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21

Giving 10,000 children the gift of school

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The LCA/NZ’s overseas aid agency, Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS), last month launched a 100-day campaign to support 10,000 children in refugee camps and other crisis situations to return to school when COVID-19 allows.

Who will the campaign support?

Children targeted are living at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, Displaced Persons Camps in Somalia, and in poverty-affected areas across South Sudan.

According to ALWS Community Action manager, Jonathan Krause, these areas already know the critical value of Lutheran-supported education delivered by ALWS partner Lutheran World Federation (LWF).

‘Just as in Australia, where the word “Lutheran” signifies high-quality education from teaching teams that value each child individually, the same applies where our Lutheran family works through ALWS’, he says.

‘A classroom in a refugee camp may look very different from one at St Peters or Immanuel here in Australia, but there is no difference in the commitment to equip students with the skills they need to achieve their potential. And that’s something that’s been part of our Lutheran identity and ministry from when Lutherans first arrived in Australia in the 1830s.’

What’s the mission behind this initiative?

The ‘10,000 children … 100 days’ campaign was launched on Sunday 22 November because the gospel reading for that day is Jesus’ call to reach out and serve those ‘overlooked or ignored’ (Matthew 25:40 – The Message).

‘At ALWS our mission is to seek out those who might otherwise be forgotten, and enable our church to give the care that brings love to life’, Jonathan says. ‘In everyday ALWS ministry, this includes people with special needs, the elderly in a community, those who may be rejected culturally or simply because they are a woman. In education, the forgotten may include older children who have missed out on school because they had to flee conflict, girls at risk of being forced into early marriage, orphans and children separated from family and, of course, children with special needs.’

What practical support does ‘10,000 children … 100 days’ provide?

ALWS says it can cost just $26 to support a child in their schooling for one year. This can help supply such essentials as school books, uniforms, school desks, training for refugee teachers, school lunches and clean water for drinking and for handwashing to protect against COVID-19. ‘Finding support over the next 100 days to get 10,000 children back to school is a big challenge, but at ALWS I am blessed every day to see the generosity of our Lutheran family in helping others’, Jonathan says. ‘The ALWS GRACE Project, Walk My Way, Gifts of Grace – ours is a church where people want to get their hands dirty and make things happen. Not with big fanfare, but humbly and simply wanting to serve others. When this kind of love comes to life, it is a blessing always for those who are forgotten.’

Join the ALWS ‘10,000 children … 100 days’ campaign with $26 per child to support school for a year, tax-deductible: alws.org.au * 1300 763 407.

23

A stitch in time builds lives  

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For almost 20 years coordinator Helen Semmler has run the Lutheran Community Sewing Group, where a volunteer team supports and teaches migrant women not only how to sew, but how to be loved and to make sense of a new, alien world.

24

Side by side, every step of the way

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When Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS) began 70 years ago, it was formed so that our Lutheran family could walk alongside people in need. That’s exactly what people like you still do today, says Jen Pfitzner …

At the end of World War II, Europe was left in ruins and millions of people were forced from their homes.

War-scarred people needed new places to live and Australia needed new workers – so began a 20-year exodus of more than 300,000 people to Bonegilla Migrant Centre near Wodonga in Victoria.

The journey from Europe took weeks. Arriving at Port Melbourne, weary families then boarded a train for the rattly eight-hour journey to Bonegilla – just a few lights in a siding in a paddock. These people looking for a better life must have wondered where they’d ended up!

Yet our Lutheran family was there, welcoming them with open arms. Helping them find their feet. Listening to their worries and hopes for the future.

In 1947 many of the migrants arriving at the Bonegilla Migrant Centre were Lutherans, so the Lutheran pastor in Albury, Rev Bruno Muetzelfeldt, began visiting the centre.

Often there were more than 1000 Lutherans at Bonegilla at a time, so Pastor Muetzelfeldt became the full-time chaplain. The Lutheran ministry to migrants expanded to place Lutheran pastors on the ships coming to Australia.

Then, once the government found migrants a more permanent home, the Lutheran team at Bonegilla let the local pastor know they were coming. This meant people had a pastor supporting them from their homeland to Bonegilla and then to their new home. Their faith may have been the only constant through this unsettling time. What an amazing comfort people our Lutheran family helped provide!

