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Tamil ministry unfolds in Geelong

by Nathan Hedt

God is good and he keeps surprising us! That is the feeling among Lutherans in Geelong as they see something new that God is unfolding in their mission and outreach there. Before December, the possibility of a church plant among Tamil immigrants in Victoria’s second-largest city was not on anyone’s strategic plan. Anyone except the Holy Spirit, that is!

On Saturday 26 February a Tamil Christian church service was held at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in North Geelong. Joyce Mailvaganam, a Tamil guest from London, shared a message, and Pastor Vino from a Melbourne Tamil church led the praise and worship service. Around 95 people attended the service, including about 30 to 40 from the Geelong Tamil community.

The Tamil community is now being invited to attend either Sunday morning worship or a fortnightly Tamil fellowship and prayer group held in the afternoon at Our Redeemer.

Michelle Filipovic, who has worked for a number of years with asylum seekers and new immigrants in Geelong, is employed part-time in a united approach to ministry by four Lutheran congregations in Geelong.

She says that historically St Paul’s Lutheran Church Grovedale has been serving asylum seekers, refugees and migrants by means of practical, relational and spiritual support. The congregation was first called to support asylum seekers when some Tamil men arrived for worship one Sunday in 2013.

Now, together with the Lutheran churches in Geelong, St Paul’s Kindergarten and Geelong Lutheran College, the Grovedale congregation supports around 23 households. Nationalities supported include Iranians, Afghans, Haitians and Kurds, with the Tamil community being the largest group the community walks with.

‘The ministry to our families is practical, relational and pastoral’, Michelle says. ‘We have walked closely with our families, assisting them as needs arise, doing life alongside them while offering prayer, reading scripture, and sharing God’s love and the gospel in very gentle and loving but bold ways.’

The ministry is bathed in prayer, and friendships are created through visiting people in their homes. Practical support is offered via donating and distributing non-perishable food, providing transport to appointments, delivering large items, advocating and making referrals for support, teaching in-home English lessons, and resourcing community opportunities for volunteering and employment.

The ministry works closely with community organisations in Geelong, such as Diversitat Asylum Seeker Program, Barwon Health, 3216 Connect charity group, Geelong Mums, and the Baptist and Uniting churches.

LCA New and Renewing Churches is working with Michelle and the Lutheran congregations in Geelong to seek funding, form a core team, support Tamil Christians in leadership and discipleship, and connect with those who are not yet Christian through evangelism, service, witness, and reading the Bible together.

We hope and pray that this gathering of people is the birthing of a Tamil church plant in Geelong.

Michelle says that she is motivated by the words of John 6:40: ‘For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day’.

‘I love this verse because of the evangelistic heart of God’, she says. ‘God’s will is that everyone would know Jesus and have eternal life. This is my heart for those who do not know Jesus as their Saviour, especially in my role with asylum seekers and refugees. It is good news because it simply says that whoever believes in Jesus will be saved.

‘It also reminds me of the petition in the Lord’s prayer: “Your will be done”. His will is “that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life”. It is the Great Commission, the sharing of the gospel to all nations.’

We give God alone the glory for the ways in which he has and is working around us, bringing his kingdom to earth as it is in heaven. As Jesus leads us to people coming to know him as their Lord and Saviour, we are quietly expecting to see the unfolding of a new church.

Pastor Nathan Hedt is the manager of the LCA New and Renewing Churches Department.

Please pray

  • That visa applications are approved
  • For provisions for bridging-visa families who receive no Centrelink payments or healthcare care
  • For open hearts for families who don’t know Jesus yet, so that as we serve and minister to them they would hear and receive Jesus as their Lord and Saviour
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Injection

by Reid Matthias

The old man sat with his hands resting on the arch of his cane. His chin, embedded in the papery skin on the top of his right hand, was set firmly. It was obvious he was unhappy, and he had every reason to be.

Over three nights, the rains on the eastern shores of Queensland continued unabated until finally, Tallebudgera Creek couldn’t hold back its gorge and it vomited millions of litres of water over the banks and through the streets near the creek. As the water surged between and into houses, most people were forced to evacuate. Emergencies services drove (or boated) through water-swollen roads to reach the unhoused. But the question that resonated with everyone was: where were they going to go?

