N A TIO N A L M A G A ZIN E O F THE L U THE RA N C HU RC H O F A U STRA LIA
MARCH 2019
H e c o mfo r t s u s in o u r t ro u b le s
VOL 53 NO2
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2 CORIN TH
IANS 1:3 -5
Drough t won’t steal
O U R HO PE
LUTHERAN
CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA
EDITORIAL
Somet hing for everyone
Editor Lisa McIntosh p 08 8267 7300 m 0409 281 703 e lisa.mcintosh@lca.org.au Executive Editor Linda Macqueen p 08 8339 5178 e linda.macqueen@lca.org.au
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MARCH
Special features EDITOR'S
Faith pulls us through
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Taking hay while the sun shines
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Drought and doubt
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Letter
As I write this, parts of Australia are in severe, sustained drought. At the same time areas of Tasmania and New Zealand are burning, and some of Australia’s north has been hit by a metre and a half of rainfall over recent weeks. What are we to make of all of this? Some people say these events are God’s judgement for sin, or that they are signs of the end times. Many others believe the extreme conditions are the results of climate change and our lack of care for the planet. Still others tell me these are just part of the natural cycles of weather in a harsh, ‘sunburnt country … of droughts and flooding rains’, as Dorothea Mackellar so famously and eloquently described Australia. Whichever side of the weather-beaten fence we sit on, one thing is certain – life gets extremely tough when your livelihood, home or even your loved ones are lost to natural disaster. Being a city slicker, my own experience with drought has been limited. However, during the Millennium Drought, water restrictions were a way of life and, here in Adelaide and elsewhere, we came perilously close to running out of drinking water. One of Adelaide’s major water sources, the River Murray, which is also the lifeblood of communities dotting its banks in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, was in serious trouble. Towards the end of the drought, I took a balloon flight over the Murray and the shrunken state of the great river was shocking. It’s easy to understand how drought can devastate individuals, families and communities. Stock may need to be sold to keep them alive and a farm viable, and, in the worst times, homes are repossessed, workers laid off and businesses closed. Some people even take their own lives because they feel there is no hope. Among the remarkable people we meet in this issue are some members of the LCA who have been battling the effects of drought, whether as primary producers or as those who rely on farmers to buy their products. And we hear from folk who have set aside their own troubles to help others in need. I pray that, like me, you will be uplifted by their stories of strong faith and inspirational resilience, and their refusal to have their hope stolen like topsoil in the hot, drying winds.
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Regulars Heartland
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Dwelling in God’s word
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Going GREYT!
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#youngSAVEDfree
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Go and Grow
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The inside story
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Reel Life
25
Your voice
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Directory
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Notices
29
Coffeebreak
30
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14
15
25
Hope – that’s the real difference when we, as Christians, encounter disasters. We have the right and reason to hope because we don’t face life’s troubles alone. The God of all comfort, who helps us to in turn comfort others in any trouble (2 Corinthians 1:3–5), promises to be right down there in the depths with us, holding us close in understanding and love.
Lisa
Our cover: Farmer
Tim Paschke and wife Bec, who live on and from the land with their family in South Australia, along with dog Lucy. Photo: Isabella Paschke
JES U S I S G OD'S LOVE. HE G IVES U S NE W HE ARTS TO L AY AS IDE O UR OL D WAYS, TO B EL IE VE AND FOL LOW HIM, TO L IVE WI T H HIM E VERY DAY.
heartland
REV JOHN HENDERSON
Bishop Lutheran Church of Australia
CALLED TO PARTICIPATE IN CHURCH LIFE ‘So keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock which the Holy Spirit has placed in your care. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he made his own through the blood of his Son’ (Acts 20:28, Good News Translation).
God calls us to be participants, actively contributing to congregational life and living out the new life Christ has given us. I want to say how much I appreciate how you, as local members, serve your fellow believers and the community at large, and continue to do so whether or not you have a pastor. It is your church. Thank you for what you do – it is precious in God’s sight.
My local congregation is currently in a pastoral vacancy. One of our lay leaders is responsible for arranging lay readers and guest pastors. Congregational life continues, and we are grateful to pastors based nearby for helping with pastoral needs or spiritual issues as they arise. Since we are in As members of the suburban Adelaide, we enjoy easier access to such support than do church we aren’t many of our LCA/NZ congregations. Vacancies are more difficult where we are thinner on the ground. Your congregation might also be in a pastoral vacancy; if so, I pray God soon provides you with a new pastor.
mere consumers … God calls us to be PARTICIPANTS, actively contributing to congregational life.
