Tag: International

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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 the partnership of the Uniting Church in Australia Synod of Western Australia

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 these 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 crowed roads out of Colombo to the more remote north and 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 creeks beds and picks its way at a snail pace around deep potholes.

I visit a Church hall in Muthur, where some tiny children have gathered to greet us with their mothers and preschool teacher.  They place garlands of flowers around our necks as we enter. This is a Church run school for those who can’t afford to send their children to government run preschools. One mother explains that she sells goods to provide for her family. Sometimes there is money for education, sometimes none. In this place everyone is welcome to come – it is a multi-faith school.  The preschool turns no-one away, even though the Church has no funding to support it.  The teacher has not been paid for months, and the only food provided to the children comes from what the parents can bring.

The children sing us a song, which sounds like ‘Heads and shoulders, knees and toes’, and we all smile at each other.

Eira’s Law of Spiritual Economics says “you know you are getting close to the kingdom of God when there is not enough money to do the work”. I conclude that we are very close today.

In the next district we visit more preschools in which teachers work for next to nothing and the churches provide emergency aid type nutrition packs for children, as the whole population is under-nourished. We are treated as special guests each place we go.

If you feel jaded about the church, visiting the projects that your church supports with funds, and meeting the passionate workers at the other end, will make you feel better.

In my notebook I write that I am thinking of all the faithful donors to appeals, and wishing they could have been with us.  We are thanked over and over by each preschool community, but of course they don’t mean to thank us personally -we just represent the Australian churches.

Anyone seen the kingdom of God? Maybe they could start looking around here.

Rev Eira Clapton

 

If you want to be part of sharing the work of the Kingdom of God in this place, you can support the preschool project by donating to:

BSB 036-001  Account 92-1834 Uniting Church in Australia

Reference Sri Lanka Preschools

Cheque – made payable to Uniting Church in Australia

Send to: Social Justice Unit, Uniting Church Synod of WA, GPO Box M952, Perth WA 6843

or email social.justice@wa.uca.org.au

Please note that donations to this appeal are not tax deductible.

 

 

 

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News & Announcements

Support and training for long-term recovery in Fiji

Cyclone Winston, the strongest storm ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere made landfall in Fiji on 20 February, flattening entire villages with torrential rain, storm surges and winds of more than 300 km per hour.

More than 40 people were killed and thousands of homes damaged. Hospitals, schools, crops, livestock and water supplies were hit and thousands of Fijians were forced to shelter in schools, churches and community buildings. Many remain there today. Thanks to a generous response to UnitingWorld’s emergency appeal – gifts of almost $200 000 – UnitingWorld were able to respond quickly. Funds are being used to assist the Methodist Church in Fiji, a partner church of the Uniting Church in Australia, to work alongside the Fijian government and provide humanitarian relief to thousands of people throughout affected communities.

In particular, providing food, shelter, water purification tablets and cooking utensils, which are critically important for preparing the type of food that is distributed in emergencies and for purifying potentially contaminated water. These materials are being bought in non-affected areas of Fiji, helping to buoy the local economy and sustain the livelihoods of local people.

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Future church begins with God

Rev Steve Francis, moderator of the Uniting Church WA, and Rev David Kriel mission planner at the Uniting Church WA, recently travelled to Cape Town, South Africa, for the International Fresh Expressions Conference. Steve shares his reflections with Revive.

You have probably heard it all before; declining aged congregations, faithful people, financial struggles, a lessening capacity to give, tired building, green shoots of new life, signs of decay, and glimpses of hope. Too often the church in Australia is a good news/bad news story without any real focus on the future and where God may be leading us.

How stimulating to go to a conference where the focus is on the future church. A conference that gets is cues not from the traditional patterns of the past, but from the new things that God is doing. Rev David Kriel, mission planner for the Uniting Church WA, and I were extraordinarily privileged to attend the third International Fresh Expressions Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, recently.