In 1950 the newly formed Lutheran World Federation (LWF) decided a base was needed in Australia to help with refugee resettlement and the Lutheran church’s aid agency was born – Lutheran World Service-Australia (LWS-A).

By 1955 the Lutheran team had helped resettle 2350 refugees and more staff were needed. Brian Neldner joined the team as a case-work assistant. He would go on to serve people through LWS for almost 40 years.

Many of the migrants coming to Australia had left family at home. So support in these early years involved helping to bring loved ones to Australia by working with LWF offices in Europe. The Lutheran team also helped provide travel loans for family members.

LWS-A also supported some Lutheran churches with grants – they needed more room and services now that many migrant Lutherans were joining them.

In 1960 Pastor Muetzelfeldt took on a senior position at the LWS headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Brian Neldner became the head of LWS-A. Lutheran Pastor Norman Sander was called to be chaplain at Bonegilla.

When the government began helping migrants to come to Australia, travel loans were not needed as much. Because the repayment of loans had been so good, Mr Neldner was able to set up the Secondary Purpose Revolving Loan Fund to help with resettlement.

In 1964 Brian Neldner moved to Tanzania to head up the new LWS program there and Adelaide businessman Sid Bartsch became the new director of LWS-A.

When the LCA was established in 1966, it was agreed that LWS-A would be its channel for overseas aid. Mr Bartsch promoted the emergency, refugee and development work of the Lutheran World Service around the globe. He encouraged Australian Lutherans to support this work.

This is how the work through LWS-A moved from receiving help primarily from LWF to resettle refugees, to giving help to others!

In 1971 the Australian Government decided to close Bonegilla, so the LWS-A office moved into Albury.

By this time the need for help for migrants had declined, so support increasingly shifted to aid and development around the world, with a focus on refugees. This continues today, with ALWS supporting work in refugee camps where nearly 1.5 million displaced people live.

Through LWS-A, Australians supported the worldwide work of LWF and responses to disasters and emergencies, rather than specific projects. This generosity and trust mean gifts could – and still can – be used where needed most urgently.

In 1974 LWS-A received funds for the first time from the Australian Government’s Development Assistance Bureau (ADAB, which is now DFAT – the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade).

But just when it seemed that support for migrants coming to Australia was no longer needed, things changed. Refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, plus eastern Europeans, and later people from Central America, fled to Australia to find safety and security. Backed by the Australian Government, LWS-A supported nearly 2000 families to begin new lives in Australia. The Australian Government continues to trust ALWS to deliver community development work, with a rigorous process every five years to maintain accreditation.

By 1985 it was clear that LWS-A needed to become an Australian organisation, rather than a branch office of an international one, with one reason being that the Australian Government wanted to work with Australian organisations. The LCA and LWS in Geneva agreed the office should be called Australian Lutheran World Service. In 1991 ALWS became the aid and resettlement agency of the LCA.

The first director of ALWS was architect Gary Simpson. He and the new ALWS Board continued to make sure donations were used efficiently and effectively to help people in countries like Mozambique, Cambodia and Nepal. ALWS also reached out to victims of war and disasters, in places like Rwanda, East Timor and Malawi.

Organisations responding to disasters must coordinate their efforts to ensure resources are deployed quickly and effectively. That’s why Action by Churches Together (ACT Alliance) – a group of churches and church-related organisations of different denominations working together – was formed in 1995.

That year Peter Schirmer became the assistant secretary of ALWS, with the job of creating resources for teachers. These resources – class activities, videos, presentations and more – are used by more than 70 per cent of Lutheran schools across Australia today.

During this time Gary and Peter also visited the communities ALWS was helping overseas in order to learn more about the needs of the people and to show them that our Lutheran family’s care for them goes far beyond financial gifts.

After 10 years Peter took over as director of ALWS.

When the Boxing Day tsunami struck in 2004, support for Indonesia began through its largest Lutheran church, HKBP. This work grew to include other LWF churches in Indonesia, in partnership with LCA International Mission and Lutheran Education Australia, with generous financial support from the LLL.

