Crosslight Magazine February 2022

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February 2022

mine Bringing Bible stories to life for children P14

Walking with God: 400 years at your fingertips P16 1

“ Blessed

are you who are poor.

Blessed are you who are hungry, who mourn, who are excluded.

Reverend Denise Liersch Moderator Vic Tas Synod

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Here we are at the beginning of a new year, where we think about the past year, and express our hopes for the year to come. A message I’ve heard a lot is, “let’s hope for a better year in 2022”. Though with recent events, there is a lot of uncertainty about what this year might look like.

Over these past months, I’ve been reflecting on how we think about our lives. What is it that makes us feel life is going well, and how does that affect how we live together as communities?

It seems that if we feel life is treating us unfairly, or that there isn’t enough of the good stuff to go around, we can sometimes feel we need to protect ourselves against others, or that we need to protect what we’ve got from other people.

On the other hand, if we feel pretty blessed in life, then we’re probably more likely to feel open to others. If we feel blessed with goodness, we’re more likely to feel open to others, to feel we have heaps to share with those around us. That’s a bit simplistic, I know, but I wonder: Where do you see yourself or our Church in this schema? Do we feel blessed?

What do we mean, when we say we feel blessed – especially in light of the way things are at present in the experience of so many in our families and communities. There is the ongoing impact of the pandemic in Australia and around the world; the enormous impact of the volcanic eruption in Tonga; human rights abuses in Myanmar and the Philippines; the crisis of climate change.

In a week or so, in our readings from Luke’s gospel, we hear Jesus speak about what it means to be blessed:

”

“Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry and who mourn, and are excluded, for you will be filled.”

Throughout Luke’s gospel, we hear Jesus speak in this way: God favours those who have little, are suffering, grieving or excluded.

As I read these familiar words, I am reminded of a woman I know, whose entire life has been incredibly challenging, supporting her siblings and children living with disability and serious illness. Yet she constantly speaks about how good God is to her and how blessed she feels. Many who know her say they can’t imagine how she lives with all the challenges she faces every day. They don’t understand how she can say she feels blessed when life seems so hard for her.

So often, we think of ourselves as blessed when things are going well in life. We say we are blessed if we are successful, if our health is good, if we have a good job, secure income and place to live, a supportive family and friends to rely on. Maybe as congregations, we feel blessed when we have enough money and people for all the tasks needed to support the congregation, or when people are flocking to our community and want to be part of the Church. Only then do we feel blessed.

But Luke’s gospel turns this idea upside down. We hear from Jesus that we are blessed when we are in trouble, because God is with us and for us. We are blessed as God takes up the cause of those who are poor and hungry and excluded. Blessing is about God coming to those in need.

The woman I spoke of before, reminds me of how Luke’s gospel describes Mary, the mother of Jesus. Both of them lived with huge challenges in life. Both declared their wonder at the goodness, love and blessings of a God of justice and kindness, who lifts up the poor and fills the hungry.

To be blessed, is to be filled with wonder at the love of God who is on the side of those who are poor, in trouble or who are grieving.

When it comes down to it, we know something of the truth of this. There is nothing more powerful than love to raise us up when we are laid low – to have someone by our side all the way, taking

up our cause and being on our side, working for the justice and love of God. And the strangest thing of all? When we think of ourselves as blessed, we find ourselves open to others in their troubles and need and able to share whatever we have with each other. This isn’t just a matter of “mindset”, but a deep spiritual way of being and living.

Luke’s gospel tells us this over and over again. In Jesus, we see what the kingdom of God looks like. In Jesus, we experience God’s love for those who are hungry and thirsty for life and love.

In Jesus, we know what it’s like for our souls to be restored. So for those who want to be followers of Jesus, we

are invited to tell of the blessings and wonders we have seen, and to join in with Jesus in becoming the blessing of God to each other. The reign of God is all about attending to those whom God favours. We are invited to join in with this God who favours the poor, the hungry, those who mourn and are excluded – to part of the kingdom that is coming near.

As individuals, congregations and communities, as we lean into our hopes and plans for the coming year, what might it mean to think of ourselves as truly blessed?

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with us all.

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Kaniva

hand?

When SA border restrictions left many tourists and residents stranded, two neighbouring towns sprung into action

By Damien Tann “You must be pleased the lockdown has lifted, eh?”

“Well, it hasn’t really, not for us.

If anything, it’s made it harder for us because South Australia is really clamping down against tourists from Melbourne.”

Such is life in a border town, although not in Bordertown, which might have made things a bit easier for us all.

Kaniva and Serviceton are the last towns in Victoria you pass by or through on the Western Hwy, the major thoroughfare between Melbourne and Adelaide. Kaniva is the last main town on the highway and Serviceton, about 22km away, is off the highway on the Victoria side of the border, where the interstate railway crosses over. So, when the border is closed due to COVID-19 it is at Kaniva and Serviceton where the backlog backs up. Repeatedly.

In April 2020, SA restricted entry for the first time in a century, and travellers were turned back by police at Serviceton 4

and Wolseley and directed to remain in Victoria. Some drivers simply threw a U-ey and drove the 18 minutes back to Kaniva and the one motel that was open; others stopped in Kaniva and continued through to Nhill, or even Horsham.

Some passengers on the interstate buses were not allowed to cross the border, so when they arrived they were ordered to get off. They were then taken back to Kaniva’s roadhouse and directed to wait for the return coach service, which was usually the following day.

They were left to fend for themselves overnight.

Between April 2020 and January 2022, Kaniva UC, which is across the road from the Roadhouse (and the bus stop), hosted many stranded travellers, providing a space on the floor for them to sleep. It was far from ideal, but the carpeted floor, the air-con or heater on the wall, the access to tea, coffee, kettle and microwave, and the church toilet block made for a more comfortable stay

than the bench seat outside the shire hall or the picnic table in the garden, where the old Methodist chapel used to stand.

Stranded travellers removed from the coach and returned to Kaniva’s bus stop would often walk across the highway to sleep in the church’s park. Locals would see them and contact me for assistance.

With keys in hand, I would go down to the park, meet whomever it was, and let them into the building for the tea and heating (or cold water and air-con) mentioned above.

It wasn’t just interstate travellers who were affected, however. With the SA border closed to all but essential services, the people of Kaniva and Serviceton lost access to their neighbourhood.

Kaniva residents lost access to banking and farm-supply infrastructure.

Farmers who farmed on both sides of the border were required to pass through checkpoints to access their flocks or

Continued P6

Damien Tann and the Kaniva and Serviceton communities opened their hearts to travellers impacted by the South Australian border closure.

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Adelaide

Kaniva Serviceton

Horsham

Ballarat

Melbourne

From P5

crops and were denied access without the correct passes and vaccinations.

A manned border checkpoint was set up on the Serviceton-Wolseley Rd, off the highway but on the main access road to Bordertown from the farming properties.

Its revolving red and blue light, 2km west of the Serviceton township, could be seen by most residents flashing through the night as a reminder that way was closed to them.

A rural backroad, only used by locals for local communication between the West Wimmera and Tatiara shires, was guarded 24/7 by the police (and for a short time the army). This was distressing for many. Other roads were 6

closed at the border, regardless of their condition or the points they connected, and if that road was traversed there was the threat of fines and further prosecution issued for illegal entry to SA. If you needed to move your tractor or flock, then you did it through the official checkpoint or you stayed in Victoria.

When border restrictions were tightened again last July and the only access to SA was by road train or by border-zone residents (defined by a line drawn 70km in each direction from the border), interstate travel was stopped in its tracks.

It was not that those travellers stopped travelling, but they were stopped

at the border and told to return to Victoria. Once again Kaniva, which was undergoing the state-wide lockdowns of Victoria, was host to many stranded people.

Notably, between July and November, the stranded people were SA residents seeking to return to their homes. Some people had entered Victoria from SA unaware of their need to seek approval to return. Others were people moving permanently to SA, which was within the permitted reasons to leave lockdown in Victoria, but were denied entry at the border.

On several occasions, the removal truck made it to Adelaide, but the prospective residents following in private cars packed to the gunwales were denied entry and were advised to return to Serviceton or Kaniva and the motel or caravan park.

With Victoria in lockdown and the motel and caravan park closed to new arrivals, it fell upon the local community, local churches, and Kaniva-based staff of West Wimmera Shire to provide emergency assistance. One man in his motorhome stayed at Kaniva for 11 weeks awaiting a permit. The average

Left to right: The park in Kaniva where stranded tourists would often sleep, the disused railway station at Serviceton and the prized artwork at Kaniva's wetlands.

was seven weeks, four was a miraculous outcome.

