THE LUTHERAN April 2017 by Lutheran Church of Australia

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

APRIL 2017

GODâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S DELIVERANCE:

from war to peace

TERROR

VOL 51 NO3

Print Post Approved PP100003514

NOTHING to FEAR

Vol 49 No7 P209

MY PEACE I give you

John 14:27

LUTHERAN

CHURCH

Community meal

OF AUSTRALIA

Australian Lutheran World Service’s (ALWS) Jonathan Krause had some informative reading on hand at a meal with Australian Lutheran teachers on a study tour to Djibouti, Africa, and local Lutheran World Federation (LWF) staff. Djibouti is a Muslim country, with very few Christians, so Jonathan says the practical service there by the ALWS-supported LWF is a very powerful witness. The photo was taken by Sue Ellis, Head of Junior School at Encounter Lutheran College, Victor Harbor SA.

EDITORIAL 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

CONNECT WITH US We Love The Lutheran! @welove_TL lutheranchurchaus

SUBSCRIBE www.thelutheran.com.au 08 8360 7270 lutheran.subs@lca.org.au LCA Subscriptions PO Box 731 North Adelaide SA 5006 11 issues per year

Send us a photograph featuring a recent copy of The Lutheran and you might see it here on page 2 of a future issue.

People like YOU bring love to life Simone Micke

Australia $44 | New Zealand $46 Asia/Pacific $55 | Rest of the world $64

St Johns, Perth WA

Issued every month except January.

Assistant to WA District Bishop

DESIGN & PRINT

Enjoys quilt design and gardening

Design & Layout Elysia Weiss Printer Openbook Howden

ADVERTISING/ MANUSCRIPTS

Fav text: Ephesians 3:14–21

Yolanda Robinson

Should be directed to the editor. Manuscripts are published at the discretion of the editor. Those that are published may be cut or edited.

St Peters Lutheran College, Indooroopilly Qld Alumni/Archive Officer Enjoys her job, cooking and the arts

Copy deadline: 1st of preceding month Rates: general notices and small

advertisements, $19.00 per cm; for display, contract and inserted advertisements, contact the editor.

LUTHERAN

Fav text: Corinthians 13:13

David Filsell

CHURCH

Faith, Warradale SA

OF AUSTRALIA The Lutheran informs the members of the LCA about the church’s teaching, life, mission and people, helping them to grow in faith and commitment to Jesus Christ. The Lutheran also provides a forum for a range of opinions, which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editor or the policies of the Lutheran Church of Australia.

The Lutheran APRIL 2017

Retired electrical retailer Enjoys adventuring with God Fav text: Acts 1:8

Surprise someone you know

with their photo in The Lutheran. Send us a good-quality photo, their name and details (congregation, occupation, what they enjoy doing, favourite text) and your contact details.

APRIL

Special features EDITOR'S

Letter

When we think of war, what fills our minds? Do we picture distressing TV news images or graphic film depictions of bloody battles overseas? Does it bring back the World War II fear of invasion? Do personal experiences of fleeing a homeland in the grip of fascism or communism flood back? Or thoughts of deadly conflicts between early European settlers and the indigenous peoples of our countries?

But what is true peace? Is it simply the absence of war? The quiet that comes when prolonged noise dies down? The end of a fight? These worldly kinds of peace are tenuous and temporary.

The peace Jesus gives is permanent and pervasive. It was hard-won as a by-product of our salvation in the ultimate war between good and evil. It cost God his Son. It cost Jesus his life. Because of Easter we know that this side of heaven there will be war and terror – but we can still have peace within. That’s what Jesus was pointing to when he said the words of John 14:27: ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives’. In this issue we feature stories of people who have, by God’s grace, survived wars that almost claimed their lives. Their journeys from fear to hope have become a wonderful witness we are privileged to share.