For Eddie*, an elderly man who lived with his daughter Evelyn*, finding a place to stay was particularly difficult. As they, and a small mass of humanity, were rescued from their home, they came to my school for short-term housing. It was here that I found Eddie sitting morosely in the middle of the hallway.

As a pastor, there are times when I am put (or insert myself) in situations which are completely unexpected. For me to be sitting with Eddie on a rain-soaked Monday afternoon was certainly unexpected and more. For my part, I did not do what a pastor was ‘supposed’ to do, but what a member of the human race is required to do.

I sat down with him.

Eddie was hard of hearing. To make matters worse, my accent was difficult for him. Thus, our interaction was a string of questions (by me) answered by a string of ‘Huhs?’ (by Eddie). For almost an hour, my first question was asked slowly and deliberately, and the refrain was asked even louder and more deliberately. Finally, I worked out the best way for me to hear Eddie’s story and why Evelyn was pacing further up the hallway.

‘It’s been a hard day’, I said.

‘You think?’

‘Have you seen this kind of flood before?’

‘Yuh.’

‘Tell me about it.’ It sounds like an abrupt question, but sometimes one is able to read people well enough to know that if I asked Eddie if he wanted to talk about it, he would refuse.

For a while – I’m not sure how long – Eddie’s eyes wandered back to a previous place in a previous time. He jumped from topic to topic, from the last flood a few years ago, to his time on the farm. Acres and acres of wheat and sheep, reaping and shearing, harvest and drought. He spoke of his football-playing days, how fast he used to be. Throughout his description of ‘used to be’, it was quite apparent that much of his despondency was not about the flooded river, but the flooded emotions of being unable to do the things he wanted to do. At the end of his narrative he fell quiet, and I asked the question that is considered taboo, but I asked it anyway.

‘How old are you, Eddie?’

When he turned to me, I saw the drained tiredness in his eyes. ‘I’ll be 90 at the end of next month.’

‘How will you celebrate?’

He snorted. ‘I won’t. Basically, I’m ready for the injection.’

Startled, yet not surprised, I pressed him.

‘When you can’t do the things you used to do’, he responded, as he stared into the vacant space opposite him, ‘and you can’t enjoy life the way you want to – they won’t even let me drive a car anymore – and my daughter has to take care of me and take me to places, it’s time to hang up the boots.’

I wanted to object. I wanted to contradict this dark assessment of his life, but there was nothing I could say that would bring back the joy of ‘used to be’. His instinct for an injection was rational. Pain and loss can bring us to our knees and a desire to end their influence. And the thought of being placed in a nursing home, even short-term, was almost too painful for him.

‘I’m so sorry, Eddie.’

He grunted, but there was something about empathy that stirred him.

‘Maybe when the waters go down, we can drive over to your house and have a look.’

It was his turn to be startled. ‘You would take me to my house?’

‘Yes’, I answered. It was then, I saw an injection of something different in his life.

Hope.

It wasn’t simply seeing the house, damaged or otherwise, it was that someone had taken the time to sit with him in the dark hallway of time and shine a light to expose a connected humanity.

I hope, as you read this, that this episode had very little to do with me, and more to do with a perspective of humankind which injects hope rather than selfishness. A humankind which seeks a joy for the communal rather than a protection of the individual. Even as we see the endless debates over masks and restrictions, wars and threats, anger and outrage, can we infuse the syringe of the future with hope rather than despair?

I hope we can.

Pastor Reid Matthias is Chaplain at St Andrews Lutheran College, Tallebudgera, Queensland.

* Names changed to protect privacy

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Why don’t you say something?

by Linda Macqueen

Why don’t you say something?

Ever asked that question of God? Ever stood at a crossroads, waiting desperately for God to flip the coin for you? Ever begged him to write a message in the sky or, better still, send you a personally addressed letter outlining what you should do?

The question of guidance, of discerning God’s will for our lives, is one of the most frustrating and confusing that confronts us as Christians. Why are our earnest desires to know God’s will so often met with stony silence?

Before we talk about God’s apparent silence, let’s consider all the times when we remain silent. All the times we don’t actively seek God’s guidance.

If a decision is easy, is one we are happy to make, or is one in which we have nothing to lose, we’re usually happy to leave God out of it.

And when we’re faced with temptation, the last person we usually want to consult is God.

So, with many everyday questions, it is not God who is silent – but us.