One Sunday, as I prepared for worship, I noticed a visitor sitting at the back of the church and introduced myself.

The visitor smiled, shook my hand, and mumbled something about wanting to catch up at the end of the service.

After church, they told me how they had been turned away from entering SA earlier in the week and, for the past three nights, had been sleeping in their car in one of Kaniva’s backstreets.

an invitation to meet with an IT-savvy person at Neighbourhood House to help navigate the online application process for a border-entry permit.

This one story, with a few alterations, has played out many times. Sometimes SA Police would ring me from the border to tell me to expect a returned traveller who would be in Kaniva in 15 minutes.

Sometimes the travellers would ring my mobile number from the sign outside the church. On one occasion, a loaded down SUV pulled up at the manse and

Our experience as a border community and “ staging post for stranded travellers is a different experience to that of other towns. ”

They had come to church in the hope it might be able to help. Two hours and several phone calls later, our visitor was settled in the motel with three nights’ accommodation (at mates rates) paid for by the Kaniva Ministers Association.

There was also an IGA voucher and an emergency food and toiletries parcel provided by the Salvation Army, a lunch “on the house” at the café, and

the couple rang the doorbell. Sometimes the roadhouse would ring because someone was asleep in the park, again.

Sometimes the café would ring because someone had slept in their car overnight and had come in for breakfast.

Kaniva has been labelled “Australia’s most optimistic town” by The Centre for Optimism and its director Victor Perton.

Perton passed through Kaniva last

April and was impressed by the town’s up-beat nature and the simple joy of its people. He noticed the welcome of strangers in Commercial St and made special mention of how, even though you can’t drink the water (unless it’s tank water in a bottle) the people are optimistic.

He describes the wonderful Sheep Art (a local project), which connects the Kaniva Wetlands through the town’s centre as far as the brightly-coloured Silo Art. That he was impressed by the town and its colour in the midst of Victoria’s lockdowns and the pressure of its caring for disappointed highway travellers is worth noting. That the people of Kaniva and Serviceton were also generous and resilient in caring for the “lost of the highways and byways” when there was “no room at the inn” should not go unremarked.

Kaniva and Serviceton were not built for emergency relief, but it seems its people were.

The towns have an area population of about 900 - 620 of whom live in Kaniva.

There are two pubs in Kaniva, which are open in the evening, a pizza shop open five nights a week, and one café. There Continued P8

7

From P7

are two motels, but only one of them is open at the moment, and don’t drink the tap water because it’s from the bore.

There is no bank, but there is an ATM that charges you $2.50 to use it.

There are six churches, and the UCA is in shared ministry with the Churches of Christ: the congregations meet about every two weeks and take it in turns to provide a minister.

Serviceton used to have a shop and its own footy team. Now it has its redundant-yet-monumental railway station. You can free camp in the old carpark at the ground, so long as you are self-contained, and you’re gone in 72 hours. The public toilet and shower facilities are kept locked because of COVID-19. Kaniva and Serviceton are not the only towns in Victoria that have faced hardship in the past two years. The Kaniva and Serviceton Shared Ministry is

not the only church to have been called upon because of the needs of its local community to minister in practical and anonymous ways. As the minister in placement, I am certainly not the only person in my congregations to have engaged in being the hands and feet to the least of these.

Yet our experience as a border community, and a staging post for stranded travellers as the last (or first) town in Victoria on the main Adelaide road, is a different experience to that of other towns.

You can make an ongoing difference.

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When becoming a regular supporter, you can support a program of your choice, helping individuals, families and communities across Victoria and Tasmania. Register today to become a regular supporter.

Call us 1800 668 426 Visit unitingvictas.org.au/regular-giving Uniting is the community services organisation of the Uniting Church in Victoria and Tasmania.

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Maybe not harder, maybe not more interesting, but different in its own way.

I am proud of Kaniva; of its one motel, and its afternoon pubs, its one café, its amazing roadhouse and its six churches.

Most of all I am proud of Kaniva’s abundance of love and determination to serve people who should not be in Kaniva because they should be at their desired destination, and yet who are stuck here, and who while stuck here will be loved and made to feel welcome.

Damien Tann is pastor at Kaniva and Serviceton Shared Ministry.

Shaping our future As the countdown begins to Synod 2022 in July, younger UC members and those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are encouraged to nominate for membership.

Moderator-elect Rev David Fotheringham says both demographics have much to contribute as the meeting discusses ways the Church can plan for the future.

David says one of the topics to be discussed will be how future meetings can be refreshed “to enhance wide involvement in the planning of our sharing of life and faith together”.

“In the Song of Songs, one lover calls to the other and says, ‘Arise, come with me, for the winter is now past’,” David says.

“The 2022 meeting of the Synod hears the beckoning voice of God: Arise, come with me!

“Synod meetings are always about more than just ‘business’, as important as that is in our stewardship of God’s resources.

“More, Synod meetings are opportunities to worship, listen, network and share together.

“For this especially we are looking for the contributions and wisdom of younger and culturally diverse voices.

Synod is a chance to meet with others across the life of the Church, that we may together be built up in faith and love.

“Our lover God calls us to arise, not alone but together and with God.”

Burwood Heights minister Sylvia Akauola-Tongotongo was nominated by the Presbytery of Yarra Yarra to attend the 2019 Synod Meeting and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

“It is a forum where decisions about the life, welfare and wellbeing of the Synod are made,” Sylvia says.

“I was one of four Moderator’s Chaplains (who attended) and I was also a Synod Chaplain. I learnt a lot more about alternative insights and multiple ways of embracing, respecting and appreciating diversity in a multiintercultural Uniting Church and I would recommend the Synod Meeting as a

worthwhile experience for any young and CALD UC members.”

General Secretary Rev Dr Mark Lawrence says Synod 2022 offers a fantastic opportunity for UC members to come together as part of a Christian community.

As the major periodical decisionmaking body and reporting forum of the Church, Synod 2022 could be likened to an AGM. However, Mark says this doesn’t really encompass the meeting’s unique character.

“For the days that the Synod operates, we actually form a Christian community,” he says.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to get to know others at your table, and close by, in working groups, in coffee queues, and many other ways.

“The practice of consensus decisionmaking is that when we approach an issue and start exploring views, we might find a common space that is not compromise, but a new common space to be in, and move forward with a fresh and shared understanding.

“That’s something to be celebrated.”

Synod 2022 begins on June 30 at Wesley Church with opening worship and the installation of David as Moderator. The meeting itself is July 1-3 at Box Hill Town Hall. If you are keen to participate, contact your Presbytery or congregation minister, who can then nominate you.

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Man for all

seasons

By Andrew Humphries

About 6000km separates Kiribati in the Pacific Islands and Ulverstone in Tasmania, but one man is doing his bit to bring residents from both countries together.

As the Synod’s Community Connections Worker in Tasmania, employed through the Justice and International Mission Cluster, Taua Ritiata plays a vital role in helping seasonal workers like those from his home nation of Kiribati settle into life in Australia.

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The Seasonal Worker Program, overseen by the Federal Government, offers an opportunity to people from nine Pacific Island countries and TimorLeste to work in our agricultural sector for either nine months or between one and three years.

“Seasonal workers are assisting Australia in a time of need,” Federal Employment Minister Michaelia Cash says.

“They are filling important gaps unable to be met by the Australian

workforce. We should, in turn, ensure they are well connected with their local community.”

And ensuring a connection is made and maintained with the community is a major part of Taua’s role as Community Connections Worker.

It’s a job he loves and one which brings him a great deal of satisfaction.

With more than 1000 seasonal workers employed throughout Tasmania, Taua has the task of making sure each of them gains as much as possible from

Taua Ritiata is the first point of contact for seasonal workers at Ulverstone.

their stay. It means a lot of travel but, for someone who loves meeting new people, it’s no hardship for Taua.

“I travel around Tasmania introducing myself to everyone and I try to reach out to everyone as much as I can,” he says.

“I will also meet with members of the community in which the workers are based to help establish that sense of connection, so that the relationship between the community and workers is a strong one.

“So, as the first point of contact, I am

trying to build a mutual relationship that benefits the community and seasonal workers.

“When that connection is made, there are real benefits for both sides.”

Tasmania’s Synod Liaison Minister Rohan Pryor says Taua plays a vitally important role in helping seasonal workers feel a part of the communities they are involved with on the Apple Isle.