Walking the hard road to hope

Terror is nothing to fear

Bishop’s Anzac Day message

Regulars

Or do we think of smaller, closer-to-home battlegrounds? We’re pretty adept at finding things to squabble over, aren’t we? – in our homes, our workplaces, even in our churches. We break Jesus’ heart each and every time we fight. Recently I watched the 2015 movie War Room. This film by American Baptist Pastor Alex Kendrick and his brother Stephen challenges viewers to channel their energy and passion for a fight into prayer rather than against each other. It reminds us that by warring with each other we’re letting our only true enemy, Satan, into our hearts, robbing us of joy – and of peace.

God’s deliverance: from war to peace

Heartland

Going GREYT!

Go and Grow

Inside story

Reel life

Directory

Your voice (Letters)

Notices

#youngSAVEDfree

World in brief

Coffee break

Many of you will be reading this around Easter time and we also take the opportunity to reflect on this faith-central festival – and how war and peace figure in the story. And, as Australia and New Zealand again prepare to commemorate Anzac Day, LCA Bishop John Henderson shares a special message with our church. I pray these pages will encourage and edify, inspire and challenge us all as we join with Christians everywhere in proclaiming: He is risen! He is risen indeed!

Lisa

Our cover:

from dreamstime.com

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

JESUS OUR BRE ATH OF LIFE Every day human beings breathe out and breathe in thousands of times. Breathing keeps us alive. It’s unremarkable until we really start to think about it, usually only when something is physically wrong with us or with the air that we are breathing. In a similar way, as a Christian you live and breathe the death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s as basic to your faith as breathing is to your body. You die and you rise, not as two separate acts, but as the one act of faith. Right now, as you read this, you are breathing out and breathing in. Take a moment to concentrate on your breathing. It’s deep inside your body but it’s also outside of you, in the air that surrounds you. Breathing is a personal, intimate act of survival, but it also connects you with the world: we all breathe the same air.

But faith is also outside us, like the air we breathe. It’s a gift for us to receive, and we all receive the same gift, from the same Saviour. He doesn’t play favourites but gives it to us all equally. It takes many things – you are unaware of most of them – to work together just so your body can take a single breath of air. That air must have just the right mixture of gases for your body to live. Every breath is The Lutheran APRIL 2017

So faith, like air, is a gift, ready for you to receive. Many things in you, the world and heaven, come together to make it possible. However, the central ingredient that makes it possible for you to live is the dying and rising of Jesus Christ.

… as a Christian you LIVE and breathe the death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s as basic to your FAITH as breathing is to your body.

Your faith is also like that – deeply interior and personal, yet inseparable from creation and the world in which you live. Believing in Jesus, trusting in him, dying with him, and receiving his new life into your very being is personal and intimate. Faith is within. We can’t always explain it. We often don’t think about it until something is wrong.

a new beginning, dependent on the grace of God, as you release the toxins that kill, and take on the gases that give life, especially oxygen.

Our baptismal rebirth and renewal links us to that dying and rising. Romans 6:4 says, ‘When we were baptised, we died and were buried with Christ. We were baptised, so that we would live a new life, as Christ was raised to life by the glory of God the Father’. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism explains how this dying and rising is a daily experience.

You are probably reading this around Easter 2017. I encourage you to think of Easter not just as a once-a-year festival, but also as a daily dying and rising with Christ. Let it be as basic to you as the air you breathe. In dying with him, we let go of all that is wrong with the world and us, just as breathing out expels the toxins from our bodies. In rising with him, we receive his new life, untainted by sin or corruption, just as breathing in brings us fresh, life-giving oxygen. So breathe out and breathe in. Do it again, and again, and again. Feel the rhythm of your breathing as it keeps you alive. Feel the rhythm of faith as you join Christ in his death and come alive again in his resurrection. Every day is now a fresh start filled with boundless possibilities, because Jesus is alive and so are you.