Generally, we’re only concerned with seeking God’s guidance when we’re faced with decisions we’d prefer to file in the ‘too hard’ basket: those with lifelong ramifications, those which could make us look foolish or blow up in our face if we make the wrong choice, and those where it appears we can’t win either way.

In those instances, we turn to God and implore, ‘What do I do?’, expecting him to deliver an instant sky-written response to release us from responsibility.

When we do this, we’re treating God like a cosmic Santa Claus who delivers the goods as soon as we turn on the pleading whine. And we’re treating his guidance like a possession – something he owes us.

Now don’t get this wrong. God is not backward in coming forward with guidance. God loves to guide us. In fact, he’d love it if we allowed him to guide us all the time. But so often we treat guidance like we treat the kitchen tap. We expect to turn it on when we feel thirsty and get an instant thirst-quencher; the rest of the time it just sits there unnoticed.

Guidance is not a possession to be sought every once in a while. God’s idea of guidance is not that of a tap, but a mountain stream that constantly showers us with living water. He wants us to be refreshed by it, to frolic in it so that we know nothing else but his will.

The trouble is, we restrict God to guiding us only when we decide it’s good for us. All the other times God is saying something. He’s saying, ‘I love you. I want to talk to you. I want you to talk to me. I want you to experience the very best I have to give. I want you to know my will for you every moment, every day.’

It’s just a pity that we’re so busy searching for instant answers that we fail to hear his voice.

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God places us just where he wants us

by James Winderlich

Throughout our lives, God places us in many different relationships and roles. They are never just one thing. In some cases, they are not one thing forever.

Identifying and valuing our various life settings requires discernment. Sometimes it’s difficult to recognise them. At other times it can be difficult to appreciate them. We can even be tempted to believe that we deserve better, but God places us exactly where he wants us to be. Discernment leads us towards seeing, valuing and enacting our God-given roles.

Our roles can include being a follower of Jesus and a member of a Christian community, being someone’s daughter, son, or parent. It can include being a marriage partner, or an unmarried person. It can include being employed, or unemployed. Our life settings are where God places us to bear witness to him and to lovingly serve our neighbours. Vocations are what we do in those settings to witness and care. All of our roles and vocations have purpose irrespective of the status people give them. They are gifts from God.

As followers of Jesus one role is common to all of us. Living in faith and by faith is our shared life setting. That is why being part of a worshipping Christian community is so important.

Discerning the role that God calls us to begins with God’s word. As we read the scriptures, the Holy Spirit opens us up to recognise and appreciate where God places us and what God asks of us.

Role discernment also involves our lives together in Christian communities where our sense of internal calling is challenged and refined by Christian sisters and brothers. It is in community that we hear God’s word together, and are then able to help each other recognise and value our various callings.

Discernment also includes prayer. When we pray, we ask God for guidance, to provide what we need to witness and serve, and to thank God for the gift of our various life settings.

While Australian Lutheran College (ALC) focuses on the formation of pastors, teachers and church workers, we also support our students to give attention to their full range of callings. ALC also offers a learning program of intentional discernment called Discover. Discover helps people to recognise where God places them, and where God might be calling them to be.

Pastor James Winderlich is Australian Lutheran College Principal.

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How I discovered God’s will for my life

by Lisa McIntosh

When Tom Krahling was about 12 or 13, he began to wonder whether God wanted him to become a pastor. So, he spoke to his parish pastor about it and received some surprising advice.

‘He told me to be like Jonah, to run away and that if God wanted me to do it, he’d send a big fish to swallow me up and spit me out’, Tom, pictured above right, says. ‘I went and asked some other pastors and other mentors and they thought that advice wasn’t bad, and so throughout high school, I spent my academics preparing to be an engineer and I spent my Sundays growing in the faith and preparing in that way.

‘At the end of the day, it comes down to the theology of vocation. What has God given me to do? How can I use those gifts to serve others?

‘I thought I would pursue engineering, and I worked at it as if working for the Lord. But when the opportunity came up at church to grow or to get experience, I would go for that as well.’

The sense he was meant to be a pastor didn’t leave Tom, despite putting his energies into engineering studies. And so, with COVID ramping up in 2020, he decided to take leave from university and ‘test the waters’ by enrolling in the Discover program at Australian Lutheran College (ALC) from the second semester. Now 21, he has since completed three semesters of Discover and has applied to enter pastoral ministry study.