“Taua has been employed with the role of connecting seasonal agricultural workers with local community groups, Continued P12

11

Kiribati seasonal workers have made Tasmania their home.

From P11

including churches, and working to facilitate meaningful connections between them, all in two days a week,” Rohan says. “(These) groups of agricultural workers live in the local community and significant relationships can be built up over time, bringing mutual benefit, enjoyment and encouragement.

“This is a great opportunity for the Uniting Church to express Christian hospitality and potentially involve seasonal workers in the life of the church and local community while they are here, to build connections and share mutual support and encouragement.”

Taua says the seasonal workers, including some from his Kiribati home, have a positive attitude which helps to build strong connections with church groups throughout the state.

“The Kiribati workers, as an example, have become part of the Ulverstone Uniting Church with Minister Gospel Ralte,” he says.

“I know Gospel really loves what they bring and how they interact with the congregation members and that is the sort of connection we are aiming for through the seasonal workers program.”

Gospel, who took up a new Ministry position in Gippsland on January 1, says the Kiribati group members have made a huge contribution to the parish, which consists of the Ulverstone and Sprent congregations.

“We have a number of members attached to the Ulverstone congregation 12

and they are not only hard workers, they are hard singers as well,” Gospel says.

“They work eight hours a day and then take part in church choir, song practice and Bible study in the evening.”

Gospel says the choir practice has become a focal point in helping the group’s members build a strong relationship with the church.

“They are gifted singers with beautiful voices which they use to drive out their

members say “theyThehave found a home

in this community, where they receive love, prayer and support.

”

Gospel Ralte, Ulverstone UC minister worries and loneliness, even in their workplaces,” he says.

“The minister's residence has been used as one of the gathering centres for song practice and youth meetings, and fellowship meals have been shared together, while choir practice on Monday nights has become an extended hour of fellowship.

“The members say they have found a home in this community, where they receive love, prayer and support from the congregations.”

Gospel says the Kiribati members have also become an integral part of Youth

Evening Services, which kicked off last August and involves young people from different denominations throughout the region.

“YES is full of dynamic inspiration through songs of praise,” Gospel says.

While the Kiribati members have been enriched by their contact with the congregation, Gospel says they have repaid that faith many times over, thanks to a wonderful ability to connect with the community.

“The members have become a source of spiritual upliftment and energy both within and beyond the congregations,” Gospel says.

“So anyone who hears their singing is blessed, as the meaning of the songs are felt in the hearts of the audience.”

While there are challenges involved in his role, Taua gets great satisfaction from seeing how both workers and communities embrace the opportunity to learn from and support each other.

“Yes, homesickness can be a problem for some of the workers, but there is a great deal of excitement around being able to connect with a community,” he says.

“I love meeting new people and sharing the level of excitement their work and being part of the community brings for them.”

Community groups throughout Tasmania wanting to become involved with the seasonal workers program can contact Taua at taua.ritiata@ victas.uca

Food For Families.

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Put food on the table - all year round.

Visit foodforfamilies.org.au

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Here’s how you can get involved in Food For Families: • donate non-perishable food and essential items • host a collection drive • be a community drop off point for donations • make a donation to directly support vulnerable people needing access to food.

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Presence of

m ne

By Donald Moss

More than a decade ago, Swedish developer Markus Persson created what has become the best-selling video game of all time: Minecraft.

The game has sold more than 238 million copies and has about 140 million people playing it each month – and among them are members of the Banyule Network of Uniting Churches, thanks to an idea hatched in part by Sandy Brodine last year.

As Victoria has gone in and out of lockdown for the past two years, Banyule members have come to embrace Minecraft as a fun and exciting form of online connection and worship.

While Sandy, who is part of the Banyule Network Ministry Team, isn’t much of a player, she has seen first-hand what Minecraft can bring to the table as a means of exploring faith and engaging with stories from the Bible.

“It’s kind of a crazy idea, isn’t it,” Sandy admits when asked how Minecraft came to be such an important part of how congregation members connect with each other.

“It was sort of an accidental thing.

Early in lockdown last year I was having a Zoom play date with Mandie, one of our Messy Church mums, and our daughters were playing Minecraft in the background and Mandie said to me, ‘why 14

don’t we have a Minecraft play date with the Messy Church families’ and I thought ‘wow, that’s not a bad idea’.”

And while their first attempt wasn’t a raging success, Sandy knew it still held plenty of potential.

“Our first attempt was a bit of a disaster because we got all the kids together on Zoom and tried to play and we didn’t know what we were doing, so it didn’t really work,” Sandy says.

the kids have complete “power over how they create the story and what they do with it, and I have none.

Sandy Brodine

”

“But we carried on and another member, Mel, who works for Scripture Union, had heard that people in Canberra were doing something similar with Minecraft, so we got in contact with them and talked about what they were doing and then looked at how it could fit in with what we were doing around intergenerational ministry and ministry for people of all ages.

“So what we have created is a hybrid between Minecraft and Messy Church, which we call Messy Miners.”

While it is, above all, a fun way for children and adults to connect and be entertained, Sandy says Minecraft also plays an important role in enriching an understanding of faith for some of the Banyule Network’s youngest members.

“We started with a couple of experienced kids building a Bible study and then having a go at praying together and, over time, the children have become a lot more expert at building in Minecraft,” she says.

“What we do is I send them out a script for a Bible story and I introduce it in term of scenes so, for example, the story of Jonah and the whale has four scenes and we use Zoom and Minecraft together to explore those scenes.

“The Miners are in four breakout groups and they spend about 45 minutes

in Minecraft building the scene and then we get back together and tell the story and talk about it.

“So they can ask all sorts of questions about the story because they have already walked around inside it in Minecraft.”

Sandy says the beauty of Minecraft is that it allows the players to take control, and she is more than happy to take a back seat.

“The really exciting thing is that it flips the power base, so I’m the Minister, but in this scenario I’m the one who doesn’t know what she is doing, so the kids have complete power over how they create the story and what they do with it, and I have none,” she says.

“I just love that power shift and it has allowed us to continue to build relationships over two years of lockdown, where we might otherwise have lost Messy Church altogether.”

As well as the monthly get-together, younger congregation members also enjoy online Minecraft play dates every Friday, further cementing its importance as a means of connection.

“It has been lovely to have messages from other parents saying thanks for the way it has engaged the children,” Sandy says.

15

History's

Page The Dalton McCaughey Library’s world-class collection allows a peek into the theological past

By Donald Moss When Ballarat woman Pippa Lidgett uncovered a rare and historic book belonging to her father Bill last year, she knew there was only one place it could be properly looked after.

The book, published in 1634, is now housed at The Dalton McCaughey Library at the Centre for Theology and Ministry in Parkville, under the watchful eye of CEO and chief librarian Charlotte Clements.

Founded by the Australian Jesuits and Uniting Church Victorian and Tasmanian Synod, the library is named after Fr William (Bill) Dalton and Rev Dr Davis McCaughey, who established it in 1970.

It houses more than 300,000 volumes and a number of noteworthy collections as well as the largest compilation of 16

Jesuitica in Australia. The library’s collection features a broad range of theological and philosophical scholarship and is strong in Biblical studies, practical theology and church history.

Overseeing all of this with a minimum of fuss, but a maximum of care, is Charlotte, who has been at the helm for four years.

While the library houses a number of historic books, the oldest dating back to 1514, it offers so much more than just that, as Charlotte points out.

What many people may not know, she says, is that The Dalton McCaughey Library has gained an international reputation thanks to its extensive collection.

In fact, in theological circles, it is considered one of the world’s best libraries.

“The important point about The Dalton McCaughey Library is that it is an international brand and is acknowledged around the world for its extensive collection,” Charlotte says.

“Some people consider it the best theological library outside the Union Theological Seminary library in New York.”

Praise for the library has come from around the world, recognising its outstanding resource material and the deep knowledge of its wonderful staff.

“Researchers and scholars come and spend a lot of time here because the collection we have allows them to

The Dalton McCaughey Library in Parkville contains a treasure trove of rare books.

Image: Carl Rainer

do that,” Charlotte says. “Before the COVID-19 pandemic, people would come from around the world to use the library in terms of their research.”

Among them was well-known New Zealand theological scholar Paul Trebilco, head of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

“I was really chuffed when Paul came here, so I asked him to write a recommendation about us and he was full of praise for what the library offered him,” Charlotte says.