GOD’S DELIVERANCE:

from war to peace

Paul Kraus believes he may be the only Australian Lutheran Holocaust survivor. He has cheated death time and time again, from the horrors of war and the ravages of illness – a fact Paul knows is due to God’s saving grace. This is his remarkable story. by PAUL KRAUS For my parents, the 10 years before my birth in October 1944 were indeed uncertain ones. Both were Hungarian Jews. My mother, Clara, came from Budapest and my father, Emery (Jim), was from Banska Bystrica, a village originally in Hungary but belonging to Slovakia after World War I. From 1935 onwards, it was clear that the net of Nazism was slowly closing in around them. My parents tried to migrate to New Zealand, Australia, the United States and South America but they were unsuccessful as they could not raise the money required. Their lives were directly threatened on Palm Sunday in 1943, when Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital where they were living and working, was badly bombed. They

escaped to a town my father had lived in as a child – Subotica in Central Slovakia – where they again began to re-establish their lives. Within 12 months the men were taken for forced labour and, by the end of 1944, were transported to the infamous Mauthausen Concentration Camp. In the middle of 1944 my pregnant mother, together with my two-year-old brother Peter, was forced into a ghetto reserved for Jews who were destined for Auschwitz, an inescapable death sentence for both of them. An incident that belied coincidence, but had all the hallmarks of divine intervention, resulted in my mother being called to jump from one line of prisoners to another, along with my brother. The first line was The Lutheran APRIL 2017

headed for Auschwitz, the second to an Austrian labour camp. She arrived in the labour camp in July 1944 after spending an unbearable and stifling three days in a cattle train, during which a number of people died. Once in the camp she was unable to work because of her pregnancy. The Nazi elite corps, known as the SS, made regular visits but she hid whenever they came to the camp. The story of her survival is nothing short of miraculous. Shortly after my birth in late October she had a vision of Jesus while in her cell and accepted him as her Messiah. She had become a believer in Jesus and promised Almighty God that whether or not she had a future, she and her sons would be his followers. She fervently prayed for survival for herself and her family and promised Jesus she would always follow him. About 10 days before the war ended in 1945 she escaped from the camp. The Austrian guards were no longer a threat, recognising that the war was almost over. However, it was rumoured that if the notorious SS arrived, the inmates would be death-marched to Mauthausen. The SS did come later on the day my mother escaped, and they did take all the prisoners to Mauthausen. There were many deaths. My mother would have died had she not had the courage to head into a dangerous unknown with a small child and a baby.

months after our return, did my father come back to us, although he was almost unrecognisable in his appearance. He had been liberated from Mauthausen on the last day of the war. He was on the brink of death but was nursed back to some kind of health in an American field hospital. In 1949 we, along with many thousands of other postwar migrants, came to Australia as refugee immigrants. We rented a small house two doors from an Anglican church in Sydney and, to fulfil my mother’s promise to God, the three of us began to attend St Paul’s Church in Chatswood. As with so many migrants who arrived in Australia in the 1950s, life was not easy. Australia at the time was overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon, with no hint of the multicultural society it was to become. Prejudice against foreigners was strong and my parents were subject to an undercurrent of anti-Semitism.

It seems like HISTORY has played out God’s wonderful message of deliverance, forgiveness and TRUE HEALING in my life.

So began a trek filled with foreboding, as she attempted to return to Budapest. Soldiers from different nations, especially Russia and Italy, gave her small amounts of food and provided her with shelter. As she neared Budapest, her greatest fear was that she would not find her family alive. However, her parents had miraculously survived the war. Not until I was almost a year old, many

Despite these attitudes, Australia was a wonderful land of freedom when compared with the hatreds left behind in Europe. My parents worked hard with a positive mindset, took whatever work was available, and grew to love their new home. We all became Australian citizens in 1955.

I began school shortly after we arrived but I was scarred by the insecurity of not speaking the language and felt alienated. This resulted in poor selfesteem that haunted me throughout my school years. I left school early and tried many jobs. Finally, however, I matriculated to university and attended as a mature age student. I always followed Jesus, even in the midst of storms in my life, and knew that God loved me whatever my circumstance. I met my future wife as an undergraduate. We eventually married and God blessed us with two sons. I taught in a Catholic high school and wrote a number of Higher School Certificate textbooks and other history books. We attended the local Anglican church for many decades. In June 1997, at age 52, I was diagnosed with advanced mesothelioma, the asbestos-related cancer. This was more than 30 years after I was exposed to asbestos while working at a factory during university vacations. The medical profession gave me six to nine months to live. Of course I was devastated but from the beginning I did not believe it was my time to die. God guided me to healing by directing me to address what needed healing in all areas of my life – body, mind and spirit.