Our Lutheran family embraced the first Gifts of Grace catalogue in 2008, sending support for life-changing assets such as goats and chickens around the world.

Chey Mattner became ALWS director in 2013.

In 2017, when the first Walk My Way refugee education support event was held, our ALWS family, supported by the Australian Government, gave more help than ever before – $8.6 million!

In 2018 Jamie Davies became director.

In 2019, as part of the GRACE Project, ALWS supporters helped more than 40,000 refugee children go to school – matching the number of students in Lutheran schools in Australia.

In 2020 even COVID-19 couldn’t stop our Lutheran family’s support, as Walk My Way became Walk YOUR Way and people like you walked, wheeled, woofed and even toddled your way to help others.

It’s impossible to acknowledge every person since 1947 who has made our church’s aid agency what it is today. However, this small taste of ALWS history shows how God has used the energy, passion and kindness of our extended Lutheran family to bless the lives of many people hurt by poverty, conflict and injustice.

Today our church through ALWS works in 11 countries. Last year the ALWS family helped 297,498 people with the same spirit of service as Pastor Bruno 70 years ago. Walking alongside people. Side by side, every step of the way.

Thanks be to God for the blessings brought through ALWS, as together we seek to bring love to life.

Jen Pfitzner is ALWS Communications Support Officer.

 

ALWS TIMELINE

1947 – Pastor Muetzelfeldt begins visiting Lutheran migrants at Bonegilla Migrant Centre

1950 – Lutheran World Service-Australia is formed

1955 – By this time 2350 migrants have been helped

1960 – Brian Neldner heads up LWS-A and works to establish a loan fund for resettlement

1966 – LCA is formed. New LWS-A head Sidney Bartsch encourages the LCA to move to support the global work of LWS

1971 – LWS-A office moves to Albury

1974 – LWS-A receives Australian government funds for the first time

1978 – Resettlement support for refugees from Asia, after the Vietnam War

1989 – Official document signed on 10 July to form ALWS

1991 – ALWS becomes the aid and development agency of the LCA

1995 – ALWS becomes a founding member of ACT Alliance (emergency response)

2008 – The first Gifts of Grace

2017 – $8.6 million in support – most help ever!

2019 – GRACE Project supports 40,000 refugee children to go to school

2020 – TODAY: 11 countries + emergency help in others. Thanks to our incredible supporters!

25

Editor’s letter

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While it’s often easier to focus on negative attitudes and selfish behaviour we see, experience or even contribute to, I am frequently surprised by the generosity and kindness of people.

For me, these heartwarming surprises have been going on for nearly 50 years. I still remember the thoughtfulness of a motel manager who posted back the beloved Humphrey B Bear I’d left behind on a family holiday, and the elderly lady who donated the only $2 she had to spare when my friend and I doorknocked houses to raise money for refugees when we were 11 or 12.

Throughout my life I’ve seen the kindness continue. In 2019 our Lutheran family in Australia and New Zealand backed the call by our church’s aid and development agency, Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS), to raise more than $1 million to support schooling for 40,000 children in African refugee camps.

Despite this year’s Walk My Way group fundraising events for the same cause being cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of people have innovated to safely participate – and to contribute to the education of thousands more kids.

The Lutheran churches in Australia have a long history with people fleeing war, persecution, or famine. Many of the first Lutherans who came to South Australia in the 1830s did so because of religious persecution in their native Prussia.

Still more Lutheran refugees and migrants came to Australia and New Zealand from Europe after World War II. Thousands of new arrivals were resettled through Bonegilla Migrant Centre near Wodonga in Victoria. A Lutheran pastor began serving at Bonegilla in 1947. That ministry was the forerunner to what today is ALWS.

Through strong partnerships with Lutheran schools, church and government bodies and people like you, ALWS today works in 11 countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and last year helped 297,498 refugees and others hurt by poverty, injustice, or crisis.

Unfortunately, thanksgiving events to mark the ALWS 70th anniversary this month were cancelled due to COVID-19. However, many congregations will recognise the anniversary during worship on 18 October. And, thanks to the LLL and Lutheran Education Australia, this special edition of The Lutheran is going to all ALWS supporters and all staff of Lutheran schools and early learning centres in Australia.