It was, says Paul, “a wonderful place to read and to write”.

“The holdings in the areas in which I’ve been working, Biblical Studies and Patristics, are absolutely excellent and it

is so good to be working on something, find a new reference, and go to the shelf and find the book there.

“And the holdings are so consistently outstanding too, of older material right up to the present day.”

With a Masters Degree in Librarianship through the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, and many years’ experience in the field, including management of departments in university libraries in Australia and New Zealand, Charlotte has the perfect credentials to ensure that reviews like

Paul’s will continue. “Chief librarian is a very archaic term, but essentially it means I’m responsible for everything, so basically I manage the library,” is her somewhat modest description of the role.

“I have been here just on four years and I was offered the role because of my experience running smaller libraries and services that are specialised in some ways.

“One of the things that I have done a lot in my career is go into a library and restart, either after a restructure, or to restructure it and implement a whole lot of modernisation, and that was my first task here.

“One of my strengths is that I have worked in a number of libraries and

Continued P18

17

From P17

have a broad understanding of how to refresh a library, so I focused on that first when I arrived here, but it was always in the back of my mind to look at how to promote it more and make sure it is visible.”

Among the treasure trove of books in the library is the one gifted to it in April last year by Pippa.

Titled Some general directions for a comfortable walking with God: delivered in the lecture at Kettering in Northhamptonshire, it was written by Robert Bolton and published in 1634.

In the book, Bolton discusses subjects like idleness, government of the tongue, recreations, visitations, sleep and marriage.

It is now housed in the library's rare book collection, which contains books published between the 1500s and 1920.

Bolton, born in 1572, was an English clergyman and academic described “as the greatest classical scholar of his time”.

Metropolitan Library founder James Darling wrote in 1840 that Bolton was “one of the best scholars of his time, a zealous and successful preacher, and particularly skilled in resolving the doubts of timid Christians. His style is florid and often truly magnificent”.

Charlotte says the library was delighted to take over custodianship of Bill’s book after being contacted last year.

“Pippa told us she had this old book that belonged to her father Bill, and her family felt it should be housed somewhere suitable,” she says.

“Bill had found the book in the early 1980s in a Uniting Church hall in Ballarat, although we don’t know if it was originally Methodist or Presbyterian.

“He obviously held on to it and then, when Pippa was looking through his things, she found it and thought ‘oh, we should pass this on so it can be looked after’.

“It was printed in 1634 and there was a tradition of book owners inscribing their own names on it, so there is, for example, an inscription from 1720 on it.

“When Pippa contacted us about what to do with it, I suggested that a library was obviously a good place for it and that would mean we could make a 18

record of it and that is then made public, meaning it has some information about it out in the public domain.

“We’re not really resourced to look after books incredibly well, but now it is somewhere it can be found and appreciated.

“So, like a lot of theological libraries, we have ended up with a rare book because the owner has been given it,

tasks, Charlotte says the team takes its custodianship of such historic items very seriously. And there is, she says, a weight of responsibility that comes with that.

“We have these older materials that we know are rare and have been sorted into a significant collection, but it does weigh on us because we are talking about continuing centuries of custodianship.

has kept it for a while, then thought it would be a terrific idea to pass it on to us because it was something they couldn’t necessarily make last in perpetuity, whereas a more specialised institution like ours can.”

Bolton’s book now joins a number of other titles with a rich history in the library.

Among the others are Twelve sermons preached upon several occasions published in 1727, The Holy Bible conteyning the Old Testament and the New (1632), and The institution of Christian religion (1634).

“We have Robert Bolton’s book in our special collection section with some of the other very old books, including one dating back to 1514,” Charlotte says.

While it is only one of their many

“Many of these old books are not widely known and they are stored away, and this is where the weight of responsibility comes in, because we do have very old volumes.

“We are not necessarily book historians, but we are very aware of what we have here.”

To view one of the historic books, contact the library on (03) 9340 8888.

people consider it “theSome best theological library

outside the Union Theological Seminary library in New York.

Charlotte Clements

”

Images: Carl Rainer 19

ngland E What life was like in the 1600s

Population

In 1600, the population of England and Wales was 4m. In 1700, it was 5.5m.

Most people were poor, with a large portion living in terrible poverty.

Vagrancy was a major problem, with most relying on charity from family, neighbours, their fellow townspeople, and from begging.

Most of England’s population was rural, living in manorial villages and on the farmsteads of large estates, spread out across the countryside.

There were few towns as large as 1000 people.

People in England did not know half the world existed. It would be more than a century before Captain Cook explored the South Pacific.

Life expectancy

People lived to about 35 years.

Child mortality rates were high and childbirth was a potentially fatal event for the mother. If the trauma of birth didn’t kill her, infection could. About half of the population died before reaching 16, but if you survived that long you were likely to live to your 50s. Some even lived until their 80s. Cause of death included worms, plague and dysentery.

KEY DATES

1610

First English dictionary published.

1611

1604

1610

Henry IV is assassinated in Paris by François Ravaillac, a Roman Catholic.

20

Employment

In towns, people were employed as shoemakers, smithies, tailors, porters, saddlers, glovers and chimney sweeps, among other things. Prostitution was also rife.

In the country, work involved all aspects of husbandry, including milking cows, collecting eggs, toiling in the fields, and other tasks associated with livestock and crop cultivation.

Within the domestic sphere there were clearly defined roles for the sexes, and sexual inequality was accepted as the norm. Women were bound to obey their fathers and brothers, then their husbands, and then their sons. A wife was entrusted with running the household. A woman could eschew marriage if she were wealthy or if she chose to live a life of servitude. Some women found greater freedom in widowhood.

1612

Baptist church is established in London.

Food was plain an for the poor, who su cheese and onions. also ate pottage. It w boiling grain in wat of porridge. You add and (if you could aff meat or fish.

In 1633, bananas in London for the fir coffee and tea beca coffeehouses opene was considered a m and women weren’ coffeehouses.

1621

First English newspaper published.

First documented Caesarean section in which the mother survives.

King James version of Bible is published in England.

Diet

1631 1616

William Shakespeare dies.

1618

In central Europe, the Thirty Years' War between Protestants and Catholics begins.

Work begins on the Taj Mahal.

1633

Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul is formed.

1636

Harvard University is founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1649

King Charles I is high treason.

what was a predominantly Catholic country, and fighting with a religious dimension was serious in the 1640s and 1680s.

Protestant Europe was largely divided into Lutheran and Reformed (Calvinist) areas, with the Church of England maintaining a separate position.

Entertainment

nd monotonous ubsisted on bread, . Ordinary people was made by ter to make a kind ded vegetables fford it) pieces of

s were sold rst time, and ame so popular ed. Coffee man’s drink, ’t welcome in

s beheaded for

Religion

The Protestant lands at the beginning of the 17th century were concentrated in Northern Europe, with territories in Germany, Scandinavia, England, Scotland, and areas of France, the Low Countries, Switzerland, Kingdom of Hungary and Poland. In Ireland there was a concerted attempt to create "plantations" of Protestant settlers in

1649

Parliament in London abolishes the monarchy in England, as "unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous”.

1653

Taj Mahal completed.

1660

Royale General Post Office established.

Entertainment included country dances, singing and listening to live music. Theatre remained popular until is was banned in 1642. The ban was lifted 18 years later. Other forms of leisure included card games, chess, billiards, badminton and tennis.

Cruel sports such as cockfighting and bull and bear baiting (a bear or bull was chained to a post and dogs were trained to attack it) were also popular among the poor.

Fashion

At the beginning of the 17th Century, women wore frames (farthingales) made of wood or whalebone under their dresses. Later, they wore linen nightie-like garment called a shift.

Over it, they wore long dresses. The dress was in two parts - the bodice and skirt. They did not wear knickers.

At the turn of the century, men wore knee-length, trouser-like garments called breeches and linen shirts. They also wore stockings and boots. They had beards and their hair was long.

In the late 17th Century, men were clean-shaven and wore wigs.

1692

1662

Salem witch trials in Massachusetts.

The Act of Uniformity 1662 says all clergy must use the Book of Common Prayer.

About 2000 clergy disagree and resign.

1664

1694

Bank of England established.

1666

Isaac Newton experiments with gravity.

Great fire of London.

The English seize New Amsterdam from the Dutch and rename it New York.

Catholics cannot be king or queen. No king can marry a Catholic.

1664

1689

1685

James II succeeds to the throne in Britain and immediately introduces proCatholic policies.