Pictured left: Writer Paul Kraus at work - his books cover a range of topics, from history and migration, to health, spirituality and healing. Previous page: Paul leaves Budapest with his family in 1949.

However, 16 years later I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, for which I continue to receive treatment. In the same year I was also diagnosed with having a brain tumour, for which I had successful surgery. I have wondered why God speaks to me so often in dramatic circumstances!! On two occasions I visited Germany for treatment of the prostate cancer. The treatment halted the spread of the cancer and helped to save my life. When I visited the German hospital the second time, I began to experience what was subsequently diagnosed as panic attacks. When attempting to find out the source of the problem, the wonderful doctor at the hospital pointed to my birth certificate stamped with the Nazi insignia. He believed I would be fine once I returned to home to Australia. There is a new area of science called epigenetics which believes that our cells have memory, and somehow mine had resurfaced to haunt me. I was very thankful to the German doctors for saving my life and never ceased to be amazed that the nation which so many decades earlier had tried to kill my family was now instrumental in my healing.

Above: Paul with his wife, Sue, who he met as an undergraduate. The couple has two sons. Below: One of the books Paul has written, in this case a story about members of a migrant family and the ways in which Australia changed between the end of the 1940s to the end of the 1970s.

While in Germany we attended a Lutheran church and, on our return home, I felt spiritually unsettled and prayed for direction on where my wife and I should worship. God’s Spirit directed me to attend LifeWay Lutheran Church at Broadmeadow in Newcastle, New South Wales. I instantly loved the worship there and I felt a warmth from the members of the congregation, many with German backgrounds. My wife and I felt spiritually at home there. God’s light and love has been shown so beautifully in this Lutheran church. We thank him for his loving kindness, ‘in the shadow of [his] wings’ (Psalm 36:7). It seems like history has played out God’s wonderful message of deliverance, forgiveness and true healing in my life. I thank the pastors, Mark Schultz from our mother church in Epping in Sydney and Pastor Michael Rudolph in Newcastle, for their love, warm pastoral care, clear Biblical teaching and for celebrating holy communion each week. ‘Great is your faithfulness, oh Lord’ (Lamentations 3:23).

Paul Kraus is a member at LifeWay Lutheran Church, Newcastle NSW. An author of books on history, health, and healing, he is the longest documented mesothelioma survivor in the world. To read more about his journey, visit his website at paulkraus.com The Lutheran APRIL 2017

I n Goi ng GREYT! we feat ure stories o f some o f our ‘more experienced’ people wi t hi n t he LCA , who have be en called to make a posi t ive cont ribu t ion i n t heir ret irement. We pray t heir examples o f service will be an i nspirat ion and encouragement to us all as we look to be Christ ’s hands and fe et wherever we are, wi t h whatever gif ts and oppor t uni t ies we’ve be en given.

St ro ng St ro ng An amazing strength of character shines through the diminutive Daphne Puntjina. She has a strong love for God and for her Central Australian community. This white-haired grandmother may be 73 years old, but age doesn’t appear to have wearied her spirited love and support for her 250-strong community at Areyonga, 200 kilometres south-west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

by HELEN BER INGEN

A ND ROB BORGAS

There is no such thing as retirement for this matriarch. Daphne shares her culture and love of God in so many ways across her community. ‘I trust in God and I know we are rich in the Bible, we know God gives us everything’, she says. ‘He has created us from the sand and when we die we will go back to the sand. That’s why I trust only in God.’ As a child growing up at Areyonga in the 1950s, then a government reserve managed by the Finke River Mission, her school house was the church building, and Christian songs and Bible stories were a major part of the school curriculum.

