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391

A language of love prevails when strangers are welcomed

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Australian Lutheran World Service had its beginnings at the Bonegilla Migrant Centre, near Wodonga in Victoria, when Lutheran Pastor Bruno Muetzelfeldt began ministering to newly arrived migrants from war-ravaged Europe. Bonegilla operated from 1947 to 1971, accommodating more than 300,000 displaced persons and war refugees. Today, one in 20 Australians is thought to be descended from Bonegilla migrants and last year ALWS provided care to nearly 300,000 people across the globe. To follow are the reflections of some whose families were at Bonegilla. You can read more memories by members of the ALWS family at www.alws.org.au

‘I was six when I arrived at Bonegilla with my parents on 22 December 1948. My dad was Estonian and mum Latvian. We had left a cold European winter and were about to experience our first hot summer Christmas. My mum arrived wearing a fur coat! We came on the ship Protea with 700 passengers. We then travelled by train to Bonegilla. Our new home! Unlined Nissan huts. I remember the steps going up into the huts. They were very cold and very hot! I am truly thankful for our life in Australia. And it all began in Bonegilla and the kindnesses of so many, including Lutheran churches and ALWS.’

– Margrit Friebel (nee Schmidt)

 

‘The buildings were actual Nissan huts – curved corrugated-iron buildings, with no inner wall linings. I can remember Mum looking hot and fanning herself. She told me years later how much she hated the heat initially. Men often sat in groups. Probably smoking, playing cards and talking.’

– Ivar Schmidt

 

‘I was only 14 months old when we arrived from Italy, so my memories are my mum’s. When they first arrived, the hut they were placed in had wet mud floors and there was dried vomit still on the cot. Not such a welcoming start! On their wedding anniversary, Mum smuggled in a small gas burner to cook a special meal in their hut. She placed each part of the meal under the quilt covers to stay warm until all parts of the meal could be eaten together! So many at Bonegilla were carrying scars from World War II. It is the grandchildren who have really reaped the benefits of their decision to come to Australia and from their hard work.’

– Barbara Mann

 

‘Dad shared how he felt sad for the people arriving by train, often at night, at a little siding in the middle of nowhere and then being bussed to the camp. They would look so lost, with their suitcases and children clutching their hands. It would move him to tears. He said, “All I want to do is to do good for these people, for they will be the next generation to build our country”. The people were always so grateful. This was a new opportunity after the harrowing times of the war.’

– Elizabeth Stolz, daughter of Pastor Norman Sander

 

‘As I was only a toddler, my “recollections” of life at Bonegilla come from my parents. Due to World War II and the dire economic situation, my parents were devastated that they couldn’t return to Hungary; their only hope was to emigrate to Australia. My parents struggled with being so far from their families, but making friends with other migrants made life somewhat tolerable. The food was so bland that it left Mum with a life-long aversion to lamb! Mum and I were in Bonegilla for four months and joined Dad in Geelong where he had found work and accommodation.’

– Pastor Ernie Kiss

 

‘The language of love prevailed in spite of general language difficulties … We were not concerned as to what religion the people followed, we all just wanted to help them in their need. In adopting this attitude, we were sure of doing a Christ-like thing.’

– LCA Pastor Norman G Sander, chaplain Bonegilla Migrant Centre, 1960–1970

 

About Bonegilla Migrant Camp

  • The name comes from the Aboriginal word for ‘deep water hole’
  • It operated from 1947–1971
  • The camp welcomed 309,000 displaced persons and war refugees
  • People at Bonegilla were from 50 countries, mostly non-English speaking
  • There were 24 accommodation blocks, each with a kitchen, mess hut, shower and toilet
  • Men and women were in separate quarters
  • There were 800 buildings with a capacity of 7700 beds by 1950

 

In 2020 around the world

You are part of a global effort helping 1,432,865 displaced people …

… from Somalia, South Sudan, across eastern Africa, Myanmar, Syria, Bhutan …

… in Kenya, South Sudan, Bangladesh, Jordan, Nepal and Myanmar.

392

Lutheran Teachers College founder dies

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Rev Dr Rolph Mayer, a founding lecturer and long-time principal of the LCA’s Lutheran Teachers College (LTC), has died, aged 90.

Dr Mayer was a lecturer at LTC when it was based in Highgate in Adelaide’s inner south from 1968 and was principal of the LCA’s teacher training school from 1970 until 1987.

He continued to teach at LTC when it moved to the campus of Luther Seminary in North Adelaide in 1990. He retired from full-time teaching at the end of 1995.

Dr Mayer was also a founding committee member of Lutheran Student Fellowship in South Australia in the 1950s.