We don’t currently have enough pastors to fill the need of every place. It means that finding the right pastor and having him come to your congregation can require great patience and persistence. In this short article, I want to encourage those members of the church who keep the wheels turning during a vacancy. While we don’t desire a vacancy, it can be a blessing when people step up to serve. God still draws us together for regular worship, bible study and fellowship. His gifts enable us to grow in faith, life and witness. As members of the church we aren’t mere consumers, waiting for others to serve us.
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The Lutheran MARCH 2019
I would also like to encourage more of you to consider becoming pastors or to challenge others whom you think might be right for that calling. The pastoral ministry is a priceless vocation, instituted by God and blessed by him. Pastors need to be strong in faith and faithful in serving, yet also humble, knowing their human frailty and need of gospel forgiveness.
The process of preparation can appear daunting, and it requires personal sacrifice. We are trying to increase access to the training, but it will always require substantial discipline and effort. It may not be for everyone, but I’m sure that God wants more of us to study for the pastoral ministry at Australian Lutheran College. An old saying goes that if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. That applies to our congregations, to our lay leaders, and to our pastors. Thank you and God bless all of you, lay and ordained, who serve the church. Thank you for keeping the faith and being a witness to others. Thank you for always pointing us to Jesus, who is, and will always be, our ultimate pastor, the supreme shepherd of our souls.
The Schmidt family at Worlds End in South Australia had near-record low rainfall on their farm last year. (Photo: Stephanie Schmidt)
H T I A F pulls us through Drought seems to be a common unwelcome companion for many country communities in Australia. Here four LCA members share how their encounters with this rural scourge have shaped their lives and livelihoods – and how their Christian faith is what keeps them going through the toughest times. by LISA MCINTOSH
Ian Unger’s family has farmed sheep and grown cereal grain in the Parkes area of central-west New South Wales for four generations and he’s been on the land himself for more than 60 years, experiencing drought multiple times. But late last year Ian said the big dry then gripping large parts of New South Wales, and sections of Queensland and South Australia was unlike anything he’d experienced, due to its expansive reach. ‘We’ve had droughts in 1982 and 2002 that were equal to this one locally but I’d never seen a drought quite like this one, because it was so extensive’, says Ian, who has hosted a fundraiser for drought-affected families with wife Marion (see page 30), and is a founding member of a local depression and suicide prevention support group, which aims to support rural people through mental health struggles and raise community awareness. The member of St Paul’s Lutheran Church Parkes says, thankfully, the drought has eased in some areas over the past few months. And while floods have hit North Queensland, with formerly drought-stricken graziers now losing livestock to drowning and pneumonia, many parts of Australia are
still without any rain or enough to make a difference to the growth of crops and feed, and the welfare of stock. Andrew Kotzur, managing director and co-owner of a bulk handling and storage facilities manufacturing company that bears his family name, says that while there are currently pockets of very productive farmland around Australia, some people are facing extreme conditions. ‘I remember joining my father in our family business in the 1982 drought’, says Andrew, whose company has hubs in Walla Walla New South Wales and Toowoomba in Queensland, but services all of the grain-growing areas of Australia. ‘I have seen a few droughts. But there are areas – and significant areas – where I have never before seen it as bad as what it is this year.’ In South Australia, at the ominously named Worlds End near Burra in the state’s mid-north, Stephanie Schmidt says the area’s near-record low rainfall last year was devastating for their family. ‘2018 was the worst year we have experienced’, says Stephanie, who helps out husband Simon on their sheep, wheat and barley farm when she can, along with looking after the bookwork and finances, caring for their two young children, and working part-time. The Lutheran MARCH 2019
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Left: Simon and Stephanie Schmidt, pictured with their children, have been battling the impacts of drought on a farm in South Australia’s mid-north. Stephanie says: ‘Hope is absolutely vital. We have to be practical and make the best decisions we can at the time, but I don’t think you could farm without hope.’ (Photo: Lisa Luyten, Adelaide Newborn Photography) Right: Grain storage facilities manufacturing company co-owners Michelle and Andrew Kotzur have had their business affected by downturns caused by the drought. Below right: Many rural communities around Australia have recently been hit hard by drought. (Photo thanks to the Paschke family)
‘2017 was a fairly poor year; however in 2018, we had a total of around 140 millimetres for the year which is almost our lowest rainfall on record. The highest rainfall we recorded in one sitting was 6 millimetres. Because of this, the majority of our crops failed for 2018. ‘We have destocked a lot of our sheep and at this stage we have not mated our sheep for lambing this year. Because of this we have not had any income from our farm and will not have any income from our sheep for at least the next year.’ Farmer-grazier Richard Pietsch, who has sheep and cattle and some lucerne on a property at Inglewood on southern Queensland’s Darling Downs, also has had to sell stock due to a lack of feed. He compares the current big dry with his first experience with drought as an 18-year-old in 1965.