Before I go much further, I need to clearly state what ‘Fresh Expressions’ is – and what it is not. It is not ‘out with the old and in with the new.’ Every church, whether it is traditional or contemporary, meets in a cathedral or a warehouse, is called to be missional. Our music may be as far apart as Gregorian chants is from Hillsong, our preaching may be diverse in theological content, our clergy may dress in gowns or in denim. Styles and patterns of church vary greatly. God can use all kinds of churches to be beacons of light and conveyers of the Kingdom.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Church partnerships making a difference in Fiji

My husband, John, and I recently went to Fiji to see the partnership at work between the Uniting Church in Australia – through UnitingWorld – and the Methodist Church in Fiji. We travelled with two families from NSW; making a party of 12, with six adults and six young people aged between 12–19. We were very ably led by our team Leader, Megan Calcaterra, UnitingWorld’s projects and administration officer.

Whilst there we met with the president of the Methodist Church of Fiji, Rev Dr Tevita Banivanua and the general secretary, Rev Epineri Vakadenavosa, who spoke about the new changes and challenges within Fiji. The church has a new Constitution, and a new Code of Conduct to be implemented in 2016, and the changes to the logo are more in keeping with their ‘New Exodus’ theme as they move forward.

Due to the disruptions of Military Coups, there were no Conferences – their annual gatherings – allowed to be held in 2009, 2010 or 2011. Succeeding Conferences were of shortened duration, but now with a more stable Government, there is a strong emphasis on appropriate change as they look to the future. There is also a conscious effort to increase the involvement and training of women for and in ministry.

At Davuilevu Theological College we met the principal, Rev Anil Reuben, who is the first Fijian of Indian decent to be elected to that position. The college has one Bachelor of Divinity class and three Diploma of Theology classes and we were told that they can only take 25 new students each year, sometimes from 200 applicants.

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News & Announcements

Support for Fiji

UnitingWorld have launched an emergency appeal to support the people of Fiji following Cyclone Winston.

Over 40 people have lost their lives in the devastation, a number which is expected to rise as the clean-up continues. The Methodist Church in Fiji, a partner church of the Uniting Church in Australia, has reported that thousands of homes have been destroyed, leaving tens of thousands of people in immediate need of food, shelter and clothing.

UnitingWorld are asking that Australians keep the people of Fiji in their thoughts and prayers as they begin to respond to the crisis. Donations to the UnitingWorld appeal will be used to support the work of the Methodist Church in Fiji as they provide assistance to those affected.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has expressed its concern and extended prayers to the people of Fiji. Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC has also written to the Fiji Council of Churches, offering prayers and encouragement to the local churches to be a voice of hope for those who are in pain.

For regular updates and to donate, visit http://www.unitingworld.org.au/announcements/unitingworld-launches-emergency-appeal-to-support-the-people-of-fiji-following-cyclone-winston/.

 

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Stories & Feature Articles

Seeing with new eyes from the holy land

Pilgrims in the holy land at Wadi Rum, Jordan.

During Advent, a group of young adult Christians from Perth became pilgrims in the holy land. A month after their return, they gathered to reunite, filling the room with reflection and laughter as they shared stories, experiences, memories and photos from the trip.

The pilgrimage was led by Rev Dr Ian Robinson, chaplain at the University of Western Australia, and a group of volunteers, and was organised in partnership with Christian Pilgrimage – a Perth based organisation offering Christian pilgrimages in the holy land throughout the year.

The young adults, from a range of churches around Perth, including Carey Baptist Church, Nedlands Uniting Church and Uniting Church in the City, visited a range of ancient and holy sites as well  as experiencing life in modern Middle Eastern cities such as Amman in Jordan and Israel’s Jerusalem. They visited churches covered in ancient mosaics, also spending time at a mosaic workshop, learning about a program which gave employment opportunities to people who may not otherwise be able to find employment. They explored the ancient city of Petra, walking around and inside houses painstakingly carved into rocks thousands of years ago, and went four-wheel driving through the Jordanian desert.

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Spiritual pilgrimage growing students

Three brave Methodist Ladies’ College (MLC) students and a group of teachers embarked on a journey of strength, spirituality and community building in September, as they took part in the Camino alvado Pilgrimage. The pilgrimage begins at St Joseph’s Church in Subiaco and ends in New Norcia, and exists in the spirit of the Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage through Spain and France.

