A life ruined for the ordinary. Part 3.

I wanted to find somewhere to study but from what I had seen the theological colleges could not provide the sort training I was seeking to work with the people I thought I was being called to work with. I wasn’t interested in being ordained either as I thought a ‘dog collar’ would be a hindrances instead of a help in relating to these people as well.  I had known a couple of “odd” people who did not fit the normal mould of church workers who had been through Church Army and who worked in the sort of ministries I was interested in.  This was the same at time that Church Army was changing their training model.

It seemed just the sort of place that might offer what I was looking for, so I applied, had an interview and was accepted as a candidate.  At that time it was expected that our theological education should be done through one of the ACT accredited Theological Colleges and Church Army provided the practical training.  I liked the faculty at Moorling Baptist College so studied with them while doing the Church Army training during the semester breaks.

They were three very exciting years for me.  I had left school thinking further study was beyond me.  It stretched me, and gave me a good grounding in ministry and God’s word.  Better still was being apprenticed beside two Church Army Officers who mentored me.  It was just what I was needing and looking for.

Three years after beginning I graduated and was commissioned as a Church Army Officer, at the same time a vacancy came up in Airds, the place most of the kids I had been working with came from.  God had things worked out perfectly.  I applied for the job at Airds but I did not get an interview.  Again what was God saying and doing.  This was the place I had just spent three years training to work in.  I had a passion for public housing ministry and a belief that I had a calling to it.

God works in surprising ways.  Airds was closed to me, (but I love that recently Church Army has begun a work planting a church there) but another door opened.  St Stephen’s Villawood had recently been amalgamated with a couple of other parishes into an experimental parish.  I applied and was given the job as Assistant part time Minister to St. Stephens.  I was given responsibility for ministry in a small church in the old public housing estate of Villawood. 

The old church building was in poor state, my carpentry skills came in handy, the building was reclad inside and out. The congregation was very small and had no contact with the community.  A Church Army mission launched an after school children’s program.  To make contact with the community we started a community garden that was going to use the grounds of the church for the garden plots.  Around the same time I had a phone call from a man in the Villawood Immigrant Detention centre asking to talk to someone about Christianity.

He was a Muslim who had picked up a Bible in the detention centre, and wanted to find out more about what he read. I met with him, he wanted to hear more and so I arranged to meet with him again ... when next I saw him he had invited some of his friends to hear what I had to say.  Eventually I was visiting the centre two days a week and meeting with a group of up to a dozen people at a time of all nationalities and faiths.  We sang songs, prayed together, and looked at what the Bible had to say.  Some requested baptism, some come to faith, and some who were already Christian were supported while in detention. 

Bishop Brian King supported the work and appointed me Chaplain to the Detention Centre.  The Australian government at this time had a policy of Temporary Protection Visas.  Meaning that those released into the community could not receive a lot of the benefits of normal citizens.  Some were released on temporary entry permits, meaning they were not entitled to any benefits.  A Somali family was released so that the government would not have to pay for the medical treatment and childbirth costs but would eventually be paid for by a charity. 

To help and support these newly released asylum seekers I met the NSW Ecumenical Council and we together we started the House of Welcome (http://www.houseofwelcome.com.au/).  This was the time of the Kosovo War.  There were many in the detention centre at that time who had come from that conflict seeking a place of safety.   There were unaccompanied children there as young as 5 who their parents had sent away hoping they might be cared for and safe in Australia.  Those children were looked away in a virtual prison full of young single male adults. There was a Doctor who had fled Iraq because his job in Iraq included amputating the hands or feet of deserters and thieves. 

I had to pray with an Iraqi who was to be returned to Iraq because he did not meet the requirements as an Asylum seeker.  He was an army deserter.  He knew what his fate would be once home.  This was also the time of protests, of detainees going on hunger strikes; of sewing up their mouths so they could not eat or be fed; of meeting with people who could not speak to me because they had stitched up their mouths in protest.  The authority’s response was to return these protesters back to where they had come from without appeal, or looking into why they were seeking asylum.  This I believe led to the death of a few when returned to their country of origin.

They were vulnerable, they needed someone to speak publically and make their plight known.  Public opinion had been manipulated for political ends at this time.  Asylum Seekers had been dehumanised and demonized, anything was thought possible of them, as was demonstrated by ‘children overboard’ incident.  I told the people I met with that they could not afford to protest, that someone from outside had to speak for them, but who?  Few people knew what was really happening in these centres.  I decided I should speak on their behalf, and spoke at rally outside Villawood detention centre.  I told three stories to give a human face to those locked away behind the razor wire of the centre.  As a result when next I visited the Detention Centre I was told I was told I had been banned from entering any Immigrant Detention Centre in Australia. 

