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by Angela Mayer

Some years ago, God led me to work in men’s behaviour change programs and, through the people I met, I became passionate about working to improve the lives of families experiencing domestic violence.

We can change people’s lives, increase safety and help them feel the love of God in their homes and families.

Consider the following scenario and ask yourself what you could do: You receive a text from a friend, wanting your help. They have only been married a couple of years, but their spouse has become quite different from the caring person they married. They have been expected to give up work they love to stay at home; their spouse gets angry if they disagree; they can’t even have coffee with a friend without their spouse ringing to check up, and they sometimes feel afraid.

This is domestic violence (DV).

Four facts you may not know:
• The rates of domestic violence in the Christian community in Australia are the same or higher than in the general community (National Anglican Family Violence Research Report 2021),
• DV is not just physical or sexual abuse, it is any behaviour that is intended to create fear, intimidate, isolate, or control. It disproportionately affects women and children.
• DV is not a one-off event – it is a pattern of behaviour that, without professional support, usually becomes more frequent and severe over time.
• DV can affect people of any age.

Most of us have heard of DV, but would you recognise the signs in your congregation? Would you be able to provide helpful support? Do you know how to encourage a person using abusive behaviour to seek help?

The LCA’s Learning Hub offers the Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention online module which explores domestic and family violence, keeping in mind a Christian perspective.

In the online module, you can read whole sections, or dip in and out. There are ideas around being an ally to those experiencing abuse. Other sections explore how we as a church respond to those who perpetrate abuse in ways that do not silently collude.

Start today. Be ready to offer help and resources when someone asks you about domestic violence and be the change you want to see in the world.

Angela Mayer is a member of the LCA’s Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence Taskforce.

How to access the LCANZ Learning Hub

Those with LCA email addresses can access this through the LCANZ Learning Hub button on the LCA Portal.

People who have had previous access to training via ALC iLearn can access the Hub using their ALC iLearn credentials via the ALC iLearn page https://ilearn.alc.edu.au/

Others will need to contact the Church Worker Support Department (email to churchworkersupport@lca.org.au or phone 08 8267 7300) for a once-off enrolment key. This will enable them to enrol and log in via the ALC iLearn page.

If you or someone you know is affected by domestic and family violence, visit ANROWS Get Support webpage or call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732), the 24-hour National Sexual Assault Family Domestic Violence Counselling Service, or Lifeline Counselling (24 hours) 131 114. In an emergency, call 000.

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by Helen Brinkman

In the Hoff family, teaching isn’t the only thing that runs in the blood. So does the sentiment embroidered on a family tapestry hand-sewn by Rob Hoff’s maternal grandmother Elsa Sickerdick: ‘Faith without service means nothing.’

It is a motto that Elsa’s grandson Rob Hoff takes to heart. Growing up, Rob witnessed his parents’ faith motivation for service: ‘Mum and Dad were great servants of the church. Their life was based around service to the church and community’, he says. Their influence led Rob to a lifetime of service in education, a lineage tracing back to the 1880s when his immigrant forebear Bernhard Hoff was a school principal at the farming region of Monarto, near Adelaide.

Rob retired in 2019 after 46 years of service as a school principal. His decades of service to primary education, including significant service to many professional associations, was recognised in the Australia Day 2024 Honours List, being named a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the General Division.

As a young boy, Rob, now 75, says he was influenced to join the long line of teachers in the family by his great uncle, Pastor Carl Hoff, who had served at Koonibba Mission, 800km west of Adelaide.

‘My brother (Tony – also a teacher) and I would go over there for afternoon tea as young kids. We would look at his books and collection of Aboriginal artefacts (now gifted to the SA Museum) and he would tell us stories. That’s where we got the idea of being teachers, or indeed a pastor.’

As a 16-year-old, Rob’s calling was reinforced by his Pastor Clem Koch who told him: ‘I’ve been watching you, and you’ve got some gifts … I think you should be a teacher.’ ‘That sowed the seed and I fell into teaching’, Rob says.

Rob was raised in Adelaide’s inner-northern suburb of Sefton Park, attending St Paul Lutheran Church, Blair Athol. His dad’s job at the railways provided a fertile opportunity for his parents to share their faith with work colleagues, many of whom were migrants. ‘That is where I witnessed how the social aspects of their lives influenced other people. They let others see Christianity come through in their lives. Every second Saturday we’d have new Australians over for lunch’, Rob recalls. ‘They were so thankful. That wider service in the community is what my brother and I grew up with. It’s just second nature.’

St Paul is where Rob met and married his wife of 52 years, Sandra. They’ve been blessed with two daughters, also Lutheran school leaders, and two grandsons.

In 1973, Rob became the inaugural principal of St Paul Lutheran Primary School, Blair Athol, followed by Trinity Lutheran Primary School in Southport, Queensland, and Immanuel Lutheran Primary School at Novar Gardens, South Australia. Rob is passionate about the role of Lutheran schools in sharing faith. ‘Where else do you get to proclaim the gospel boldly to 40,000 kids and 4,000 staff in communities across Australia, five days a week?’, he asks.