Her devotion to her people knows no bounds, and her passion to support her community shines through her voice as she shares about her love of giving back. It shines through her ‘We know God gives parish worker role at her local Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, through us EVERYTHING. He leadership roles on community boards and councils, and even through her has created us from role as a published author. But it shines brightest as Daphne shares stories of how she is teaching the current crop of local school students all about bush tucker. It is an exciting time, now the wet season rains have brought an abundance of native food to the region.

the sand and when we die we will go back to the sand. That’s why I TRUST ONLY IN GOD.’

She loves joining the school bus trips to teach the students to forage and hunt everything from goannas to honey ants, and even witchetty grubs, which taste like scrambled eggs, Daphne says. ‘We want to teach all the kids so when we pass away they can take over and teach the next generations’, Daphne says. ‘They love all the bush tucker which comes after the rain. This is a great time of the year, as all the native fruits have grown everywhere.’ Daphne’s favourite native food is honey ants, which are found in the flowering mulga trees, where ant trails up and down the trunks lead to motherlodes of sweet sap.

The Lutheran APRIL 2017

Her love of singing was fostered by her good friends and mentors Pastor Leo and Mrs Lydia Kalleske. Mrs Kalleske taught the children and adults to sing in harmonies in worship services where hymns were not accompanied by an organ or piano.

Encouraged by Pastor Kalleske, Daphne began helping teach Sunday school and religious instruction at the local school. In the 1960s Daphne also began helping other adults from Areyonga lead family and community devotions. Known as ‘eating house’, these devotions occurred during community meal times in the eating house building. For more than 30 years now, since the Kalleskes left Areyonga in 1986, Daphne has regularly led worship as a parish worker. The spark ignited by Mrs Kalleske’s musical efforts in the early 1960s led to Daphne’s leadership of the Areyonga choir from 1966, and from 2012 with the Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir. She recalls the choir’s travels to Germany in 2015, performing to audiences of up to 6000 people. ‘We were singing on the plane all the way to Dubai.’ For Daphne, the tour was

Daphne sings with Theresa Nipper, Joy Ku other choir m nia and embers in the Areyonga ch urch.

al teaches some loc Daphne Puntjina e. nc da al ion dit n a tra Areyonga childre

an opportunity to give back. ‘They had brought Bibles to Australia, and we could then take all our hymns back to them.’ Singing in both Aranda and Pitjantjatjara languages, as well as English, Daphne’s favourite hymn is the Pitjantjatjara version of ‘Guide me, O thou great redeemer’.

Areyonga ring worship in the Daphne reads du right 2015. py co n, ne vo Paivi Ar church. Photo by

However, her proudest moment has not been her roles on the community councils and boards, nor her NT citizen of the year award in 2004. It is sharing her love of God, her stories and knowledge with the next generation which she sees as her most important achievement. ‘Most important is everything that I have written down, our stories’, she says. This includes a book of bush medicines, and a traditional, bilingual story called KupiKupi and the Girl: Tjukurpa Kungka Munu Kupi-Kupitjara. Published in 2000 by Magabala Books, the children’s book features the adventures of a young Areyonga girl. Daphne has also contributed to the Pitjantjatjara hymnal Nyiri Inmatjara in 1995 and a new Pitjantjatjara Lutheran hymnal in 2010. This septuagenarian is an amazing example of a GREYT volunteer, but for Daphne it’s simply a continuation of almost 50 years of community volunteering. ‘I look after all the people and they look after me too’, she says. ‘God is working with me and helping other people, and I always ask God to look after us, our community and other communities.’

Daphne, who is parish wor ker at Good Sh Lutheran Chur epherd ch, with her co usin Anawari

Helen Beringen is a Townsville-based communications advisor who has been richly blessed through a career as a wordsmith. She is inspired by the many GREYT people who serve tirelessly and modestly in our community. She hopes by sharing stories of how God shines his light through them, others will be inspired to share his light in the world. Pastor Rob Borgas is the Pastoral Support Worker for the Pitjantjatjara Area of the Finke River Mission Parish.