In his second semester at ALC, Tom moved onto campus at North Adelaide – a move that helped crystalise his decision to pursue pastoral ministry. ‘It became pretty clear that this is what I wanted to be doing’, Tom says. ‘And the study confirmed that more and more.’

The two-part Discover program features academic study and personal formation, including a ministry placement. Tom’s placement was at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Adelaide, helping out with the youth group and livestreaming services there.

His own experience shows that the so-called ‘aha’ moment of discernment is ‘often a lot more mundane than people expect’. ‘Over the years I’d had an interest, I’d had encouragement from people, but the final moment was just that last person who said, “You know Tom, I think you should become a pastor”’, he says. ‘And she was not the first person to say this. She was maybe the 100th person – pastors and mentors and friends confirming the inner call, and that’s really what made me sure.

‘There is more than one good thing that you can do in life, and I felt like God was saying, “Tom, you can be an engineer and do good and I will work through you in that; you can be a pastor and do good and I’ll work through that. I’m giving this choice to you”. I chose to study to be an engineer, and he said, “Good choice, but try again”.’

Contact Australian Lutheran College at enquiries@alc.edu.au to learn more about Discover. 

Knitting together past and future: the new ALC – see page 27

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When you’ve got it sorted but God has other plans

by Jonathan Krause

‘Then God spoke to the fish, and it vomited up Jonah on the seashore’ (Jonah 2:10 MSG).

It started when the gearstick fell off my hotted-up Ford Falcon.

Then came the letter from the tax office saying that I was to be audited.

It ended with me leading a chapel service for 600 young people with a message entitled ‘Vomit’.

Along the way, I learned that my stubbornness was no match for God’s directness when he wanted me to discern his will.

You know how it is when you start out as a young family. You’re still in the relatively early days of your working life, so your salary is low. Young children to care for mean there’s only a single wage. Money is tight, so your house is modest, and your car is second, third or even fourth-hand. At least that’s how it was when I was at that stage of life.

Our car was an old Ford Falcon, with a great big motor you could hear grumbling two suburbs away. Bright yellow because it used to be a taxi.

Of course, having been a taxi it had done way more kilometres than what the salesman said, and so needed repairs every week or so. Still, it was a surprise when the gearstick broke off as I hunted for reverse. I tried a pair of pliers on the bit still sticking out to change gears, but I knew a hefty bill awaited me.

Meanwhile, the tax office decided the $3.50 I had claimed in deductions was worthy of an audit.

I was broke. Anxious. Desperate.

Then, two things happened.

A big charity called up and offered me a job on double my current salary – plus a brand-new shiny car. My prayers were answered! (Even though I hadn’t been bold enough to pray such a thing.) God is good!

Then, I received another phone call. This time it was a Lutheran school in Queensland. They invited me to come and be their chaplain for six months, while their current chaplain went on long service leave. All I needed to do was move my family from Melbourne, be a chaplain on top of my existing job and have no extra money to get us out of the hole we were in.

What to do?

The smart answer was obvious.

The charity job would sort out all my human problems straightaway. The chaplaincy job would shift me a million miles out of my comfort zone – I had no theological training and just two months of training as a teacher before I realised it was way too hard. And it would double my stress. And my big yellow Falcon would still be broken.

Nevertheless, as a good Lutheran boy, I thought I had better pray.

I was clever though. I did the Gideon thing and gave God a test that I was sure he would fail, meaning I could in good conscience go to the big-paying job with the lovely new car.

I prayed: ‘God, if you want me to be a chaplain, sort out my tax.’

You and I both know that no-one can beat the tax office, so I started planning what colour my shiny new car would be.

I prayed that prayer in the morning.

When I came home from work that afternoon, I opened the letterbox. There, I saw a letter from the tax office. Opened it. No audit. No problem – and a cheque big enough to fix the Falcon!

So, a week later I packed the car with the family and whatever possessions would fit inside and drove three days to Queensland.

That’s where the vomit comes in.

No, not out the window from car sickness … but because I felt like Jonah. I’d resisted God’s will for me, yet God had other plans.

While Jonah spent three days in the belly of a whale, I spent three days in the belly of a Falcon. Then we both got vomited up on a beach, where God could use us to share his good news, in places we neither planned nor wanted to be.

So, of course, my first chapel devotion had to be called, simply, ‘Vomit’.