Richard says he and many other farmers have learnt how to better manage the impact of drought over the years. ‘We’re much more conservative now with our stocking rates and things like that and much better prepared The Lutheran MARCH 2019
Andrew, who is the chairperson of Zion Lutheran Church Walla Walla, also mentions resilience and believes that, while some people on the land are facing desperate times, many farming communities are better able to cope these days with the fickle nature of the seasons.
‘I think it’s your Christian FAITH that gives you a POSITIVE outlook. We’re not in this on our own.’
‘You get dry times and I’d say I’ve experienced a drought officially seven or eight times, but this is a particularly bad one and so it relates very much to 1965’, says Richard, who was a member with wife Marie at the recently closed Millmerran Lutheran Church, but now will make the 110-kilometre journey each way to go to church at Pittsworth at least once a month, along with house-based church services at Millmerran, a ‘mere’ 70 kilometres from their home.
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because we had a shed full of hay’, he says. ‘One positive I think is learning from the lessons of life. Another is community resilience, how things still seem to happen and good things still happen.’
‘I actually think a lot of growers are more resilient and better prepared for these events than they were in the past’, he says. ‘I don’t want to discount the fact that some people are doing it really tough. But there are a lot of people who are better managing what they’re doing.’ But while the geographical diversity of the business Andrew co-owns with wife Michelle means it has some shelter from the fallouts of drought, the company has not been immune to the rural downturn and has had to lay off some staff.
‘Certainly late last year we accepted a lot of cancellations and returned deposits, when normally people pay a deposit and the order is confirmed and goes through’, Andrew says. ‘It has certainly impacted us – we’ve downsized along the way to enable ourselves to ride it through. [Letting go staff] are certainly the hard decisions.’ For not only does drought have an economic toll, it also has social, emotional and psychological effects on individuals, families, businesses and communities.
‘It’s hard; mentally it’s very tough and as you get older it’s harder to deal with’, Richard says. ‘It’s only a year or so ago I was saying how wonderful things were going and expected things to keep going for a while yet because prices were up and seasons were good. But when something like this hits you, it makes you think, “Well, what am I still doing this for?” ‘Your faith’s very important but you can still get down.’ Stephanie, who works two days a week as a psychologist and who attends Geranium Plains Lutheran Church with her family, says one of the most difficult aspects of drought is not knowing how long it will last. ‘The emotional toll of the unknown starts to weigh on us, but in a way it has also brought us together stronger as a family’, she says. ‘We try to practise gratitude daily. I guess when you lose things that you didn’t expect to lose, it makes you even more grateful for what you have.’ Stephanie is inspired by her husband’s faith in facing the unknowns in their future. ‘My husband’s faith definitely is one of his biggest strengths’, she says. ‘During uncertainty, he is able to pull on his faith which helps him get up and face another day, another year of the unknown.’ Ian certainly believes that, even in the direst of circumstances, ‘in all things God works for the good of those who love him’, as Romans 8:28 promises. ‘There is a hand of protection that is there but not always seen’, he says. ‘When people ask, “how come you’ve got a drought when you go to church every Sunday”?, I can answer that I don’t have to worry about the future. ‘Christians are unique in that we can discard the past, we don’t onload the future and we can live in the present, as distinct from living for the present.’ Andrew agrees. ‘I think it’s your Christian faith that gives you a positive outlook. We’re not in this on our own’, he says. ‘What will be is in some ways out of our hands but we still have to make the best use of our talents and skills. Ultimately it’s about a lot more than worldly things and what might happen this week or this year.’
The LCA Disaster & Welfare Fund is receiving donations to support struggling farming communities, as well as to those affected by the Queensland floods. To contribute via the LLL online, go to https://donation.lca.org.au/project?id=P21006 Alternatively, you can deposit a donation into the following account: LCA Synod Ac; BSB 704942; Account 100698743.
Some tips on supporting people living with drought •
Pray for them.
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Make a donation to the LCA’s Disaster and Welfare Fund (see details on this page).
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Buy Australian produce.
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Visit rural communities for a holiday or day trip.
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Listen to farmers’ stories. Stephanie Schmidt says: ‘A lot of the time farmers feel that they aren’t heard and then when stories are shared there can be a backlash. Understand that the majority of farmers are doing the best they can to manage these uncertain circumstances; and that we love and value our livestock and are doing our best to look after them.’