Welcome to you all and especially any first-time readers. I pray that you will be blessed by what you encounter in these pages, as together we learn about ALWS history, hear from the agency’s supporters and partners, and come to see how its work shares kindness and generosity, and brings love to life for people in need.

– Lisa

PS: If you’re not already part of our subscriber family, we’d love to have you join us. You can subscribe at www.thelutheran.com.au or through the details on page 2.

26

Free to walk for others

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#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.’

27

Learning together, we bring love to life

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‘It’s about us, not me. This is a radical idea these days, but we know that Christ, in his abundant love, suffered for us and set all of us free to be about us, not me. So who is “us”? ALWS partners with Lutheran schools and early childhood services to help children, young people and staff learn that the people we love and serve might be far away from us geographically and culturally, or right next door. Through learning with ALWS, students and staff encounter injustice and have the opportunity to respond with courage and compassion. Students are brought into relationship with the wider world and its needs. As they learn together, a relationship also builds with ALWS, as it becomes a familiar name and their educators become familiar faces as well. While students won’t get to meet the 40,000 children in refugee camps that receive an education through the Grace Project, they do hear their stories from the ALWS team at Awareness Days and through challenges. These relationships help bring all of us closer together: growing, serving, shaping and enriching the world.’

– Associate Professor Lisa Schmidt

Executive Director, Lutheran Education Australia

 

‘What I love about ALWS is the opportunity our Lutheran schools (teachers and students) have to live the gospel and develop life-changing partnerships with our neighbours near and far. ALWS supports our students to develop a deep understanding and empathy about what real development, sustainability and empowerment look like. Students see that no matter their age, they have the capacity to use their hands, head and hearts to impact the lives of others. Seeing with eyes of another. Listening with ears of another. Feeling with the heart of another. When I visited Kakuma Refugee Camp with ALWS last year, I saw that we all want the same things for our children and the future. Safety. Education. Love. Community. I also saw how a donor’s support (through money, prayers and advocacy) really is bringing love to life – especially in camp schools. The conditions of school buildings and resources may vary from Kakuma to Australia, but the passion of teachers there and here to see their students’ dreams come to reality is universally the same.’

– Jodie Hoff

Chair ALWS Board, Principal, Lutheran Ormeau Rivers
District School (LORDS) Pimpama, Queensland

 

‘We have 50 students looking at the subject of poverty, and learning about your ALWS work all term. The students’ task is to explain the work that ALWS does in either a specific place in the world or as a response to hardships that people face (war, poverty, floods, etc). We also plan to do our own Walk My Way to raise awareness and funds for refugee children to go to school. Students are excited because a generous donor has sponsored us to start walking with a $500 start-up for you at ALWS! I pray that God blesses the work of ALWS very much.’

– Juanita Eime

Year 12 Coordinator/Head of Christian Studies,

Peace Lutheran College Cairns, Qld

 

‘Thank you so much for your session. We have had such good feedback from the students and their parents.’

– Jordan Riddle

Geelong Lutheran College, Victoria

 

‘Thanks for your incursion with our Year 2 and 3 students. It was great to get another perspective about being God’s stewards to look after his creation.’

– Leeanne Williams

St John’s campus Geelong Lutheran College, Victoria

 

What I’ve learnt …

  • People still have hope even in the darkest of times.
  • Their life is sad up until ALWS steps in and that I could donate to make a difference.
  • To be more grateful for what I’m given.
  • That others do not have easy lives, and to never take anything for granted.
  • Refugees walk for days/weeks to get somewhere safe and have almost nothing.
  • Sixty per cent of refugees are children.
  • Many people are displaced through no fault of their own.
  • How privileged we really are. It makes me feel grateful for my own life and sad and worried for others.

– Year 9s

Tatachilla Lutheran College, South Australia

 

Witnessing your love coming to life

‘Having worked in Lutheran Schools for 22 years I’ve seen first-hand the power of quality education to transform young people’s lives. In our Lutheran schools here in Australia we are blessed with abundant resources, facilities and professional learning, so it was wonderful to see what our Lutheran schools are doing through ALWS at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Despite the harsh conditions, the confronting reality of families torn apart by war and famine, class sizes of over 100 and refugee teachers working on a shoestring, I saw for myself the work of our Lutheran school communities and their ongoing service and support. The lives and hearts of thousands of young refugees are being transformed. What a blessing we can have an impact like this by taking action through the GRACE Project and Walk My Way.’