Some month later the Iraq war was about to begin and our involvement as a nation was being debated.  I listened to it over radio.  One very well know government minister was defending the need for us to go to war by telling the Australian people of the way deserters are treated in Iraq, by having their feet amputated.  How barbaric that was. He neglected to mention though that Australia sent asylum seekers back to Iraq to have this barbaric operation happen to them.

Last night I witnessed a special broadcast on television of Parliament House where both sides were debating the recent tragedies of capsizing boats and the deaths of over a hundred people from these tragedies.  I became sad and angry as I watched what was being said, I could not believe the hypocrisy I heard said by politicians about their “sincere interest” in the protection of innocent people.  Now they are in opposition it has become unacceptable to send unaccompanied 13 year olds to Malaysia because of what might happen to them.  If that is unacceptable for 13 year olds in Malaysia to face the possibility of rape surely it was unacceptable when it happened in Australia to 5 year olds.  It was now unacceptable to send people to a country that was not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Refugees, supposedly because of how the refugees might be treated in those countries.  Yet when they were responsible and in Government it was fine to released people from detention with no means but to begging of obtaining medical help, shelter, food, and clothing.

Once again I was not able to minister to the people I had felt called to.  Funding for my position at St. Stephen’s Villawood also ceased at about this time.  I was soon to be unemployed, and I was left wondering what God was doing.

A life ruined for the ordinary. Part 2

I left school half way through year 11, or as it was then 5^th year.  I got a job as an apprentice carpenter.  By the time I was 26, I had a trade, a wife, two children and a brand new home on the edges of Sydney’s vast urban sprawl on a Landcom Estate, which meant that 6 months before moving in the suburb had not existed.  We attended Church in the next suburb as ours did not yet have a church. In time a minister was appointed to our suburb, and a block of land and a grant of money was made available to build a church with.  Until the church building was completed we spent a few years meeting in a community hall.  It was a good time, with the minister appointed to us we planted a church, planned and built a building and along the way had to try all sorts of new roles, find all sorts of skills and gifts we did not think we had.

Being a newly developed area there were hundreds of children and teenagers.  As a parish we thought it would be good to employ a part time youth worker to work in the school and in the church to reach out to the teenagers.  I thought that if we went did employ someone, they would need some help, so when scripture union with the local Fusion centre decided to run an Urban Mission over the Christmas School Holidays, I thought it would be good to be part of, to see what young people were like and if I had any aptitude for working with them.

I was surprised, I had not realized what my suburb was like after dark.  We met homeless kids, kids that travelled 100km to where we were because they had heard we were feeding kids.  Kids living on the trains, kids that could not go home on weekends because Dad was drinking, or Mum had the boyfriend over, as well as dozens of ordinary kids looking for something to do during the long school break.

By this stage I was self employed.  I went back to work after the two weeks of mission, and back to my comfortable home with a fridge full of food and a warm bed every night.  But I could not get it out of my head that there were kids I had met who were still hungry, cold, and vulnerable.  I spoke to the Fusion worker who had led the Urban Mission team and said I wanted to do something for those kids.

We began a ‘drop in’ program called Warehouse in the local youth centre.  We had a TV, a pool table, tea and coffee and some food.  We started running it one evening a week.  The work grew rapidly.  One of the boys had got into trouble with the police and had to appear before the courts the next day and he asked if I would come along with him to keep him company. After that I could no longer work on Fridays, the day the children’s court met.  In that first year we found accommodation for over 50 kids. 

Some were also becoming interested in Christianity, so I began a small group exploring what it was to be a Christian.  But they needed more.  I took one group of kids to a church one Sunday morning, they enjoyed it so much they did not want to go home and stayed there on the grounds long after everyone else had gone home.  An elder seeing this grew worried and had the police come and remove the kids.

I next went to the big Anglican Church in the area and talked with the minister.  He told me not to bring any street kids to His church’s youth group, because if I did, the other parents would take their teenagers from the group in case they got interested in the street kids romantically.   But he did make an application for a grant to employ someone who could run a specialty ministry with these kids.  The grant was successful and it was time to find someone to fill the role as a church planter to these kids. 

We failed to find one trained person who would be able to take on this ministry, or who was willing to try. 

What was God doing? 

In asking that question, I began to suspect the answer was ... God is calling me to this sort of ministry, but I needed some good training.   Where would I find a place to train that would prepare me to work with people who do not normally fit in a church?

A Sister’s Grace.

After church last Sunday one of the young boys was sitting looking rather glum. School still has another week of holiday to go; I figured he should have been feeling quite chirpy, so I asked him why the long face?

His Mum heard me asking and spoke for him.  “His sisters, you have three as well ... perhaps you could have a talk to him?”