Ordained as a Lutheran pastor in 1951, he served the people of the Lower Murray Home Mission in South Australia until 1954. He was a teacher and chaplain from 1955 until 1967 at Immanuel College in suburban Adelaide, firstly at Walkerville then at Novar Gardens.

In 2009, he was granted an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree by Australian Lutheran College.

Dr Mayer, who died in Adelaide on 31 August, is survived by his wife, Margaret, and daughters Susan and Anne and their families. His son, Peter, predeceased him.

393

Update on discipline procedures review

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In 2018, the LCA General Synod asked the General Church Board (GCB) to resource a review of the church’s Ecclesiastical Discipline, Adjudication and Appeals provisions, policies and processes, and a review of the Professional Standards Department and related policies, procedures and practices.

Submissions were invited from all interested parties, including pastors, calling body chairpersons, district administrators, church leaders and General Synod delegates. These have been analysed by the review team, which also did interviews and investigated how other organisations manage ecclesiastical discipline. The review team is now developing a final report for GCB, which will be submitted in February 2021.

394

Church@Home

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CHURCH@HOME   www.lca.org.au/churchhome

Fostering a life of faith

With some churches still affected by COVID-19 restrictions, we are sharing special devotional materials with the aim of helping to foster the home faith-life of LCA/NZ members. Most of these are from the Church@Home resources collection on a special webpage at www.lca.org.au/churchhome. There is also other faith-building content available through this page, including family resources, encouraging messages and Bible studies, as well as family and child safety, and health and wellbeing resource links, information for church workers, and details on how to support your congregation and the wider church’s mission through Regular Electronic Giving. If you have internet access and a printer, why not print off some resources and mail or deliver them to those who may otherwise miss out?

       – Lisa

DEVOTIONS FOR HOME WORSHIP

These reflections are from a fresh set of devotions written for our LCA/NZ family and friends to help us to keep our eyes on Jesus as we face unsettling times. They can be used by families and individuals as part of the Church@Home resources during this season of uncertainty. You can find these and more on the LCA website at www.lca.org.au/daily-devotion

To know Christ by Ruth Olsen

‘I want to know Christ’ (Philippians 3:10a).

Read Philippians 3:7–16.

Paul was willing to set aside the status of being ‘a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, and considering himself faultless regarding legalistic righteousness’; it’s all worth nothing in comparison with knowing Christ Jesus. He’d rather have been living in union with Christ through faith than still trying to achieve righteousness through the law, having discovered the righteousness gifted by God and received by faith.

Knowing Jesus personally is very different from knowing about Jesus. We start hearing of and knowing about Jesus, and then it’s a growth process, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. As we learn to take God at his word, believing that he means what he says, we start to mature or grow into who and what he has called us to be.

A child in a family will grow up into that family culture. As the child becomes an adult, there will be some things to leave behind, especially to press on in learning to be what the Lord has called him or her to be in this earthly life, using God-given gifts and abilities to serve and encourage others. For a child of God, that involves learning, letting go, receiving and taking up, sifting, sorting, discerning, training, stretching, applying, equipping – all guided by the Holy Spirit. He is our Helper, our Counsellor, our Trainer and our Enabler. He stirs in us the willingness needed and empowers us to ‘just do it’ in our daily life. For it is God who works in us to will and to act (do) according to his good purpose (Philippians 2:13).

Lord, help me willingly recognise your training, equipping, and onward call each day. Amen.

Pay it forward! by Sal Huckel

‘When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that happened’ (Matthew 18:31).

Get set for a wild ride of forgiveness, grace and mercy as we tackle a challenging lectionary scripture on these themes. Pray for discernment and new insights as we read together.

Read Matthew 18:21–35.

This passage is about God’s grace and forgiveness freely given to us, even though we have our own account with him that rightly should be settled, and is, by Jesus on the cross. Whatever way you do the maths, this kind of forgiveness feels too hard. Many modern-day messages say it’s okay to cut people off when they wrong us, and it’s perhaps easier to do that than ever before.

Today let’s consider the different ‘players’ or roles in the story. We have Peter asking the question. Is he wondering how long it is before he can be let off the hook, forgiving the same person time and time again? Are we?

We also have the king, settling accounts between his servants and offering grace and forgiveness for a sizeable debt. We can easily see God in this story, doing so with our own accounts with him. The unmerciful servant himself is forgiven a large debt, but rather than ‘paying it forward’ or passing that forgiveness on, he seizes his debtor for a much lesser amount.

But why are the ‘other servants’ here? They don’t seem essential to the plot. But Jesus’ words are never wasted! The servants witness the generosity and forgiveness of the master and the subsequent injustice. The servants petition for justice and the master acts. How can we put ourselves in their place once we have considered our own accounts? What are we witnessing? Just as in the reconciliation procedures in the previous passage (verses 15–20), the body is called in. Are you witnessing injustice and unforgiveness that may need to involve your action – naming it, praying to God for justice and doing more than simply looking on?

