Tag: International

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How good is your gift?

everything-in-common-catalogue001Australians give a lot of gifts – about $8.9 billion worth last year.

But how good were they? A jawdropping $500 million worth ended up back on e-Bay within a month and quite a few of them are probably nestled somewhere in landfill because really, who needs a Star Wars  themed toilet roll holder?

As people of faith, giving and generosity is central to our identity. We Christians are not only good at donating, but at reliably providing mince-based meals in a crisis and giving our time for the school fete. I have a  hunch, though, that the early church saw giving as being about much more than ‘one off’ acts of charity. In Acts, ‘everyone was together and shared everything in common, so that no one would have need’ (Acts 2:  42).

This was about choosing to live beside others as brothers and sisters, fully invested in their lives and wellbeing. Life in Christ is not just about good giving. It’s about building long-term relationships that care for  people.

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Russia with love

In the last week of September a very special event took place in Moscow. For the very first time, a hundred scholars came together in Russia to focus on the New Testament and its meaning for faith.

The largest contingent came from Russia itself, predominantly from the mighty Russian Orthodox Church. Alongside them were Orthodox scholars from a range of Eastern European countries, including Greece, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Ukraine, as well as Catholic and Protestant scholars from Finland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Britain, USA, and Australia.

I made the journey from afar as secretary for International Initiatives of the Society for New Testament Studies, working with its Eastern European Liaison Committee. The Society was able to win the support of Metropolitan Hilarion for the event, who generously hosted us on behalf of the Russian church.

This was a major development in the opening up of the discussion of how New Testament scholarship relates to faith. Some whose faith is nurtured and sustained by the ancient Orthodox liturgical tradition have been reluctant to look beyond it to the world of New Testament scholarship; to ask questions about history and identify diversity, as well as unity among the New Testament writings might undermine faith. We know such fear also from western fundamentalism.

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Voices raised for our Pacific neighbours

Over 200 Christians from all around Australia, representatives of Pacific communities and members of Parliament gathered in front of Australian Parliament House this morning calling on Australia to be a better neighbour to our Pacific brothers and sisters. The gathering was part of Micah Australia’s Voices for Justice event.

Speakers from Fiji, Tonga and Kiribati shared their experiences of climate change, and the effect it is having on their lives and communities. They called on politicians to make a greater commitment to climate change action and aid focussed on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) for developing nations in our region. Prayers were said for our churches, our nation, our nation’s leaders and our world.

Rev James Bhagwan, a leader from the Methodist Church of Fiji, greeted the crowd with a traditional greeting – “Bula!” – as a reminder of the importance of place and relationships.  He called on the Australian government to love and care for all people, including our Pacific neighbours.

“To love and care for only a few is not to love at all,” he said.

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Dolls to love and cherish

Pinjarra Uniting Church’s Adult Fellowship (UCAF) recently made use of their annual craft get together to create dolls for children in South Africa, through the Uthando Project.

The Uthando Project sends handcrafted, donated dolls to children living in orphanages in KwaZulu Natal, a province of South Africa, who have been affected by HIV AIDS. This area is currently suffering a  pandemic of the virus.

This WA based project works in partnership with non-government organisations in South Africa to deliver dolls to where they are best needed. Children can then use ‘play’ to enjoy life, but also to express the  emotions and grief of losing one or both parents. Uthando, a Zulu word, translates in English to ‘love.’ Gill Muir, from Pinjarra Uniting Church, said their UCAF group wanted to provide the children with  something they could cherish.

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News & Announcements

Prayers for New Zealand

The President of the Uniting Church in Australia, Stuart McMillan, has called Australians to keep New Zealanders in their prayers after a series of powerful earthquakes hit the east coast of the South Island overnight.

Two people are confirmed to have died and there has been extensive damage to roads and infrastructure.

“Right now our sisters and brothers in Aotearoa need our prayers as they confront the effects of another serious earthquake,” said Stuart.