Rob and Sandra’s retirement has continued to provide the unexpected privilege of serving and witnessing in their own community. Moving to an independent living unit at Adelaide’s Fullarton Lutheran Homes in 2020, they discovered an opportunity to serve close to home! ‘We didn’t know what retirement looked like. We were both 70 when we retired, and we thought, “Let’s see where the journey takes us”,’ says Rob. ‘We got involved in the community here, and there was an opportunity to visit elderly residents, whose relatives may live away, and who could be lonely and seeking human contact. We saw that as a natural ministry.

‘It’s easy to walk across the road and say “g’day” and lift their spirits and have a cuppa with them.

‘We should encourage people to keep going. Everybody who is retired, if they chose to serve, our church would be even stronger than it is. There are lots of retired people who are contributing in so many ways we’re not aware of.’

And, he says, it’s all for the gospel and keeps communities going. ‘When I see these people 10 or 15 years older than me who are still so enthusiastic, that is a motivation just to keep going and not to stop’, Rob says. ‘They are all using their skills and talents, adding value to everything going on around this community, our church community, and the wider community.’

For the past 60 years, Rob’s confirmation text, Romans 1:16, has stayed with him: ‘For I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.’

And, despite his contributions to boards and councils, Rob says: ‘I still think the most important work we do is going across the road to simply connect with people and pray for them.’

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by Helen Brinkman

There’s special symbolism in a small wooden Christmas tree sitting in the local Lutheran church in the regional Victorian town of Nhill.

Not only does it remind us of the birth of Jesus Christ, but this tree’s peculiar decorations also remind us of the new life Jesus brings. This is because the adornments completely covering the tree’s trunk and boughs are damaged, used postage stamps.

These stamps have been given a new life on the tree lovingly decorated by 80-year-old Fay Sanders and built decades ago by her late husband Alf, both members of St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Nhill.

Each stamp on the tree is damaged, so it can’t be included in the bundles of 103 stamps Fay sends off to raise funds for the LCANZ’s Stamps for Mission program. These stamps are among tens of thousands collected by Fay since she was 15 years old.

For more than 60 years, Fay has collected, cleaned and bundled stamps from Australia and overseas which have been donated by individuals and businesses to support the church’s mission work. The program has raised more than $500,000 through the sale of stamps to collectors.

Fay started cleaning stamps to lend a helping hand to St Paul’s ladies’ guild while she was in high school. When she left school at 15 to help her bedridden mother manage her rheumatoid arthritis, stamp cleaning became a great hobby to suit her lifestyle.

‘It’s something I could do at home while looking after Mum and now it’s something I can do inside when the weather’s hot’, Fay says.

It wasn’t long before Fay asked her mum and two younger brothers on her family’s farm at Lorquon, north of Nhill, to help clean and bundle the stamps.

Fay recalls that her stamp recycling efforts also helped Nhill clinch a Tidy Town award during her high school days as her unique recycling endeavours gave the town extra points!

And the hobby continued after Fay’s marriage to Alf in 1967, and while raising their three boys. The family has since expanded to include a granddaughter and two grandsons.

Fay’s favourite stamps are brightly coloured ones depicting animals, birds and exotic scenery from neighbouring regions such as Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Christmas Island. Her preference will always be stamps that aren’t peel-and-stick, ‘I like the ones where you used to lick them and stick them on’, she says.

She would soak the stamps, drip-dry them, then lay them on a tea towel. The cat has been known to walk off with stamps stuck to its paws.

Even to this day, she’s still collecting, despite a drop in the quantity of stamps – and the quality, she says, not being a fan of self-sticking stamps. She even wrote a letter to Australia Post: ‘I told them I wasn’t impressed. They wrote back saying they were working on ways to improve them.’

In support of the program, several local Nhill shopkeepers still save stamps, which are collected by one of Fay’s sons for her to clean and sort, with the help of Fay’s cousin Bev Hobbs, a fellow St Paul’s parishioner. This included one surprisingly large box full of old stamps donated anonymously that took a month to sort – ‘I was going morning to night, cleaning’, Fay says.

Fay also keeps up with the philatelic news of the day through Australia Post’s stamp bulletin, to find out what kind of stamps are coming out.

She remains living independently with family help, supported by a walking frame and regular home care.

The stamp-laden Christmas tree continues to promote the work of Stamps for Mission projects in PNG, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Cambodia. It was originally created for the St Paul’s congregation’s annual Christmas Tree Festival, which started in 1999 and emulated a similar festival at the Lutheran congregation in Rainbow, Victoria (see Going Greyt, The Lutheran, September 2019).

‘My husband made the tree frame for me before he went on a four-wheel drive trip’, Fay recalls. She then set to work decorating it, using only the damaged stamps that didn’t have any monetary value. ‘In the kitchen, I had the whole table to myself – a week later when he returned it was done.’

The tree joined the ranks of 50 to 60 tree displays in the 1999 festival under the theme ‘Jesus is the reason for the season’ (no Santas allowed!). To this day, the beautiful tree bearing damaged stamps stands at the church as a reminder that God makes all things new (Revelation 21:5).

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