches in their communities, caring for people regardless of religion, politics or other boundaries.

Cath Taylor, from UnitingWorld, shares with Revive how this overseas community services agency is making big change from small change.

Australian Aid Funding

Right now, UnitingWorld is combining donations with Australian Aid Funding to give your gift up to six times the impact for people freeing themselves from poverty. In recognition of both the generosity of Uniting Church donors and the success of UnitingWorld projects, the Australian Government has made special funding available to select programs. UnitingWorld must first raise $1 for every $5 available in Australian Aid Funding.

Building solidarity

UnitingWorld doesn’t believe in charity – we believe in solidarity. We do everything in partnership with others who are committed to building on their strengths, long-term. This means there’s no expectation of a ‘hand out’ and everyone we work with is striving to make the most of their opportunities. This is the mindset that truly yields big change.

Investing long term

Our approach is to invest long-term in people: providing them with business training and solutions to poverty that give practical tools to take control of life. We help people start their own small businesses like breeding livestock, growing vegetables, selling second-hand clothes and repairing furniture or mobile phones. Once the loans we provide are paid back, they’re used again to kick-start someone else’s future.

Wise use of resources

We don’t waste money building things communities can’t use, handing out items that will need to be resupplied again and again, or using staff from Australia when local people can do the job themselves. We listen to and respect our partners because we’ve known them for years and have good relationships with them – they tell us what they need to make changes, and we get them the resources.

Accreditation

We’re accredited with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) through the Australian Government and we pay a decent wage to our administration staff, rather than relying on the goodwill of volunteers. This may sound boring, but it actually means that not only are we using the best ideas to get things done, you can also be sure that the money you give is accounted for, our staff are well-trained and properly recompensed, our partners have sound business practices and no resources are wasted.

To give an end-of-financial-year donation to UnitingWorld call 1800 998 122 or visit www.unitingworld.org.au/freedom

Tags A Helping Hand, Faith In Action, International, Our People and Agencies

Stories & Feature Articles

Papuan students on learning, living and language

Post author By revivewa
Post date June 29, 2017

The 2017 Australian-Papuan Cultural Exchange Program (APCEP) cohort are on a mission to make their world a better place.

A group of students from from Papua and West Papua, where English is a valuable skill, have recently spent 12 weeks in Perth learning about Australian culture whilst studying English language.

“Learning English and being able to converse in English will open many doors for the students. They get to bring back their knowledge and share it with their community,” said APCEP program co-ordinator and host family volunteer, Lee-Anne Burnett.

APCEP began in 2010 and is managed by volunteers from the Black Pearl Network (BPN), a sub-group of the Creative Living Centre, part of Trinity North and Floreat Uniting Churches. The program is in partnership with the Evangelical Christian Church in the Land of Papua.

Tags A Helping Hand, Faith In Action, International

News & Announcements

Moderator’s column: Jungle journey

Post author By revivewa
Post date April 14, 2017

It is often said that God is a God of surprises.

Every once in a while I find myself in a situation that I could never have expected or predicted. A month or so ago, I found myself in a dugout canoe, with an outboard motor travelling along the Irrawaddy river, in a rural and remote part of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. I had to pinch myself; how did I end up here?

The simple answer is that my jungle journey has its origins with the Karen congregation that meets at Uniting Church in the City (UCIC), Ross Memorial West Perth, and the movement of the Spirit.

The pastor of the Karen congregation is Rev S’Win Shwe, who trained in the Uniting Church’s theological college in Sydney (UTC). Last year, he invited me to have dinner with the president of the Pwo Karen Baptist church of Burma, Rev Mahn Benson, who was visiting Perth.

Fast forward four months and out the blue comes an invitation to speak at the 100th year anniversary service of the Pwo Karen Baptist church in Myanmar and at the opening of their renovated church in Yangon.

Tags International, Our People and Agencies, Theology and Spiritual Reflections

News & Announcements

The presence of Christ in the Middle East

Post author By revivewa
Post date April 2, 2017

A delegation of Uniting Church leaders travelled to Lebanon in January with the aim of building relationships with churches in the region.

The delegation included Stuart McMillan, president of the Uniting Church in Australia, Rob Floyd, national director of UnitingWorld, and three Uniting Church ministers from the Middle East, including Rev Dr Emanuel Audisho, multicultural ministry co-ordinator for the Uniting Church WA.

The group met with the leaders of the Union of Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East, the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon and the National Evangelical Church of Beirut. They also visited a range of historical sites, including one of the ancient jars from the biblical story of the Wedding at Cana (John 2) and one of the earliest memorial sites of the Armenian Genocide in Antelias.

While in Lebanon, the group also spent some time at Fondation le Grain de Ble, a program for local refugee children which provides camps, clubs, sport, literature, games and entertainment for refugee children in Lebanon, with an aim to share God’s love.

Tags Intercultural, interfaith, International, Multi-Cultural, Multicultural

Stories & Feature Articles

RenewWA: standing with the Pacific

Post author By revivewa
Post date March 10, 2017

For Fijian Methodist minister Rev James Bhagwan, climate change is not a theoretical concept. For many people in the Pacific, the impacts of rising sea levels and severe tropical cyclones are an all too real experience of a changing climate.

James, the Methodist Church in Fiji’s secretary for Communication and Overseas Mission, is a keen advocate for strong action on climate change, having seen its direct impacts in his community.

“Our small nation, Fiji, was the first to ratify the Paris Agreement and almost immediately, as if to underline the importance of the convention on climate change, we were faced with Severe Tropical Cyclone (STC) Winston, a category 5 cyclone and the most powerful in the southern hemisphere — a symbol of the earth’s groaning and crying to the rising temperatures and sea levels,” he said.

“Before STC Winston and since we continue to suffer from other extreme weather patterns – droughts and floods – as a result of climate change.

Tags Environment, International