Each day of those six months in Queensland as a chaplain was a challenge. I was pushed way beyond anything I could humanly do. In truth, probably the school was too – I had hair down to my waist, delivered the Year 10 Christian Studies sex education class using the Meatloaf song ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’, and taught marketing principles to Year 12 students as we discussed effective evangelism.

Still, we know God uses the least likely and most under-qualified to do his work. All you and I are called to do is plant the seeds and marvel as God does the growing.

And if you don’t/won’t/can’t hear his call or discern his will for you, then make sure you watch out for your tax return … and be very careful when you’re changing gears!

Currently Australian Lutheran World Service’s Community Action Manager, Jonathan Krause has discerned God’s will for his life as a teaching, and fiction and sociology student, a writer of greeting card poems and devotion books, and various other roles in print communications, and in fundraising and marketing – oh, and of course, as a college chaplain.

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Taking steps of faith

What is the most effective and most faithful way to discern God’s will for our lives? We asked Audrey*, who serves with Wycliffe Bible Translators in partnership with LCA International Mission, to share her journey. 

Taking steps of faith

For me, discerning God’s will has been a step-by-step process. It has involved regularly being still before God, seeking him and being in his word, talking things through with trusted Christians and taking steps of faith without knowing the whole picture.

I moved to Asia at the beginning of 2020 to serve in Bible translation – but I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to go! The seed had been planted during short-term mission trips after high school. However, it wasn’t until I quit my job to study at Bible college that I started to see where God may be leading me. God provided different opportunities for me to test the waters in Bible translation and, as my counsellor reminded me, ‘God often guides a moving ship’.

During a mission trip in my first year at Bible college, I sensed that this was it – Bible translation was how I could serve. And so, I began the next steps to prepare. It wasn’t easy though, and was often costly, as I ended up doing five years of study and had to change the country I was hoping to serve in as that door closed along the way.

After testing some more options, I found a sense of peace about which country I would serve in and headed there full of excitement and nervous anticipation! The first few weeks were intense as I met team members, set up a home with strangers and started language school. But I had such a deep peace that this was where God wanted me.

However, just two months later I was on a plane back to Australia due to COVID restrictions, which is where I remain two years later.

Naturally, I am disappointed and have more questions than answers. I don’t doubt God was leading me, but it hasn’t turned out how I had hoped and that’s hard. In these times, I have learnt more about what it means to surrender and lament – ‘to take my complaints, anger, sufferings, frustrations and heartaches to God’. I have also had to rely on the body of Christ – people who walk alongside me, listen and gently encourage, and not just quote Bible verses to try to make me feel better!

I’m trusting that at some point, I will see how God has used this experience for my good and that of his kingdom. Sometimes it’s more about the deep transformative work he wants to do in us – rather than through us.

Even if we walk where we sense God is leading us, that doesn’t mean it will be smooth sailing. Obedience doesn’t guarantee success as the world sees it. We are called to be faithful, not necessarily successful, and to love God from the heart as our first priority, out of which obedience flows.

*Not her real name

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Cracking the code of our hidden stories

Going GREYT! 1 Peter 4:10

In Going GREYT! we feature stories of some of our ‘more experienced’ people within the LCA, who have been called to make a positive contribution in their retirement. We pray their examples of service will be an inspiration and encouragement to us all as we look to be Christ’s hands and feet wherever we are, with whatever gifts and opportunities we’ve been given.

by Helen Brinkman

At Lutheran Archives in suburban Adelaide, up to 100 years of stories from Australia’s past are disguised in a largely forgotten handwritten German cursive script known as Kurrentschrift. And, just as archaeologists decipher hieroglyphics, the LCANZ has its own sleuths decoding the amazing stories contained in writings of this ancient German script, to share them with future generations.

Early this year, Australia recognised one of our supersleuths who has spent the past 30 years transcribing and translating Kurrentschrift to reveal its stories.

Dr Lois Zweck’s decades of research were recognised when she was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her service to community history in the Australia Day 2022 Honours List.

‘Our local stories can be as dramatic and significant and inspiring as any history anywhere’, says 74-year-old Lois.

The volunteer transcriber, translator and research assistant has been at the forefront of deciphering Kurrentschrift, a feature of many records of early Lutheran history in Australia. ‘Lutheran Archives has 80 to 100 years of records not only in a language few of our people understand, but also in a handwriting even fewer can read’, says Lois. That presents a great challenge for anyone who wants to research the history of their family, their congregation, church, or missions.