– Kelvin Grivell, Principal of Encounter Lutheran College at Victor Harbor in South Australia (580 students), pictured here with Rukia Salimu Hamadi, Principal of Nassi Bunda Pre-Primary School, Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya (808 students).

 

ALWS + LUTHERAN SCHOOLS = FIRED-UP STUDENTS!

CURRICULUM RESOURCES

ALWS provides teachers with free resources on poverty, justice, development and faith lived in action across all school year levels. There are videos, stories, ‘did you know?’ facts and activities.

 

REFU.ME

Students take part in 10 different challenges to get a taste of what life might be like as a refugee, so they will be inspired to ‘welcome the stranger’.

 

WHAT’S MY BUSINESS?

Students learn how business loans help people in ALWS-supported communities. Then they receive a loan to start their own business. Profits help people through ALWS.

 

WALK MY WAY

Schools are supported to set up their own micro-fundraising site, then walk to raise money from their families and communities to help refugee children to go to school.

 

AWARENESS ACTION

ALWS provides 90-minutes sessions with stories and activities on topics lined up with the Australian curriculum, which can be delivered face-to-face to all ages and year levels throughout the year.

 

ZOOM SESSIONS

For schools that can’t have a face-to-face visit, technology brings the ALWS Community Education team into the classroom, to deliver awareness sessions remotely.

 

SERVICE LEARNING

ALWS can provide resources, opportunities and even staff professional development to help to learn about how love comes to life in practical action.

 

FAITH FOCUS

Following in the footsteps of Jesus, there are many lessons to be learnt in how we meet the poor – these can be delivered through whole-school chapel services, staff and classroom devotions and Christian studies.

For more information, go to www.alws.org.au, phone 1300 763 407, or email alws@alws.org.au

 

Bricks for Burundi

Ndaruzaniye lives in Burundi. After her husband died, life became very hard. ‘I feel so much sorrow. We were eating badly – just beans and sweet potato. I was often sick, and the children were also sick. I don’t have enough money for the school uniforms and materials’, she said.

Meanwhile, Good Shepherd Lutheran College at Noosa on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast decided to help families like Ndaruzaniye’s to build their own houses so they can be safe and secure. Through ALWS the school launched a ‘Bricks for Burundi’ campaign.

School chapel offerings, a local Walk My Way and coin collections were just some of the ways the Good Shepherd community has built fundraising … while Ndaruzaniye built bricks – 2500 of them, made from mud, with the help of neighbours. ‘I am excited to have a new home – a clean, safe environment and my heart will be full of joy! I am thankful to the Australians for assisting me’, Ndaruzaniye said.

 

Partnership builds community in Cambodia

The Lutheran Ormeau Rivers District School (LORDS) at Pimpama in Queensland has 643 students. Thmei Village in Cambodia has 527 people.

Through ALWS, LORDS and Thmei have come together in a partnership to build a community pond. The people of Thmei told ALWS that changing climate had made rainfall unreliable and threatened crops, which provide their income, and affected local hygiene, which jeopardised their health. The community pond will provide clean safe water year-round.

Students at LORDS decided to step out (literally) to bring love to life in Thmei. For two weeks in August, LORDS encouraged students, staff and families to participate in local versions of Walk My Way – on beaches, in their neighbourhoods and at school – until they covered 26 kilometres.

Meanwhile, Year 5 students worked on the ALWS ‘What’s my business?’ service learning unit – building businesses to create profit which helps people.

The LORDS school community has raised more than $7000 to help the people of Thmei Village.

28

A stitch in time builds lives

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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 Beringen

Imagine a life where you have no say, no voice and no choice. Now imagine being housebound in a foreign land, where people speak a language you don’t understand and lead a way of life very different from your own.

Enter a kindly soul with a community bus who can take you from your doorstep to a safe place, where you are treated with dignity, where you make new friends and learn new skills.