“Our ecumenical friends in the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand begin their annual Assembly this week. We have informed them and the Methodist Church of Aotearoa and New Zealand of our prayers and concern.”

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English immersion for global communication

Two female ministers from the Gereja Kristen Protestant Bali, the Protestant Church of Bali (GKPB), are visiting Perth from 30 July to 8 October as they take part in a ten-week English immersion experience.

Rev Ayu Wandira and Rev Betha Meidywati had quite a large English vocabulary when they arrived in Australia, but needed assistance to put those words into full sentences. With support from the WA Uniting  Church Adult Fellowship (UCAF) and the GKPB Women’s Fellowship, Ayu and Betha have grown immensely in their English language skills while staying in Perth.

Rev Janelle McGregor, chairperson of the WA UCAF, has been teaching the pair English using work sheets, exams, Bible reading and other methods. Janelle has a teaching background with experience in teaching  English as a second language (ESL). She said that the recent Bishop of GKPB has been keen to support women in ministry. Bishop Suama has taken on the role in September, and is equally as supportive.

“He’s particularly conscious of the fact that women, female clergy, don’t have the professional development opportunities that men have because women have all those sorts of social issues in a very patriarchal  society, even as professional women. So he is very keen to have an ongoing program,” Janelle said.

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Welcome to the Perth Samoan Uniting Church

At the Annual Meeting of the Synod of Western Australia 2016, Synod was briefly suspend for a special Presbytery meeting, planned specifically to consider the proposal to officially recognise the Perth Samoan  Uniting Church as a new congregation of the Uniting Church in Australia. The proposal was agreed to unanimously.

Rev Bev Fabb and Rev Dr Ian Tozer spoke on behalf of the congregation, explaining that for a large portion of this year they had spent significant time with them, discussing the core values and policies of the   Uniting Church, while the Samoan group considered their position in seeking to become a recognised congregation.

Hanamoa Vaitogi is a member of the Perth Samoan Uniting Church.

“I couldn’t explain the feeling we got when we got recognised as a Uniting Church congregation,” she said.

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Roaming gnomes for Cambodian youth

Emma Oxenburgh, from Trinity North Uniting Church, will be broadening her horizons early next year when she travels with World Vision to visit youth programs in Cambodia. She will travel with ten other  Australians, along with five Cambodians, all aged between 18–25.

Emma is currently studying a double major in marketing and international communications at the University of Western Australia (UWA), and has recently done an internship with Reconciliation WA. She has a keen interest in ethical travel and international community development.

She said that the trip is not a ‘voluntouring’ (volunteering plus travel) experience, but rather an opportunity to learn more about Cambodia and the projects that World Vision supports there.

Emma said she’s keen to add some real life experiences and a human perspective to her textbook experiences gained while studying at university.

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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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Black Pearls shine brightly in dark times

The Uniting Church WA Black Pearl Network has just returned from another fascinating trip to the land of Papua, a place of both hopeful and troubling developments. Geoff Bice, justice and mission consultant at the Uniting Church WA recently traveled to West Papua with the Black Pearl Network. He reflects on his journey.

Whenever we say we are going to West Papua, people often think we mean Papua New Guinea (PNG), but we don’t. It’s close in a number of ways, but an entirely different place. It’s on the same landmass, its people are of a shared ethnicity, and it’s roughly equivalent in size to PNG; but it lies within the borders of Indonesia.

Whenever we go we do so at the invitation of our partner church – Gereja Kristen Injili Indonesia (GKI) di Tanah Papua – an amazingly courageous and gentle collection of Christians who are always wonderfully friendly and hospitable to us.

Whenever we come back we are always a little bit different. In a good way.

As always, it was a delight to meet with previous students from the Australia Papua Cultural Exchange Program (APCEP). We are always sure to take up a selection of children’s English books for them to use in running their own English classes with other young Papuans. It is so encouraging to see our small contribution multiplied by the students as they pass on their knowledge to others in their community.

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