I think I knew just what he might have been feeling having had three sisters of my own.

So after asking him what was up ... I told him a true story about my Dad, though it may have been embellished over the years with the retelling.

Dad had two sisters.  One day one of those sister became one sister too many.  Dad being a boy of action decided it was time to do something to fix the situation. He thought of a very “clever” plan.  He wagged school, got a shovel from his Grandfather’s shed and went out back of their home at Rockdale.  In those days it was a large market garden and had very sandy soil that was easily dug.  Dad began digging and continued most of the day.  He produced a lovely deep hole, just perfect to put his sister. 

It was then that Dad realized his “clever” plan had one short coming.  He had forgotten to bring a ladder.  He was stuck, and couldn’t get himself out of the hole he had dug for himself.  All he could do was start calling for help, which he did. 

You may have already guessed who it was who heard his cry for help?

That sister who was the one sister too many found him, stuck in the hole.  My Dad had to swallow his pride and ask her to rescue him.  Aunty Elsie did.  She pulled him out. 

Dad thought then that maybe that ‘one sister too many’ might not be quiet as bad as he had thought.  That maybe the reason they had not been getting on was more to do with his attitude and behaviour and how he had treated her.

Dad’s two sisters have both passed away now, and Dad misses then both deeply, but they both had a very real lively faith in the grace and forgiveness Jesus offer everyone who trusts what he did on the cross.  He has the comfort that death is not the end and they will all be reunited one day in heaven with God.

A Life Ruined for the Ordinary (Part 1)

I have just got back home after attending the Church Army Conference.  The program was mostly the societies endorsed Evangelists sharing the story of their lives and subsequent ministries.  I was very encouraged hearing of the extraordinary things God has been doing in the lives of these relatively ordinary people, so I thought it might be worth recording my story on the chance someone might find encouragement in the work God has be doing in me.

Mine is not one of those dramatic conversion stories some people have.  My parents turned back to God after the birth of a still born child when I was 5.  My earliest memories are of us as a family attending church, being part of a Sunday school and of parents who served God in a variety of ways in their local Church.  At that age I naturally trusted and believed in God, this is not to say I have not had to develop my own faith.  Since then I have had doubts and times when I have wandered far from God but each time God has brought me back and through that process deepened my understanding of Him and I have grown in faith. 

My sisters and I ready for church on Sunday morning

I recently celebrated my 58^th birthday. I have been following Jesus for something like 53 years. 

My first experience of actively taking on a ministry responsibility was when I was about 14, I was a keen member of CEBS (The Church of England Boy’s Society) and the CEBS leader wanted to begin a group for the very young boys, 5 – 7 year olds.  After thinking about it I talked to the leader and he agreed to let me try.  Once a week for an hour and a half I had charge of half a dozen excited boys, and needed to prepare a program to maintain their interest, lots of games, a devotional, some skills work.  I was only ever half a step in front of the boys but it was fun and I learnt quite a bit about ministry and leadership and serving God.

A couple of years later I was part of the church’s youth group when all the older teenagers became young adults, got married or moved on and we suddenly found that the group no longer had any of the older teens left to lead it, and in fact I was now one of the older teens at 16.  Again I took on the leadership of the youth group and started an after church on Sunday night ‘coffee shop’ for those that did not have to rush home after evening service. 

The coffee shop became popular and teens started dropping in who were only loosely connected with the church and they had not all gone to church before dropping by or some came from other churches in the area.

This was the mid sixties, the beginning of modern youth culture.  Rock music, long hair, beards, motor scooters and motor bikes.  Of rebellion, of the counter culture, of Vietnam and moratoriums, peace, love and dropping out. Of teenagers questioning everything and everyone searching to find who they are and what they stand for.

It was a time of deep conservativism in mainstream Australia, of Robert Menzies and Bob Askin. It was a time when the Church of England had just started calling itself the Anglican Church and still used the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

When the church’s parish council heard what was happening on Sunday nights, of teenagers in front of the church and staying after services were over they became concerned.   They did what many churches have been doing and continue to do with those they do not know or understand, who are different to them.  They shut the door on them.  They informed me that the coffee shop was closed.

And I knew to the core of my being that something was not right in their decision.

I asked the Rector if he would arrange a meeting with the three Parish Wardens.  The meeting took place and I asked them to reconsider their decision.  I suggested these were the very people that the church existed to reach out to, those who did not yet know God.  They listened and we prayed and the coffee shop was allowed to remain open.

Those men are all long dead now.  I cannot imagine it was easy for them to trust a kid like me with what they feared might happen to their old historic building but they did, they were gracious, and I think it was in that time that my life’s journey was set a course.