Welcome to the Lutheran Community Sewing Group in Adelaide’s northern suburbs, where a volunteer team supports and teaches migrant women not only how to sew, but how to be valued, loved and to make sense of a new and alien world.

For almost 20 years coordinator Helen Semmler, 68, has run the group with a band of amazing helpers, from teachers to bus drivers, crèche helpers and sandwich makers. The past 16 of those years have been based at Albert Park Lutheran Church hall, where weekly student numbers average 25, with almost as many volunteers from 10 different Lutheran congregations, as well as other Christians, non-Christians, Sikhs and Muslims.

‘Our students these days are from Liberia, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, India, Eritrea, Iraq, China and Malaysia’, Helen says.

‘The most important thing we do in our group is equip the women with the skills and the confidence to achieve things, whether sewing projects or other goals. They often come from cultures which don’t value girls and women, so we applaud and celebrate every little pin cushion and every garment they make. This boosts their self-confidence and helps them to tackle other projects, such as driving.’

These are massive steps for women who have had no say in their lives previously. And relationships built over needles and thread grow both ways.

‘We have learnt more from our women than we’ve taught them – more about patience and love’, Helen says. ‘I am also sure that we show the love of Christ to them in a way which words could not always convey.’

Many of the women have come from traumatic backgrounds. Some have little education, others are well-educated, but they do not speak English. So as well as learning how to sew, those who attend the group develop many other skills, even learning how to resolve differences and fix mistakes.

It takes negotiation and communication to find agreement in some things – especially when you have 12 teachers, each with a different way of putting in a zip, Helen says.

‘They watch us negotiate the best way to deal with a problem’, she says.

‘They have come from a background where often the only way to resolve conflict is with fighting. We show them a better way to resolve differences and conflict.

‘Secondly, one of the most important things we teach them is unpicking. It’s just as important as using a sewing machine. As in life, undoing a mistake is harder and far more tedious than the initial stitching up of the mistake. And it’s a very serious lesson worth teaching.’

The genesis of the group, which Helen calls ‘Our Beautiful Lutheran Sewing Group’, was her passion for sewing and love for helping. She and husband Ken had welcomed into their home a Sudanese widow, Monica, who had lived in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp, supported by Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS) through its international field partner, Lutheran World Federation (LWF).

The Semmlers had met Monica when she’d asked for someone to drive her to a Lutheran church. Helen answered the call. Monica and her family became regular guests to Helen and Ken’s home for Sunday lunch, as Helen and Ken helped the new arrivals learn more about the Australian way of life.

‘I am a sewer, so when Monica came to our house and saw my sewing machines, she just stood there like she had been blitzed by lightning’, recalls Helen.

Helen not only agreed to teach Monica how to sew, but she soon began teaching Monica’s friend. And so, with the help of Noreen and Jim Klein, the group began.

It has blossomed through a range of grants and donations and a perpetual student waiting list. Donations have come from across South Australia and beyond.

In the past five years the group’s association with ALWS has gathered steam as the members have sewn up a fundraising storm.

If you’ve Walked my Way, you may even have been gifted one of the 830 colourful bags they’ve contributed to encourage participants in the event which supports children to go to school in refugee camps in east Africa.

While the sewing group has been in recess due to COVID-19 restrictions, a small group has begun sewing face masks for ALWS. They’ve already finished 500 masks, with another 400 in the pipeline.

ALWS is a great match for the group, with Helen and Ken’s decades-long relationship with the LCA’s overseas aid and development agency, LWF, and the former Lutheran World Service Club.

Ken, a former RAAF fighter pilot, served ALWS in Cambodia in 1992, Rwanda in 1994 to 1995 and Sumatra between 2005 and 2010, the latter in support of the post-tsunami recovery effort. He stressed the importance in the early years of ALWS of the input of former directors Brian Neldner, Sid Bartsch, Gary Simpson and Peter Schirmer.

‘What Helen and I have done is no big deal’, says Ken. ‘“For God so loved the world that he gave …”. In our own stumbling manner, can we do otherwise? Praise the Lord and press on.’

Helen Beringen 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