21

reaching

out Putting unity into community

By Andrew Humphries It’s 10am on a beautiful Melbourne day in late November and Boroondara Community Outreach in Kew is a hive of activity.

Volunteers are busy in the kitchen cooking meals for distribution, in another room boxes of produce are being sorted into bags for delivery to needy families and individuals while, elsewhere, loaves of donated bread are being sorted.

At the centre of this organised chaos 22

is Minister, co-ordinator and, as she likes to describe herself, chief cook and bottle washer, Natalia Dixon-Monu.

Time is of the essence on this Monday morning and, as the clock ticks over to 11am, Natalie and her volunteers throw open the doors to those wanting to take home pre-cooked meals and other produce items.

Already, some participants have gathered in the laneway next to BCO for some time, ready to collect plastic

containers of wonderful food cooked with love, and boxes of produce, which will get them through the next week.

Among them is 69-year-old Kay Gross, who suffered a brain injury in 1993 and has been coming to BCO for many years.

Quite simply, she says, BCO and its team of dedicated volunteers are her lifeline.

During her regular visits, Kay always takes home containers filled with fantastic food prepared by the kitchen

Continued P24

Natalie Dixon-Monu is the driving force behind Boroondara Community Outreach in Kew. Image: Carl Rainer

23

From P23

volunteers. And while those meals are important for Kay, who has never learnt to cook, BCO offers her more than just the nourishment of food.

“What makes BCO so great is its inclusiveness and the fact that everyone is accepted,” she says.

“There is a real sense of community and I love the people here because you are accepted for who you are.”

Talk to BCO’s participants and you will hear that word “community” quite a bit: the sense of community that BCO offers to people, but also its place in the Kew community, helping those less fortunate since 1993.

Back then, research showed the city of Boroondara had the second highest rate of rooming houses in Melbourne, second only to Port Phillip.

its home page tells you all you need to know about that provision of community service.

“We support people who are socially isolated or living with a mental illness to live with dignity and engage in community,” it says.

Asked to expand on that, Natalie stresses the words “dignity” and “community” to encapsulate what BCO offers its participants.

“We support vulnerable people who sometimes don’t get treated with much dignity within the broader community or within health services, and who are sometimes reduced to being a ‘mentally ill person’, rather than ‘a person’,” Natalie says.

“So the filter of engagement for them is very much through the filter of their

What makes BCO so great is its inclusiveness and the “fact that everyone is accepted. There is a real sense of community and I love the people here because you are accepted for who you are.

Kay Gross, BCO participant It was pretty obvious then, Natalie says, that something needed to be put into place to assist those people on the margins who, all too often, were ignored by the more mainstream community services.

This is Natalie’s second stint at BCO the first time she did five years and this time around she has clocked up nine years in what is an obvious labour of love.

As the morning unfolds, she is a whirlwind of energy, helping in the kitchen at one point, the next minute talking to a participant about a particular issue he has, while answering phone calls and helping someone else deal with an issue online.

It’s ridiculously busy, but Natalie wouldn’t have it any other way because BCO and what it represents as a Christian community service to its participants is something very dear to her heart.

Go to BCO’s website and a quote on 24

”

illness, whereas we at BCO say we are about trying to get people to engage in community.

“What we do is act as a facilitating space for community, in the sense that we don’t see ourselves necessarily as putting on programs for people, it’s very much about doing things with people, rather than for them.

“We talk about creating community for people and recognising their gifts and what they bring.

“It is very much about having that compassion but also that nurturing of creativity, so we also do a lot of stuff around art and music and drama, because that is all about expressing our humanity.

“The other aspect of it is around hospitality, about providing hospitality in the sense of sitting down and breaking the bread together. So the meal is a gift of yourself, as well as the food.”

As the day rolls on at BCO, long-time

Leigh Johnstone with some of the donated produce that will help feed his family.

Image: Carl Rainer

participant Leigh Johnstone arrives to collect two boxes of produce to take home to his wife, Helen, and three children under the age of eight.

Helen is from Papua New Guinea and some issues around her visa status has meant Leigh needed Natalie’s help to deal with ongoing paperwork.

When she sees Leigh, there is a chance for Natalie to say a quick hello and ask how everything has gone with getting the paperwork off to the appropriate department.

“All good, thanks Natalie,” Leigh says with a huge smile and two thumbs up.

Leigh has been coming to BCO since 2012 and can’t sing its praises highly enough.

“It’s a huge help and we couldn’t do without it,” he says.

And while donations of food and other items are important, just like Kay, Leigh regards the sense of community created

by Natalie and the volunteers as one of BCO’s biggest strengths. “Natalie knows how to handle everyone who comes in,” he says. “She is a peacemaker who looks out for everyone and she is part of a great team here.”

Given some of the issues faced by many of the participants, the role of peacemaker is one Natalie is called upon to fill occasionally, and a background working in adult and juvenile prisons, experience in family support and youth work, as well as tertiary education degrees, mean she is more than equipped for the role.

“That background has helped, because in all of those places I have been learning, and all of that comes into play at BCO,” Natalie says.

“So here I’m both the Minister and co-ordinator, but what I do is right across the board, everything from pastoral care to doing grant applications.

“There is the financial side of it and the community-engagement side, also some networking, just about everything you can think of.

“I can be everything from chief cook one minute to emptying out the bins because recycling stuff has been put in the wrong ones, or unblocking the toilet or drain.

Continued P27

25

Ali Jackson and daughters, from left, Caitlin, Olivia and Charlotte, love volunteering.

Image: Carl Rainer

HELPING IS A FAMILY AFFAIR Like any service organisation, Boroondara Community Outreach is only as strong as its volunteers.

Thankfully, BCO has an army of people who know the true meaning of generosity and what it means to step up and help those less fortunate.

Among them is Ali Jackson, who embodies that spirit of generosity.

The day Crosslight visited, Ali was busy sorting through produce ready to be distributed to local families and individuals.

Making it a family affair, Ali had brought in her three daughters, Caitlin, Charlotte and Olivia, to help with the busy morning’s work.

Ali has been volunteering at BCO for about 12 months after a neighbour invited her to come down and lend a hand.

In the past six months, she has taken charge of organising and filling the grocery bags that go out to about 25 26

families, while on Thursdays she cooks up to 150 meals ready to be frozen and distributed to participants.

While her three daughters aren’t at BCO often, Ali says they are learning important life lessons when they do attend.

“They love hearing the stories of the people that we help and they have a lovely social conscience themselves,” Ali says.

“They have done charity work before and raised money for that a couple of years ago, so they are used to doing that kind of thing.

“We then thought of a way to help our local community and BCO was the perfect avenue for me to get involved in and to include the girls in that.

“They really enjoy helping out when they can.”

For many participants, access to well-cooked meals only comes through BCO, making the work of the volunteer kitchen crew very important.

“Some of the participants don’t have

access to a kitchen as such, but they do have these frozen meals that can be heated up in a microwave,” Ali says.

“As well as the meals, we will add things like fruit, milk and coffee.”

Ali says she gets an enormous amount of satisfaction from knowing she is helping people who are doing it tough.

“You know, I feel so grateful that I have the capacity to help out and make a difference,” she says.

“I find at BCO that you really get to know the people that you help and realise first-hand that what you do really makes a huge difference for them.

“I get a lot of satisfaction out of that and, for me, (there is something special) around that ability to be able to help.

“I’ve gotten to know a lot of the participants and they are just a lovely bunch of people who are doing it tough, so if I can have a chat with them, listen to their stories and brighten their day, it means I go home very happy.”

Volunteers Voon Stokie and Olivia Jackson sort through donated bread.

Image: Carl Rainer From P25

“If it’s broken I have to fix it, in between leading worship.

“There isn’t much we don’t do at BCO and, if we can’t do it, I can usually source it from somewhere else.

“People turn up and it’s a case of assisting them with whatever they might need help with, from filling out a form or providing a Zoom session for telehealth purposes, to contacting a phone company in an advocacy role because something has gone wrong with someone’s phone, dealing with bills or

helping someone around a school issue with one of their children.

“A lot of these people simply can’t do some of these things because as soon as they get on the phone they get confused because they are anxious, or they end up yelling, so they get banned from somewhere like Centrelink, and it’s very difficult for them.”

If life wasn’t busy enough at BCO, the coming of COVID-19 pushed things to a new level, as Natalie and her team dealt with an unprecedented level of need.

“We saw the worst and best of humanity during the pandemic,” she says.

