Free to walk for others

#youngSAVEDfree

In this monthly column we hear from young people in our church about the ministries and mission they are part of, as we seek to better engage with youth in our communities.

 

With ALWS Walk My Way community events cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of staff and Year 11 students from Concordia College in suburban Adelaide thought creatively about raising funds to support the education of children in refugee camps.

Students Emma Jenke, Eva Kemp, Asha Tamms and Shae Tamms worked with Concordia staff members Jane Graham and Judy Harris to create a multi-faceted fundraiser. Year 11s and Year 5s gained sponsors and walked laps of the college oval, collectively tallying more than 450 kilometres.

The student quartet instigated the event after teacher Jane Graham shared with them about her meeting last year at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya with a girl named Harian Emuronti. Despite being deaf, Harian is receiving an education through ALWS support and doing beadwork to support her family.

The Concordia group also sold handmade beaded bracelets and printed bags made by the Lutheran Community Sewing Group. Thanks to their efforts $3725 was raised – enough to support 143 children in refugee camps to go to school for a year.

Asha Tamms says God’s love is her inspiration to serve others. ‘I long to see the children in Kakuma being given the same opportunity that we are so blessed to have!’, she says. ‘God’s love is the reason why I am inspired and empowered to serve.’

‘I’m just a teenager from Adelaide and I may not be able to eradicate the violence or erase the trauma of these people, but I can help give them an education and that’s a very powerful thing’, Emma Jenke says.

‘I would like to grow up to see a world where everyone is given a chance and step by step, together, we can make this happen.’

Eva Kemp says, ‘It can be so easy to take blessings such as security and education for granted here in Australia. When taking part in the beading, I wanted to refocus on what`s really important in life – God`s amazing love – and help out my brothers and sisters across the globe who are not given the opportunities that I have.’

‘Things that inspired me to do this project were, first of all, the kids in the camp. We are so privileged and sometimes we complain about going to school, while there are kids who would love to be in our position’, Shae Tamms says. ‘As Christians, we need to love and serve others whenever we can, just as Jesus inspires us to.’