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by Helen Brinkman
A life walking with God is something to sing about – at any age.
And for one of the Lutheran Church’s oldest choir members, it’s a blessing he’s still singing about at the age of 96.
A simple statement in Genesis about a chap named Enoch walking with God gets to the heart of God’s love for us, says Emeritus Bishop Pastor Reinhard Mayer.
Found in Genesis 5:24, the four words ‘Enoch walked with God’ form Reinhard’s favourite Old Testament Bible passage.
‘It just tells you everything about who God is and his place in our lives, that he just comes to us and walks with us’, Reinhard says.
That has kept the tenor as an active member of the St Peters Lutheran Church choir in Indooroopilly, in suburban Brisbane.
In February this year, the congregational choir celebrated Reinhard’s 96th birthday at its regular practice. Reinhard’s role as a choral tenor is likely to make him the oldest active tenor in the church.
He’s keen to see how long he can keep going, noting: ‘It is a little unusual, as your voice loses its flexibility and resonance.’
‘The moment you think you have reached your use-by date – it is still worth keeping on going, as once you stop that, you lose something’, he says. Reinhard takes that same message to heart in his daily life – he still lives independently and drives.
Reinhard’s tenacity has shown throughout his eventful life, which began in 1927 in the small wine-growing village of Nierstein on the banks of the Rhine River in Germany. When he was one, his family emigrated to Queensland’s Darling Downs, swapping vineyards for a dairy farm.
It was a tough time. After surviving the Great Depression, and the drought of 1935-6, World War II ended Reinhard’s youth abruptly. The need for local workers forced the then 15-year-old to the local cheese factory where he took on the back-breaking work of several men, heaving 35 to 40-kilogram blocks of cheese onto cold room shelves.
Post-war the family moved to Brisbane, managing a milk run. After five years of working from midnight til morning, Reinhard began feeling he wasn’t fully using his God-given abilities. ‘I had a growing feeling I should do something else but had not gone beyond Grade 7 at school’, he recalls.
When Pastor Max Lohe from his local Nazareth congregation at Woolloongabba in inner Brisbane suggested he join the seminary, Reinhard responded with an absolute ‘no’. He not only was very shy and lacked confidence, but Reinhard had left school in Grade 7. ‘The thought of becoming a pastor scared the living daylights out of me.’
However, the seed was sown. ‘After a year of telling God “No, find something else for me”, all of a sudden, things changed’, he says. Reinhard’s younger brother Rolph was partway through his own seminary studies, prompting Reinhard to consider whether he could have taken a similar path, given changed circumstances.
Within a month of his parents realising Reinhard’s ambition, he was enrolled at Brisbane’s St Peters College, 10 years after he’d first left school. Aged 22, Reinhard achieved his leaving certificate by cramming four years of studies into 18 months.
‘It took a lot of effort, but I was determined … I went on to the seminary, and the rest, as they say, is history.’
In 1955, Reinhard Mayer was ordained at Nazareth Lutheran Church, four years after his younger brother Rolph, who went on to become chaplain at Immanuel College, in Adelaide, and then principal of Lutheran Teachers College.
Despite a heart for the country, Reinhard only spent three years in parish ministry, serving in Mildura and Loxton after his ordination. He went on to serve a total of 25 years as chaplain of St Peters College, Indooroopilly, which included a full-time teaching role – not only religious studies but also Latin, Greek and Mathematics!
After 16 years, his chaplaincy was interrupted by 12 years as Queensland District President from 1974 (now known as District Bishop). He then returned for nine further years at St Peters until retirement in 1995, aged 67.
Reinhard’s connection to St Peters had begun in the late 1940s when the college was under development, heavily supported by volunteer labour. As his milk run hours were midnight to 8am, Reinhard and brother George used their milk trucks and muscles to cart sand and gravel, mix cement or dig foundations during the day.
When he returned to St Peters as chaplain in 1958, he was accompanied by his wife Thelma, whom he married 18 months after his ordination. During their 60 years of marriage, they welcomed six children.