Lord, help me to keep a short account with you and with others. Remind me to pass on the forgiveness I receive from you as we pray so familiarly. Help me to discern the right approach where I witness a lack of mercy and forgiveness in others, and to bring it before you in prayer. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Love like Jesus by Pastor Chris Mann

‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’ (Matthew 5:44).

Read Matthew 5:38–48.

What’s the thing I love most about following Jesus? That there is no-one else like him.

What’s the thing I find hardest about following Jesus? That there is no-one else like him.

No-one else loves us as Jesus loves us – unconditionally, graciously, constantly.

But then Jesus goes and asks me, asks us, to do the same – to love unconditionally, graciously, constantly. It’s why we can say both ‘I am simply a forgiven sinner’ and ‘I shine Christ’s light into the darkness’.

We are called to be in the world, but not of the world, to be salt, light and a city on a hill. And if you ever want to stand out, if you ever want to be remarkable, if you ever want to have everyone look at you, then there is simply one thing to do: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

It’s what Jesus did when he went to the cross. And it is Jesus, in us, who helps us do it. And it is because we are God’s children that we can do it. Let’s love our enemies, as hard as it may be, just as Christ loves us.

Heavenly Father, I find it hard to love my enemies. It’s hard enough sometimes to love my own family, friends and others. Yet, you call me to follow you, to do what you do, to live how you lived – and still live. You ask me to do it because you have made me in your image, placed Christ in me and given me your Holy Spirit. Help me to live according to who I truly am – as your child. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

A bigger table by Pastor Reid Matthias

‘If, then, God gave [the Gentiles] the same gift that he also gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, how could I possibly hinder God?’ (Acts 11:17).

Read Acts 11:1–18.

I vividly remember the ringing of the phone.

It was annoying because I was young and hungry. On the table in front of us was the holiday turkey, the potatoes and all the trimmings. The smell made us salivate and all that I wanted to do was dig in.

But the phone interrupted our hunger. It was the fire department and a local house had caught on fire. My grandfather and my uncle were volunteer firefighters; thus, they were called into action even though dinner was on the table.

So, we waited, staring at the food, hoping that they’d hurry up. And then the phone rang again. This time it was my grandfather. My grandma’s face was serious. She nodded a few times and then said, ‘Well, bring them over. There’s plenty to eat and plenty of room’.

She cradled the phone and then announced to everyone that Grandpa and Uncle Dale were bringing home the family whose house had just burned. I looked at the table, stacked with food, but already stuffed with chairs and I thought, ‘There’s no room for anyone else’.

Almost as if reading my thoughts, Grandma said, ‘It’s alright, everyone, there’s always more room at the table’.

So it was for the first believers in Christ. The feast had been served. All the good gifts of heaven are displayed before the Jewish Christians who wanted to keep the meal for themselves. God had another thing in mind:

There is always more room at my table.

God’s welcome to the meal, which is a foretaste of the feast to come, is open to all people regardless of past or even present.

How have you felt God’s grace opened to you?

Thank you, Jesus, for giving me eyes to see a grace larger than I could have ever imagined. Help me enjoy the gift. Amen.

BIBLE TEXTS FOR THESE TIMES

Deuteronomy 31:8

The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you.

Psalm 34:18

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and those who are crushed in spirit.

PRAYER

Gracious God, trusting in your providence and presence, we bring our prayer for an end to this pandemic. We pray for your strengthening of those offering costly leadership during this crisis. We pray for all who are ill. We pray for those anxious about getting ill. We pray for those full of grief. We remember those who have died. We pray for your grace to sustain us as we do what we can in our context. We ask these things, as you encourage us so to do. ‘Ask and it will be given you’ (Matt 7:7). In resurrection faith, we offer our heartfelt prayer through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

– From a National Council of Churches in Australia
initiative for a special time of prayer
focused on the COVID-19 pandemic

399

It’s time to act. Let’s cast the net!

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by Craig Heidenreich I feel blessed to join the LCA/NZ team in Cross-Cultural Ministry and would like to share my heart with you. During these early months in the position, two passages of Scripture have come alive for me. The first is Numbers 13. Remember those 12 spies who go into the Promised Land and […]

400

Colour my world

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by Matt Huckel It’s quite hard to put into words what cross-cultural or multiethnic ministry at Trinity Pasadena in suburban Adelaide feels like. There’s something that feels wonderful and new, but also very normal at the same time. Nine years ago in my job as a music therapist, I worked with a paralysed man with […]