“It ranged from the incredible selfishness of people hoarding (supermarket items) to the incredible generosity of people who purchased goods and gave them to our emergency relief, and it showed me that not much has changed since the beginning of time.

“We have great capacity for good and great capacity for bad.”

What the pandemic taught us,

Continued P28

27

Fish tale Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. Luke 9:16 In the many stories contained in that remarkable document we know as the Bible, one resonates deeply with Natalie Dixon-Monu.

It’s the story of the feeding of the 5000 or the “miracle of the five loaves and two fish”.

As Natalie and her team of volunteers have worked tirelessly to provide support to so many during two years blighted by the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing lockdowns, the story of Jesus’s feeding of the 5000 strikes a particular chord with her.

“When I reflect on the past two years, I really feel that Jesus’s story is also the story of BCO during the pandemic, on so many levels,” she says.

“On a personal level, it tells of Jesus going away to a deserted place, but his followers kept on finding him and there were times during the whole pandemic that I could relate to that. Every time I tried to take a break something would happen and I couldn’t leave.”

The story’s obvious sense of compassion also touches Natalie deeply.

“We know that Jesus had compassion.

Yes, he wanted to go to a deserted place, but he couldn’t walk away from those needing help because they were like lost sheep and that is something I can relate to,” she says.

“We could have chosen to close down BCO when the pandemic hit, but I couldn’t do that because our participants are a bit like lost sheep and I knew it was going to be really tough for them.

“Compassion is something that is bigger than us, it’s love that comes from the heart and as a point of faith, so compassion to me is very faith-based and having that heart of God is so important.”

And, in a literal sense, the coming of 28

COVID-19 presented BCO and its staff with the same problem Jesus confronted: how do we feed, and support, those needing our help?

“When the pandemic came, it was literally a case of us saying, ‘OK, what have we got to feed people?’, and it was like (all we had were) five loaves and two fish,” Natalie says.

“What you see at BCO today is not what we had at the start of the pandemic, we didn’t have all of these food stocks or the commercial fridges and freezers we have now.

“I remember one of our volunteers saying to me, ‘where are we going to get the money to feed everyone?’ and I said ‘don’t worry, it will come, if it’s meant to be it will come’.

“And that is like the Bible story, where the disciples said to Jesus ‘you have to send these people away, we can’t feed them’ and here at BCO it was the same, but I said ‘no, it’s our responsibility, we have to feed them”.

Natalie also reflects on a deeper meaning within the story of the loaves and fish, and one she hopes goes to the heart of what BCO is about.

“In some ways, to me, the miracle is not necessarily the five loaves and two fish, it’s how Jesus made people sit together in groups and eat together,” she says.

“I often wonder who was in that crowd, because it must have been really disparate, some who weren’t Jewish, probably even some Roman security and others who were coming to see this person Jesus because they were curious, but they all sat down and broke bread together.

“To me that is the miracle, that Jesus forced people, who wouldn’t normally connect, to sit together and that is what happens at BCO when the broader community, which doesn’t normally connect with us, has connected in a big way.

“At times it has literally felt like the feeding of the 5000 coming to life in a big way.”

From P27

Natalie hopes, was recognition by the community of the struggle that BCO participants face on a daily basis as part of everyday life.

“I wrote a Facebook post at one point about isolation (during lockdown) and how a lot of people were now witnessing what people who use BCO experience every day,” she says.

“That disconnect and isolation they feel comes because of their illness, but for everyone else it was isolation that was dictated by the pandemic.”

Before COVID-19, BCO would provide about 500 meals a month to participants,

Kay Gross receives some pre-cooked meals from volunteer Niranga Jayasekera.

Image: Carl Rainer

but this increased to more than 500 meals a week as the pandemic hit participants hard.

“What became very evident very quickly early on was the level of distress felt by a lot of people around the fact that they couldn’t get to the shops,” Natalie says.

“You are talking about low-income people who normally go to the shop every second day to get food because they don’t have big fridges and don’t have the capacity to buy in bulk.

“So they were going every couple of days and couldn’t buy anything and they

were so freaked out and stressed by this, so we said to them ‘we will provide food’ and we figured the best way to show care for them was to prepare healthy food for them.

“This meant their immune system would be as strong as possible to fight COVID-19 if they caught it, and it also meant they could stay at home and only come out once to pick up food from us.

“So they would come and get enough food for a week and that was how we were able to keep them safe and well.

“And for some of these people, we were their only connection during the

week because they weren’t connecting with anyone else at all.”

A large part of that connection was built through food, and Natalie is proud of the high standards set in the BCO kitchen, despite the pitfalls of operating during the many difficulties caused by COVID-19.

“A lot of people were saying ‘this is the best we’ve eaten in years’,” she says.

“There was one homeless guy who had been coming to BCO on a regular basis and then he disappeared for a while and when I saw him again I asked him where he had been, and he said he had gone

Continued P30

29

From P29

back into the city. So I said to him that he really needed to be accessing support services in the CBD because of the 5km rule that was in place at the time, but he said ‘I have been doing that, but there is no love in their food, it’s not like the great food here’.

“We really do give people the best, it’s not a case of beggars can’t be choosers, because there is no dignity in that approach.

“These are home-cooked meals that are cooked with a lot of love and I think the participants appreciated the fact that during a pandemic there were people prepared to come in and cook for them.”

While she has had to dig deep at times, a sense of perspective has allowed Natalie to keep soldiering on.

“Yes, it has been relentless and very tiring, but what keeps me going is that incredible sense of feeling that I’m just here for the ride, that something is happening here that is way bigger than me,” she says.

“People here are very grateful for what we do and that helps when you know that what you are doing makes a big difference to people.

“And you also have to put things into perspective, because in my life I’m blessed in so many ways, particularly when you consider stories about some of the participants and what they have gone through, which is just horrendous.”

Even Natalie admits to being surprised sometimes about how things magically seem to fall into place in times of need.

“I think what is lovely about it, and this might sound spooky, is that we might sit here and say ‘oh no, we have run out of coffee’ and literally five minutes later, someone will arrive at the door and say I’ve got all of this coffee here to give you,” Natalie says.

“So we might need something and then it literally arrives at the door, or we might need money and someone will ring up and say ‘can you apply for this grant because we have some money we would like to give you’.

“I suppose some stuff does happen because I make it happen, but much of what happens has nothing to do with me, and sometimes I feel like I’m going 30

along for the ride. There are beautiful connections in the community and, for a lot of people who come here to volunteer, it’s as important for them as it is for the participants … it’s a beautiful jigsaw where everyone has their piece and they all fit together to create this amazing picture of community and what it can be.

“We are a grassroots mission and it really has that feel about it, we are not part of a big agency where it all gets swallowed up into head office.

“It’s very much about local networks and I think the community really values what we do here.”

As activity draws to a close for the day, participant Kay takes time to reflect on what she and many others gain from their visits, and the role played by Natalie in steering the good ship BCO. “She is just brilliant and I say she walks on water,” Kay says with a laugh.

“She looked at me once when I said that to her and I said ‘I know I shouldn’t say that Natalie, but it’s true’.”

Volunteer Lida Savadkuhi prepares food at Boroondara Community Outreach.

Image: Carl Rainer

From P6

FOCUSING ON 5 ASSETS In 2017, British Church of England priest Samuel Wells published a groundbreaking book on social welfare called For Good: The church and the future of welfare.

In it, Samuel and co-authors Russell Rook and David Barclay put forward a transformative model for providing welfare, which breaks free of the default approach of attempting to eradicate the deficits of squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease.

Instead, the authors focus on fostering five assets: relationship, creativity, partnership, compassion and joy, thereby empowering people to regain control of their lives.

For Natalie Dixon-Monu, For Good offers the perfect template for how a community service like BCO can best reach those who need it.

“We use For Good as a resource here because Samuel talks about the fundamental pillars of creativity and joy (in providing a welfare-based approach),” Natalie says.

“What he also talks about is the difference between assets and deficits, and the fact the social welfare system is often based around eradicating deficits.

“So, if someone doesn’t have a house we get them a house, but there are also things called assets, which are really the business of the church, around providing hope and joy and compassion, and there is a recognition that if you only focus on the deficits it’s not really transformative.

“Yes, it’s nice to have a home, but you could still be completely joyless within it and, in fact, you can be homeless but have more joy, and it’s the lack of joy that kills people.

“So if you concentrate only on eradicating deficits it becomes a soulless business and that’s what we don’t do here at BCO. Yes, we provide food, but we also provide hospitality because that is about compassion and respectful engagement with somebody, and that’s the asset.”