That’s where Lois, a member at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Adelaide, feels so grateful for having acquired the skills that make it possible for her to help researchers access those stories.

‘You get addicted to following stories, to finding the answers … to following the trail and seeing how the stories help you understand what our church is and what it has been in the past’, Lois says.

A Lutheran Archives volunteer since 1992, and a life member of the Friends of Lutheran Archives, Lois is one of about 10 people who can read Kurrentschrift in the Adelaide-based archive. This houses correspondence and minutes in the script, and printed sources from the advent of church papers in the 1860s.

From 1920, English become the official language for synod reports and other official documents, as English began to predominate in church life.

Decades of German language studies and 10 years of formal tertiary study, including a PhD in German Studies and two post-doctoral years in Germany, laid the groundwork for Lois to crack the code of the Kurrentschrift telling the firsthand stories of Australia’s first Lutherans.

But her academic history alone was not enough.

Like her colleagues, she taught herself to read the script in 1988 to translate documents for the centenary history of Adelaide’s Concordia College, using an old textbook with the German alphabet. It went from there.

Her mastery of German also led to her work for two cardinals at the Vatican for 17 years from 2002, translating papers and speeches. She was even presented to Pope John Paul II in St Peter’s Square in Rome.

That’s not bad for a person who was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa aged 17, on entering the University of Adelaide, and who later was assessed as legally blind. Her condition means Lois has a small section of central vision (5-10 degrees), instead of up to 180 degrees. Fortunately, that’s all you need to be able to read.

Added to that was the fact that, while her brothers Trevor and Glen were seminary graduates, Lois was part of the first generation in her family to attend university.

She was born 11th of 12 children and raised on a farm near Blyth in South Australia’s Mid-North. She also grew up among the post-war generation of rural families which sent their daughters to boarding school, completing her secondary schooling at Concordia College.

Her love of language has been life-long. Supported by encouraging people, she’s gone further than she ever imagined. ‘I’m enormously grateful to those people for being God’s guiding hand to put me in the place where I am, doing what I enjoy most, in an area where I can best contribute to my community’, Lois says.

‘The more I look back, I can see everything I had done was leading me precisely there. It was giving me the capacity to do it and the time to do it, it was all a gift. It is very gratifying to do what you enjoy doing and to see other people acknowledge a value in it.’

Among Lois’s favourite Psalms are Psalm 77 and 78, describing why we need to remember God’s ‘wonderful works’ in the past and tell it to future generations so they too ‘might set their hope in God’. Psalm 77:11 – ‘I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord’, appears on the dedication plaque of the original LCA Archives, where this story began 30 years ago.

The LCANZ’s new churchwide Bishop Paul Smith quoted Psalm 77 in a congratulatory letter to Lois after identifying a Zweck at the bottom of the honours list in the newspaper.

He said that honouring ‘those who have gone before us is a call to continue this work for the sake of those who come after’.

‘You cannot give thanks if you don’t know what you have been given’, Lois says. ‘We have to tell future generations about what God has done for us and those before us.

‘I cannot imagine a better life for myself than the life I have been given.’

Helen Brinkman is a Brisbane-based writer who is inspired by the many GREYT people who serve tirelessly and humbly in our community. By sharing stories of how God shines his light through his people, she hopes others are encouraged to explore how they can use their gifts to share his light in the world.

Know of any other GREYT stories in your local community? Email the editor lisa.mcintosh@lca.org.au   

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Sun shines on hearts of gold

by Lisa McIntosh

A series of ‘God-incidences’ has turned a Lutheran farming family’s surplus hay paddock and 30,000 sunflower seeds into a golden field of hope for children with congenital heart disease in South Australia.

That’s the belief of Freeling farmers Sherinne and Gavin Schuster – along with their sons Leighton, Harrison and Corbin and their families – whose unconventional crop of sunflowers recently yielded more than $14,000 for the HeartKids SA charity.

And, as the not-for-profit’s corporate sponsorship doubles donations during February, due to the 14th being International Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Day or Sweetheart Day aka Valentine’s Day, the money raised will grow to more than $25,000 from an initial donation of $12,644.

The family property west of the Barossa Valley hosts a barn that the family – members of Light Lutheran congregation – hires out for functions. So, with the idea of a picturesque photographic backdrop in mind, the Schusters planted a hectare of sunflowers last November in a paddock usually used for hay.