Rev Hollis Wilson, a Uniting Church chaplain at MLC, with the help of a few teachers, led the pilgrimage, which required participants to walk for 20kms a day before being picked up and taken back to camp at Swanleigh, in the Swan Valley. Each morning they would drive to the starting point of the next 20km section, walking from about 9.30am–3.30pm for five days, before arriving at New Norcia.

The surroundings provided a great space for the students to engage with each other, their teachers and their spirituality.

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Exchange of hope in Tanah Papua

“We cannot forget the value of this program for both the Australian and Papuan communities involved,” Rev Brian Thorpe, minister at the Scarborough and Waterman’s Bay Uniting Churches reflected as he sat waiting for his plane back to Perth. “It truly is an exchange program through which everyone benefits.”

Brian is a member of the Black Pearl Network, a multi-congregation network of the Uniting Church WA dedicated to supporting the work of our church partners in Papua. He recently returned from a trip to Tanah Papua, the eastern most province of Indonesia, along with Kerry Povey from Trinity North Uniting Church, Lee-Anne Burnett from All Saints Floreat Uniting Church and myself, justice and mission officer for the Uniting Church WA.

The beautiful and sometimes troubled province often referred to as ‘West Papua’ has become lodged firmly in the hearts of this small, but dedicated group. Through the Black Pearl Network (a name given to the group by the Papuans they work with), the Uniting Church WA supports a number of projects run by our partner church, Gereja Kristen Injili Indonesia (GKI). This trip was yet another chance to strengthen these relationships and continue the mutual learning the partnership provides.

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Great things, great love: a refugee story

There’s an old saying: “We cannot do great things, only small things with great love.”

Sometimes, perhaps we can do both.

Kakuma refugee camp is a sprawling mass of humanity on the border between Kenya and South Sudan. Under canvas and tin supplied by the UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, and the  Kenyan government, more than 150,000 people make their homes, many separated from brothers, sisters and parents by fighting across the border in South Sudan and Somalia. Into this  maelstrom, another little life emerged last month. Her name is Deborah. She might never have been.

It was an ordinary morning for young South Sudanese midwives completing their prac in the Kakuma Mission hospital. Many in their early twenties, they’ve been relocated with the help of the  Uniting Church in Australia from the South Sudanese town of Leer due to heavy fighting. Their training facility was torched. Some of the women don’t know where their families are – many fled  into the surrounding bush as rebels stormed the area. Husbands are missing. Children.

The young women carry on with their studies, supported by UnitingWorld partner, the Presbyterian Relief and Development Agency of South Sudan. They’re determined to finish their midwifery  courses and when stability returns, go back to their country and serve their sisters. In the meantime, they study at Kakuma and serve their fellow refugees.

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Getting curried away

This June, 100 people from Uniting Church in the City (UCIC) sat down to a delicious lunch of six different Sri Lankan curries, prepared by Maru, one of our Tamil friends. Maru’s childhood and education was severely disrupted by the 27 year old war in Sri Lanka, as he and his family were forced to move seven times to avoid the bombing raids carried out in the Tamil lands in the north.

His mother taught him to cook, so that whatever happened in those uncertain times he could feed himself and those around him. In July 2014, I had the great privilege of travelling to Sri Lanka to  attend the Sri Lankan Methodist Church’s bicentennial celebration of 200 years of Methodism in Sri Lanka, and seeing the many projects being run by the church there as they seek to rebuild  people’s lives after the war. To mark this momentous occasion, a celebration service was held in a great cathedral in Colombo, attended by 9,000 people, a government stamp was printed and a   book on the history of Methodism in Sri Lanka was published.

One chapter in that book entitled Rethinking Mission in Sri Lanka was written by Rev Dr Albert Jebanesan, the president of the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka, and has particular relevance for us in Australia, posing such questions as, ‘How can the church in Australia engage with the culture around it?’ and ‘Can we acknowledge and embrace the beauty and truth of other cultures and  ideologies around us as expressions of the ceaseless creativity in the natural world and in human cultures which we call God?’

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