This content is restricted.
By Helen Beringen
Joy Mules was about three years old when she caught the music bug. In around 1938, the brass bands parading through the streets of Tanunda, in South Australia’s Barossa Valley, drew her away from her mother’s side to march off with one of them.
And just like the German heritage of that annual brass band competition, her rich music heritage was founded in the Lutheran Church.
The eldest of five children, Joy began learning to play the piano at eight years old and by 14 she was playing for Sunday school at the Berri-Renmark Parish in South Australia’s Riverland.
Her pastor, Ern Stolz, encouraged her to take a turn to play for the worship service, a gift she has continued to share for the past 70 years.
Now turning 86 this month, Joy is still on the organ roster at St John’s congregation Unley, where she has worshipped since moving to Adelaide from the Riverland two years ago.
Whether it’s organ music for worship services, piano accompaniment for choirs, or singing, music continues to be the lifeblood flowing through Joy’s veins.
Born in Berri in 1935, Joy grew up Glossop and was cutting apricots on the family property by the age of five.
Her interest in music was also a family affair, as the wider family had lovely singing voices and would gather monthly on a Sunday night for singsongs, she recalls.
Joy even met her husband Jim through music, at a local fundraising dance where she was making sandwiches in the kitchen for supper, as her father thought that, at 16, she was too young to attend. Jim ended up dancing her down the aisle in 1958.
‘We moved to Barmera to a fruit property where we raised our son Peter, and our two daughters Jenny and Angela, all of whom have done us proud’, Joy says. The family has now grown to include five grandchildren.
Music sustained Joy through the tough years of bringing up a family and fruit picking and pruning on the property with Jim.
Joy continued to share her musical talents in her church and community until retiring from the farm at age 70, after her husband’s passing.
‘I had to keep serving the Lord no matter what stage of life I was in’, she says. ‘I need to continue doing what I can while I can, that’s keeping me going.’
Joy has volunteered for most of her life, influenced by Christian parents. She was even her congregational delegate at the LCA’s General Synod in 1976 – four years before women received the right to vote at Synod, so she was only granted observer status.
Her church life has been full, with commitments including Sunday school teaching, church council membership and serving as chairperson. Her volunteer efforts in the broader Riverland community, which spanned sport and the arts, were recognised by an Australia Day honour in 2018 when she was named ‘Citizen of the Year’ by the Berri Barmera Council, which she describes as a ‘humbling privilege’.
That same philosophy led Joy to volunteer to raise funds to support refugee children to go to school through the Australian Lutheran World Service Walk My Way fundraiser through the town and countryside of SA’s Barossa Valley on 1 May this year.
Walking from Nuriootpa to Tanunda, Joy was the oldest registered participant, raising enough money to send almost seven refugee children to school.
Despite not being a regular walker, Joy covered just over nine kilometres, not including her training sessions with daughter Angela, who accompanied her on the walk.
‘I was halfway, and I suddenly thought, “God, please give me strength”, and he did’, Joy recalls.
That same strength still sees her on the church roster for readings, flowers and organ at St John’s Unley, as well as volunteering her time to play the piano for residents at the nearby Fullarton Lutheran Homes fortnightly and hymns in the chapel once a month.
Her husband once asked her when she was going to retire from playing the organ. Her response: ‘I’m not going to retire, why would I? God has given me this talent.’
‘I have had a few challenges throughout my journey through life and have only managed them because of my faith in my Lord and Saviour’, she says. ‘Faith is my second name.’
How fitting then, that her favourite Psalm 23 is one she’s sung at many special occasions including weddings and funerals. It is an ongoing reminder of his guidance throughout her life.
‘I always ask God to guide my fingers to play for his glory.’
by Helen Beringen
It’s hard to go past a friendly smile greeting you at the door before Sunday worship, or that warm cup of tea or coffee after service.
Isn’t that what makes our faith communities welcoming? Whether new faces or regulars, being made to feel welcome is how we connect as a community.
And, if welcomers are the bricks, then the post-worship conversation and coffee is the mortar.
Every week around Australia and New Zealand, parishioners young and old are rostered on to ensure worshippers are welcomed into God’s house.
Morning tea rituals may have had to adapt in light of health precautions in the current COVID climate, but despite the challenges of sharing food under a pandemic-safe regime, the invitation to talk over a beverage is an important sign of a welcoming community.
Enter the hundreds of folks who, on any given Sunday, have put their hands up to help out.
Our worship life would be the poorer without every person who puts their name on a congregational roster.
In many cases, the same faces have been saying ‘g’day’ or pouring the drinks for decades.
One such couple is Grace and Les Dodt, who celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary on July 14 this year. In their current parish of St Pauls Townsville, in north Queensland, the pair had spent most of their 20 years there on the greeting and morning tea rosters until COVID-19 restrictions interrupted worship services in 2020.
Baking for morning tea was Grace’s forte and she is still baking for family members. ‘All my life I have loved cooking and baking, and I still love cooking’, Grace says. ‘We have a cooked breakfast and a hot lunch every day.’
Even though home-cooked goodies are off morning tea menus at some churches for the moment, that doesn’t stop Grace from baking at home, especially for her family.
‘I just love my six grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren’, she says. They have a daughter, Kaylene, in Townsville and their son, Russell, lives in Tasmania.
When The Lutheran caught up with Grace, 90, and husband Les, 96, there was an apricot jam slice in the oven ready to share at a family lunch with Kaylene and her family.
Family was the reason for their move to Townsville 20 years ago.
Before that, they ushered, baked and boiled kettles at another St Pauls congregation, this time in Toowoomba on Queensland’s Darling Downs.
As a couple who were brought up and married in the Lutheran church, the Dodts have always been active in church life.
Both grew up in Queensland’s Lockyer Valley, with Grace raised at Minden, mid-way between Brisbane and Toowoomba, and Les in nearby Gatton.
It was a church synod that brought them together when they were introduced by Les’s cousin Ron, who was a synod delegate billeting with Grace’s family in 1948. The pair married after a three-year courtship, settling first on Les’s family farm near Ropeley before moving to Toowoomba, where Les worked for 36 years in the Northern Australia Breweries’ malt factory. He even received a gold watch for his efforts!
Grace loved volunteering with The Good Samaritan op shop run by the local Toowoomba and Darling Downs ladies guild, where different congregational members were rostered on to assist in the bargain shop, and where she made many friends.
Then there was ladies guild, choir, flowers, baking and the cradle roll. Like volunteers in church communities around Australia and New Zealand, Grace and Les have been on the church roster almost all of their married life.
‘I love serving God and my fellow man’, Grace shares. She loves music too, choir singing and playing the organ and piano. But nerves and age have kept her from playing in church. Greeting and ushering have been Les’s favourite volunteer jobs. ‘I’ve liked welcoming strangers especially’, he says.
While the pair are now starting to slow down, they remain in good health and are still both able to drive themselves to church each Sunday.
While no longer on the roster, they remain welcoming to all at St Pauls – being part of the worship community is an important part of their lives.
‘It is very important, as it makes people feel at home’, says Les.
So together, after 70 years of marriage, they remain fruitful, just as Psalm 92:14 reminds us that, ‘in old age they still produce fruit’.
GET IN TOUCH
139 Frome Street
Adelaide SA 5000
Editor Elise
08 8267 7300
Email Elise
OTHER LUTHERAN WEBSITES