It was something they’d thought of doing for some years but the 2021-2022 summer was the first in recent times promising climatic conditions conducive to growing sunflowers. When the speculative planting produced spectacular results in the lead-up to Valentine’s Day, Corbin had an idea – why not invite people to come along and pick a sunflower for a gold coin donation to help others?

The Schusters decided any money raised would go to HeartKids as they knew two people through family and local connections who had lost children or grandchildren to congenital or childhood-acquired heart disease.

Sherinne thought they might raise a few hundred dollars after Corbin posted the ‘sundraiser’ on Facebook and an artist friend-of-a-friend painted a hay bale sign advertising it. About 50 cars arrived within two hours of the post and, within a week, more than $12,000 had been raised as individuals, couples, families and even busloads of people and HeartKids beneficiaries came to enjoy the beautiful sight and pick a single stem or a bunch.

‘Some people picked one, some people picked bunches, some people picked eight and gave me $50’, Sherinne says. Soon the Schusters, their function centre and the sunflowers were highlighted by a variety of media outlets – something Sherinne and Gavin felt a little uncomfortable about, as the fundraiser was motivated by their desire to help others, spurred by their Christian faith.

‘I feel a bit embarrassed because it’s not meant to be about us’, Sherinne says. ‘That’s not what it’s about. I’m very much a believer in helping other people and we’ve had an opportunity to do it. There are always bad things around and if you focus on the bad, that’s all you’ll see. But if you focus on the good, you’ll see a lot more good. I’m a firm believer in that.’

However, when a HeartKids representative told the Schusters how positive the publicity had been for their cause, it made Sherinne very happy. ‘I thought, okay I’ll put up with the embarrassment of being on telly because it’s doing some good’, she says.

Along with donations being doubled and the sunflower currently being used around the world to show support for the people of Ukraine, Sherinne and Gavin say they’ve seen many ‘God-incidences’ through this experience.

‘[One day] a lady was picking a whole heap of flowers and I said, “Have you got a celebration or something?” and she said, “No, I’m taking them to my daughter-in-law who is Ukrainian, who lives in Adelaide”’, Gavin says. ‘“Their national emblem is the sunflower, and her parents are in Ukraine at this time”.

‘It’s a God-incidence – we have a lot of those.’

‘They’re all around if you look for them’, Sherinne adds. ‘It’s amazing. It’s nothing we ever planned. The Lord is good. Everything we did just got better and better [because of God’s hand in it] and we’re just so thankful.’

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Sharing life-giving water with the community

The biblical symbolism of life-giving water is not lost on members of Good Shepherd Lutheran congregation in Traralgon in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley as they look at the new water fountain out the front of their church.

The installation of a public drinking fountain in front of the church as a community service was proposed at a congregational church council meeting in 2020 and late last year that idea became a reality. A new walking and cycling path had been extended linking Traralgon with the nearby town of Morwell, with the nearest water fountain 1.7 kilometres away. So the Good Shepherd leadership thought that out the front of their church would be an ideal location for a drink stop for thirsty walkers and cyclists.

Congregation elder and Gippsland Parish treasurer David Mirtschin says the next step in the process was to apply for a grant through Gippsland Water’s community support program in the hope of funding the purchase of a fountain. The application was successful and, after negotiations with Gippsland Water and the Latrobe City Council, the council also arranged and paid for the installation of the fountain, connecting it up with Traralgon Lutheran Church’s water meter. This means that the congregation only has to pay for the water used by joggers, cyclists, walkers, ‘woofers’ and any other users, which David says was an extra, unexpected blessing to come from the congregation’s initiative.

‘God blessed us with extra help and now all that we need to do is pay for the water usage’, he says. ‘The idea was to provide a community service and, at the same time, let people know there’s a church here.’

The fountain is complete with a dog bowl and a park bench has also been installed at the site.

David says the congregation is also keen to allow members of the public to use the church carpark while they go for a walk or cycle along the path and hopes to gain approval for the erection of signage advertising this extra free service. The possibility of church toilets being made available to path users while the building is open is also being investigated, while David says the church is keen to put up a sign near the fountain promoting its use and evoking Jesus’ promises at the same time, with wording such as: ‘Come and drink the Water of Life’.

This story has been expanded from ‘Water for the thirsty’, first published through the LCANZ Vic-Tas District’s eVoices.

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