Reinhard says that since Thelma’s passing seven years ago, living alone means he doesn’t use his voice as much. That’s one way the choir has helped. He’s been blessed to have his son Greg as the organist and choir accompanist, and his daughter-in-law Tricia Elgar as the choir conductor.
And so, the singing continues, as does Reinhard’s walk with God.
by Helen Brinkman
Being good with numbers has been a blessing for the man believed to be the LCANZ’s longest-serving congregational treasurer, Glen Kraft.
The 74-year-old member of Burnie congregation on the north-west coast of Tasmania has spent the past 50 years as treasurer of his home congregation and is still going strong.
Glen is comfortable sticking with numbers: ‘I’m not one who can go out and witness. God gave me a gift of numbers so I can thank him for that. Doing that, I can give something back to the Lord.’
Glen was only 24 years old, and fresh off the mainland when he became treasurer in May 1973. He had moved to Burnie in 1971 from South Australia’s Barossa Valley.
His first job out of university was working as an industrial chemist in a local paper mill. He said he’d probably stay for four to five years when he was interviewed for the role. Fifty-two years later he’s still here, ‘and I’ll probably die here’, he says.
‘Part of the reason I looked for a job in Tasmania was because I didn’t really like the hot climate in South Australia’, he says.
Growing up in the small Barossa town of Stockwell, Glen didn’t like the big city, so he was quite happy moving to Burnie with its population of about 20,000 people.
And of course, Glen liked the cold! So much in fact that he decided to try snow skiing. While he admits he wasn’t very good to start with, his persistence paid off. By 1979 Glen had his first winter holiday in the ski fields of New Zealand.
‘When it is -5 degrees on a sunny day, it’s lovely’, he says.
Glen has never looked back, skiing at many of the world’s major ski fields until about 20 years ago when he decided the Canadian snow resorts were his favourite – and they became his go-to destination until COVID hit. Aside from his ability to work with numbers, skiing has given Glen another blessing – access to some of the best mountain views in the world.
‘Picture a clear blue day, with such crisp clean air and the sun shining on white snow so it just gleams’, he shares. ‘The snow just hides all the scars in the earth, and for me, that has absolute beauty.’
It reminds Glen of his favourite worship song, Robin Mann’s ‘How shall I call you?’, with the lyrics ‘How shall I call you? Maker of heaven, poet of sunset and painter of sky’ (song number 43 from the All Together Now songbook).
‘When I am standing on the top of mountains and looking down at mountain peaks covered in snow, that song used to buzz around in my mind’, Glen says. ‘Everything is crisp, clean and beautiful – and you think God’s created all this, and he looks down and everything’s perfect.’
Fast forward to 2023, and Glen is hoping to plan his next ski trip to Canada in 2024. ‘That may be the last, as age is catching up with me’, he says.
But Glen is keeping fit as a fiddle for skiing by walking kilometres each day up and down the hills between his home and the Burnie church manse. This is because he’s not only the congregational treasurer but is also looking after the manse while the parish awaits a new pastor.
Oh, and he’s also treasurer of the North Tasmania Lutheran Parish, which includes the congregations of Devonport and Launceston, as well as Burnie. His maintenance and information technology skills have also been put to good use developing the weekly service orders, PowerPoint presentations and service arrangements for the three congregations.
As for his treasurer’s duties, Glen has noticed the changes in the role over the decades.
‘It’s certainly become more complicated over time’, he says. ‘These days you need to do a lot of reporting. Compliance is important.’
While he serves the parish in multiple capacities, Glen believes keeping the congregations functioning well, especially during pastoral vacancy, is a team effort. ‘I am just one of the people helping to keep the church working’, he says.
When it comes to serving, Glen’s advice is to seek God’s guidance: ‘You just need to pray. If people are really motivated to serve, God will lead them to find what suits whatever they can do. ‘There’s lots of little ways they can help. Anyone can push a mower around, as long as you enjoy doing that. God’s given everyone different gifts. Without those little jobs, the church couldn’t exist.’
And the final verse of his go-to Robin Mann’s song reminds us all of God’s faithfulness: ‘How shall I call you? Master and servant, lord of the seasons and lord of the years; faithful and constant in loving and mercy, giver of laughter and taker of tears.’
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