31

Fighting poverty

from the ground up

By Andrew Humphries

Former Tasmanian Uniting Church Presbytery Minister Anthea Maynard’s own life-changing event has been the impetus for her involvement in a project that benefits millions of the world’s poorest people.

Five years ago, after 12 months of treatment, Anthea was given the all-clear in a battle with cancer.

The successful outcome meant Anthea took stock of her life and reshaped some of her priorities.

The win over cancer was, she says, a calling from God to devote more energy to her work with Food Plants 32

International, established by her father Bruce in 1999 with the aim of changing, and saving, the lives of people everywhere by setting them on the path to better nutrition.

According to FPI, about 3 billion people struggle to survive in some of the world’s poorest countries, with food security and regular supply the biggest issues they face.

Malnutrition is the leading cause of disease and death, and affects young children the most, with a child dying every five to 10 seconds.

Vitamin A deficiency means night

blindness is a common condition, while many people in tropical and sub-tropical countries are deficient in iron.

“It does not have to be this way,” the FPI website says.

“God has already provided the right plants growing in their right places to sustain people in every place on his earth.”

And leading the fight to improve lives through better education around plant nutrition is Anthea.

“When I was given a good outcome after that year of cancer treatment, during which I was beautifully supported

Continued P34

Anthea Maynard and Food Plants International are committed to feeding some of the world’s poorest people.

Image: Dave Groves 33

From P32

by the Synod and Presbytery, I felt a strong sense of God's calling to the work of promoting local food plants around the world to improve the nutrition of mothers and children,” is how Anthea explains what drives her.

“I am living out this calling at the moment through voluntary work for FPI one day a week and I am also on the FPI board.

“The aim of FPI is to see hunger and malnutrition diminishing through the promotion and use of diverse local food plants, particularly in countries where the mortality rate of children under five is the highest, although it is relevant to every country.

“Equipped with this new or forgotten knowledge, people can identify, evaluate and utilise food plants adapted to their local environment, thereby improving food security, health and nutrition.”

The key to FPI’s success, Anthea says, is that it taps into knowledge that already exists around what plants can provide in a nutritional sense.

“Basically we want people to have the knowledge and skills to feed themselves, and our focus has been on rural subsistence but also urban slum areas,” she says.

“So it’s about asking the question, how can people be empowered and have the knowledge and agency to grow whatever they can in the place that they live?

“There are certain plants that grow well in each place around the world and they are the ones that you need to identify and use.

“As an example, you might have some people trying to grow maize in the desert because it is the preferred food, but if they switch over to millet or sorghum they literally can feed themselves, and I have seen a situation where people go from being unable to feed themselves to having a bumper harvest of nutritious food.”

Anthea says FPI and how it can change lives is the perfect example of God’s work being carried out in the world to benefit millions of people.

A CHILD

DIES every five

to 10 seconds FROM

transformation and see people’s eyes opened to what is right there in front of them.

“This is going back to the whole concept of Jesus feeding the hungry, and our faith means we are invited into Christ’s mission in the world, which is practical as well as hope-filled.”

It was a stint in Zimbabwe that opened Anthea’s eyes to what was possible when a community came together for a common good.

“In Zimbabwe, the work I was doing at the time was linked with a clinic connected to a children’s home, but after two months the clinic closed and I realised after that I had been set free,” she recalls.

“I moved into community nutrition, rather than just tropical medicine, and we had the opportunity to network with all of the different NGOs, as well as the local community, to see what the barriers were to them being able to have good food.

“Through partnering with a local indigenous NGO, we realised that it wasn’t until we had a traditional community feast together that the barriers came down.

“When that happened I saw understanding flourish and what could have become a hierarchical situation had changed, so the house mother was sitting next to the CEO and sharing stories about how much they loved this food, where in a more institutional, or Western, system they would perhaps have been more embarrassed about it.

“There was this consensus around everyone loving this food, so I couldn’t have done a training program that better created that opportunity … it really was a profound experience in formulating what was to come.

“So we set up a garden with traditional food plants and people worked together and that meant we were living and experiencing so much. The knowledge was already there, it was just a case of raising it up.”

While much of what FPI offers can be applied to countries like Australia,

MALNUTRITION

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“I certainly see this as being, as we would say in the Uniting Church, God in Christ at mission in the world,” she says.

“FPI is just a tiny speck within that mission and ministry, but is has so much potential because we know, for example, that we don’t need to try and get vitamin A genetically modified in Uganda to grow bananas because there are thousands of plants that can give you vitamin A. “I feel that God has literally provided people with nutritious plants wherever they are and wants people to know how blessed they are with that knowledge, and that their children today can potentially have the answer to something like vitamin A deficiency.

“I would be stoked to see a real

Continued P36

Nutritional knowledge Head to the Food Plants International website, click on its database and a world of wonder about nutritional plants opens up at your fingertips.

Listed are thousands of examples of plants that can be grown in a local context and provide nutrition for millions of people around the world.

Anthea Maynard says the database is, quite literally, a lifesaver.

“Through it, you can choose any country and it gives you the possibility to search nutritional plants with any variation you wish,” she says.

“So even with climate change, the database will tell you the ecological zone that a particular plant best grows in, even if that ecological zone moves across the country as climate change has an impact on particular areas.

“As an example, you can search for information on a tree in arid Africa that

grows nuts and it will tell you the type of African tree that has edible nuts and where it is located and, if that arid area moves, the plant should move with it over the seasons.”

Anthea says the database is particularly useful as a resource tool in many countries.

“If, for example, we are working with an organisation like World Vision, which has used our resources before, it’s about ensuring that whatever community development programs they are running incorporate some knowledge about nutrition and food within it,” she says.

“Or it might be a church that has a community garden and can then use the FPI database to work out what will grow best in a nutritional sense.”

The database provides a wealth of information on each plant, including its scientific name, description, production notes, nutritional value, pictures and references. Not surprisingly, the task of documenting so much information for over 30,000 plants is a daunting one,

but any person with an interest can lend a hand by contributing their own knowledge of a particular plant.

As Anthea suggests, it’s all about educating as many people as possible on the nutritional value of the plants that will grow readily in their own backyard.

“We love to see people adapt, incorporate and translate our information on posters, books and the database as needed, or collaborate with us to create new resources that can be used as part of a school curriculum or though practical workshops,” she says.

“We share our information freely with community development and health workers, church leaders, teachers, nutritionists, and agriculturalists to directly use or repurpose these materials to promote and grow their own nutritious food plants.

“Equipped with this new or forgotten knowledge, people can identify, evaluate and utilise food plants adapted to their local environment, improving food security, health and nutrition.”

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we would like to “seeWhat are small-scale food Bruce French started Food Plants International in 1999.

PLANTING SEEDS OF KNOWLEDGE Anthea Maynard’s important work with Food Plants International continues a wonderful family tradition that began in the early 1970s with her father, Bruce French.

When Bruce arrived in Papua New Guinea as a lecturer at what is now the University of Natural Resources and Development, he realised that many villagers were suffering from disease and malnutrition, despite being surrounded by nutritious edible plants.

“When some of his students returned to their studies, my dad heard their feedback around the fact that what they had learnt previously wasn’t really relevant because they had been taught about Australian agriculture,” Anthea says.

“Knowing that, dad just couldn’t bring himself to roll out the standard curriculum as it was, and he took the brave step of telling the students that it needed to be changed.

“He sent them out to some of the rural villages to listen to the elders and hear their wisdom and thoughts.

“In a two-week period he also set up a garden, and that meant he spent the whole year learning with his students about PNG’s nutritious plants.

“Originally it was very much an agricultural course but, at the same time, he was sent to a health centre in the highlands, where a number of babies were malnourished and that was when he realised the connection between agriculture and nutrition.”

That connection would result in books, other resources and, in 1999, the establishment of FPI. “My father finished writing some of the 36

first books about the pests, diseases and basic agriculture of PNG,” Anthea says.

“He realised there was a lack of understanding around what were nutritious and edible plants in PNG and nothing in the way of books or resources that could feed into education broadly, so he went on to document all of the food plants of PNG. “Of course, before computers this was very labour-intensive. All of this was basically the stepping stone to what is now Food Plants International.”

Not surprisingly, her father, and his work, have been a source of great inspiration for Anthea.

“Watching my dad’s work certainly lit something within me,” she says.