Taking hay while the sun
SHINES
In t imes of drough t, many Lu therans are keen to help those in need. Despi te their own personal bat t les, cereal grain and legume farmers Helen and Rob Heinrich have experienced great joy and seen grace at work through a regular hay run to people on the land who are doing i t tough. by HELEN HEINR ICH
My husband Rob and I were born and bred in the Victorian Mallee town of Rainbow, and love the lifestyle and freedom that being on the land brings. We have experienced drought periodically since our childhoods. We each remember bathing in water that all the family had used, which was later bucketed out onto the parched garden. We learnt to conserve this precious commodity and gave thanks to God when thunderstorms pushed through to settle the dust, fill the tanks and replenish grasses for our sheep. In 2016, we heard about the Burrumbuttock Hay Runners, based out of the New South Wales Riverina. It involved loading donated hay and straw onto semi-trailers and driving it to drought-affected farmers in isolated areas.
It’s a great feeling to give from your heart and of the product of your own land, as well as having our own community donate hay. It’s an Australian spirit of grace. Since 2016, we have made two more trips to outback Queensland. Unfortunately, we missed out on last year’s hay run as God had other plans. I was diagnosed with leukaemia a few weeks before we were to leave and I was devastated that I couldn’t make the trip. But after months of chemotherapy, a bone-marrow transplant and going through recovery, I was cancer-free The Lutheran MARCH 2019
Bumping along the roads seeing our country’s beautiful sights, I thanked God for getting me through a very long year and for my returned health. As we arrived at the sweltering town of Quilpie, we were greeted by locals waving and holding banners to thank us. This made me feel humbled and we were glad we could help out in some way.
It ’s a great feeling to GIVE from your heart and of t he product of your own land ... It ’s an Aust ralian spirit of GRACE.
We contacted Brendan Farrell, who started the Hay Runners in 2014. Since his first solo run, there have been 14 hay runs to help farmers in New South Wales and Queensland, with convoys of up to 260 trucks.
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and strong enough to make this year’s hay run to Quilpie in south-west Queensland.
The drought hasn’t taken these people’s fight and passion away – they are pushing through even though it is tough. Yes, there are sad stories and their livelihood has been squashed, but they are a strong, young community doing their best. We have met some wonderful people and made great friends through the hay runs and we hope to do more trips to help our fellow farmers throughout Australia.
We pray for rain and strength for these areas of devastation and know that some day we will return to see their land flourish and new hope for their future generations.
Helen and Rob Heinrich are members at Rainbow Lutheran Church, Victoria.
Dwelling in God’s word: Y ON A STUD
T & DISASTER H G U O DR Is drought a consequence of sin? Whenever disaster strikes – like drought, flood, or fire – we are tempted to ask, ‘Is it a result of their sin?’ Let’s see whether there is a link. Sometimes I suffer as a direct consequence of my sin. For example, if I drink too much, I may fall and hurt myself. Moses experienced the consequences of his sin. Read Deuteronomy 32:51–52.
by PASTOR DA R R EN KU PK E
Read Psalm 51. This Psalm of repentance, often used in Ash Wednesday worship, was prayed by David after he was confronted by his sin.
An opportunity to grow in faith Sadly, it’s when we face challenges that our faith often grows most, like the church in Acts. Read Acts 8:1,4; 11:19–21; 16:5. Some congregations have their best attendance and giving during times of drought.
An opportunity to trust and let God provide Sometimes my suffering is a consequence of someone else’s sin. So, if my mate drinks too much then punches me in the face, I feel pain from his sin. Uriah was killed as a consequence of David’s sin. Read 2 Samuel 11. We can also face challenges unrelated to a particular sin because we live in a broken, sinful world. Read John 9:1–7. What reason does Jesus give for this man being born blind? How can we use challenges as an opportunity to glorify God? Read Job 1:1, 8–12; 2:3–7. Why did Job suffer – because of his sin or his faith? How might this change our attitude next time we see a Christian suffering? Read Luke 13:1–5. Did these disasters happen because they were extreme sinners? What warning does Jesus give? But while a particular drought or disaster may not be linked to a particular sin, it does provide a range of opportunities.
An opportunity to repent and seek God Read Amos 4:7–8. What did God want the people to do during a time of no rain?
The important thing to remember during times of crisis is that God has not abandoned us. He promises to provide for all those who trust in him. Read 1 Kings 17:1–16. How did God provide for Elijah during drought? Read Matthew 6:25–35; 11:28–30 and 1 Corinthians 10:13. What are we assured of?
An opportunity to help others Read 2 Corinthians 1:3–5. Who comforts us in our troubles? Whom can we comfort? What do we share with Christ? Drought can last years. Not knowing when it will end is extremely stressful. To help deal with drought, I know a farmer who adopted the attitude of, ‘God will send rain again. Don’t know when, but he will’. When we hear of a community in crisis, Jesus calls us to remember our need for continual repentance. Are we trusting him, glorifying God and helping neighbours in need? Dear Jesus, help me to remember whose I am by God’s grace and mercy. Thank you that you are with those experiencing drought or other disasters. Lead me to reach out to them, listen to them, reassure them of your love, and support them in their struggles. Amen