“I am very broadly interested in wellbeing, not just nutrition but also spiritual health, ecological health and medicine, and I have a Masters in Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

“I see FPI and its database as a central element for me to add to my collection of interests. So, nutrition is a foundational requirement in terms of resilience to diseases, particularly the tropical ones.

“That is what I am particularly interested in, looking at the big systems that help people have access to good food and the social and cultural barriers to being unable to access that good food.”

Bruce’s long-standing commitment to improving the lives of the world’s poorest people was recognised last year when he was named Tasmania’s Senior Australian of the Year.

In accepting the award, Bruce paid tribute to the PNG women he’d met.

“There’s lots of fancy, famous scientists I’ve met around the world, but it’s the people in the villages who inspire me most,” he said.

gardens and adequate nutrition established for communities, preferably using local food plants.

Anthea Maynard

”

Anthea says there is a wider context that needs to be considered, particularly around issues like climate change and our impact on the planet.

“We know (what FPI does) changes lives, and we want people to be relieved of malnutrition, and we are starting to realise now that much of this is also relevant to Australia,” she says.

“So what we would like to see are small-scale food gardens and adequate nutrition established for communities, preferably using local food plants.

“However, about 30 per cent of our carbon footprint is associated with agricultural and food production and transport, and it’s tragic that in the Western world every mouthful of food requires such a huge amount of inputs in terms of production, machinery and transport, factories and planes. “(The problem is that) we are greedy and we want everything today.

“It all ties in to this issue of stewardship and a sense of place and, for Aboriginal people for example, their story acknowledges the importance of place, which we are very quick to overlook and so become disconnected from our environment.

“In terms of climate change, our eyes really need to be wide open to the impact we are having on other people around the world, so it’s about honouring God and the people around us.”

FPI has a tax deductibility project that creates educational resources for and with people from a number of countries, including Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste, Vietnam, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. For more information, go to www.hada.org.au/project/foodplants-international

EDUCATION

AND FURTHER

STUDY

ASSISTANCE

2022 FUNDING GRANTS ARE AVAILABLE FOR

Youth ministry projects Children & Families ministry projects Scholarships for children of soldiers Students undertaking tertiary and secondary studies  Ministers with children attending primary or secondary school  Children from Uniting Churches in the Bright and Beechworth areas associated with Uniting Churches in the Bright and Beechworth areas    

 Developing and supporting educational initiatives in the regional areas of Victoria and Tasmania  Education for lay people, including lay preacher candidates and pastors  Continuing education for ordained and lay people in placement with the UCA  Women undertaking study who are currently working within the UCA or with the intention of service within the UCA

WE’RE WAITING TO HEAR FROM YOU APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN Educational Grants, Scholarships and Bursaries For details, guidelines, closing dates and application forms visit: victas.uca.org.au/resources/grants/educational-grants-scholarships

equipping Leadership for Mission

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211209

For assistance, email grants@victas.uca.org.au or telephone 03 9340 8800

coming events Crosslight is a bi-monthly magazine produced by the Communications and Media Services unit of the Uniting Church in Australia Synod of Victoria and Tasmania.

Opinions expressed in Crosslight do not necessarily reflect those of the editor or the policies of the Uniting Church.

Advertising Crosslight accepts advertising in good faith.

Acceptance of advertising does not imply endorsement. Advertising material is at the discretion of the publisher.

March 2-april14 Lent event

For 40 days, give or take up something in solidarity with those who live with less and raise money for projects including clean water, education and climate change advocacy.

More info: www.lentevent.com.au

March 11-14

Advertising deadlines Bookings (April, Easter issue, 2022) Friday February 18, 2022

Uniting Faith And Family Camp

Copy & images for production Tuesday March 01, 2022 Print ready supplied PDF Wednesday March 23, 2022

Questions such as “how can we build on our faith practices?” will be addressed at the three-day gathering. Where: Oasis Camp, Mt Evelyn. Cost: $258 adults, $218 children, $952 family. Register by: March 5.

Bookings: www.trybooking.com/bwmae

See crosslight.org.au for full details.

Distribution Crosslight is usually distributed the first Sunday of the month.

Circulation: 16,000 Staff Editor Stephen Acott (03) 9340 8819 stephen.acott@victas.uca.org.au Advertising and Distribution Adelaide Morse (03) 9340 8800 adelaide.morse@victas.uca.org.au Communications Officer Andrew Humphries Ph: (03) 9116 1400 andrew.humphries@victas.uca.org.au Graphic design and print services Carl Rainer (03) 9340 8826 carl.rainer@victas.uca.org.au UCA Synod office 130 Lonsdale St Melbourne Victoria 3000

This inaugural event runs for three days and is open to all ages. Activities will include arts, crafts, games, sports and bush walks. Where: Camp Acacia, Halls Gap. Cost: $120. Register by: Feb 21.

Contact: Linley Liersch, 0408 169 882

March 27-april 3 Celebrate our global neighbours and hear inspiring stories of the challenges faced and changes created by ordinary Christians around the world.

More info: www.sevendaysofsolidarity

ISSN 1037 826X Next issue: April 2022

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Messy Church Family Camp

Seven Days Of Solidarity

Feedback & correspondence crosslight@victas.uca.org.au

ucavictas

March 11-14

ucavictas

Heads and

tales In the modern fast-paced world of 24hour news cycles, opinion shaped by social media, and seemingly endless confrontation between one group or another, just getting through another exhausting day sometimes seems enough of a challenge for us.

But what if, for some people, there was an extra layer to that challenge?

For many people, their disability, race, cultural background, religion or socioeconomic circumstances make the daily battle even harder. But thanks to the Manningham UC, the stories, hopes and struggles of these people will be given a voice in March during the Building Bridges Through Story event.

First held in 2019, the community gathering will bring people together from minority groups to talk about their experiences and, in the process, build a bridge to a world of better understanding.

Helen Bartlett, who is one of the event’s organisers, says BBTS will be “an engagement of the heart, a deep listening to the real stories of people who have experienced pain and suffering as a result of being excluded, ignored, subjected to unjust laws, discriminated against and often abused in public”.

“Every story told will be an attempt to find a deeper connection with other minority groups in our community,” she says.

Helen says the two-day event will provide opportunities to listen to stories from, and interact with, Muslim women from Benevolence Australia, a faith-based community that aims to nourish, develop and support the individual and family unit, using

the rich spiritual tradition of Islam.

Representatives from the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation and those with various abilities from the Victorian Advocacy League for Individuals with Disability, an independent disability advocacy organisation, will also share their stories.

story told will “beEvery an attempt to find a

deeper connection with other minority groups in our community.

”

Helen Bartlett, BBTS organiser “It will be a celebration of diversity; an opportunity to build bridges and establish lasting connections, thus breaking down walls in our society built through ignorance and fear of people of different colour, abilities, races, culture, religions, birthplaces, and socioeconomic circumstances,” Helen says.

Among the guest speakers will be Saara Sabbagh, the founder and CEO of Benevolence Australia, and a recent OAM recipient for her service to women and the Muslim community.

“Saara will share her focus on being an Australian Muslim in today’s world and how all peoples’ stories can be respected and relationships developed,” Helen says.

“She will be joined by Mary HenleyCollopy, a Thalidomide survivor and disability activist, who has served on many boards, including as chairperson

of the Disability Resource Centre’s committee of management. In addition to her lived experience, Mary will offer a contextual understanding of disability.

“African Muslim psychologist Toltu Tufa will also be one of the guest speakers, sharing stories of her community and educational experiences, while speakers from VALID will share their personal experiences, challenges and achievements in exerting control and influence over their lives and exercising their human rights and citizen status within their local communities.

“These stories will include people who experience a range of disabilities and parents of people with a disability who have advocated for them to be included in access to housing, education and employment.

“The stories will include experiences of assumptions on people’s capacity, experiences of exclusion and discrimination and also of inclusion and valued contribution, and will explore the way society has created barriers to people’s inclusion and often been the disabling factor more so than the disability diagnosis.

“Manningham UC’s hope for BBTS is that people will gain an understanding of equality and a deep respect for difference, and we warmly invite you to join us.”

The second Building Bridges Through Story event will be held at Manningham UC’s new church and community centre complex at 109 Wood St, Templestowe on March 4-5. For more information, email buildingbridges@manninghamuc.org or phone (03) 9846 2012.

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Register today to flip for a good cause. pancakeday.com.au/vic-tas 1800 668 426

Uniting is the community services organisation of the Uniting Church in Victoria and Tasmania.

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