The Lutheran October 2012

Print Post Approved PP536155/00031 VOL 46 NO 9

NATIONAL MAGAZINE OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA

OCTOBER 2012

God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.

In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us ‌ [ 1 John 4:9,10 ]

The Lutheran October 2012

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EDITOR/ADVERTISING

phone 08 8339 5178 email linda.macqueen@lca.org.au

SUBSCRIPTIONS

phone 08 8360 7270 email lutheran.subs@lca.org.au

www.thelutheran.com.au We Love The Lutheran!

As the magazine of the Lutheran Church of Australia (incorporating the Lutheran Church of New Zealand), The Lutheran informs the members of the LCA about the church’s teaching, life, mission and people, helping them to grow in faith and commitment to Jesus Christ. The Lutheran also provides a forum for a range of opinions, which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editor or the policies of the Lutheran Church of Australia. The Lutheran is a member of the Australasian Religious Press Association and as such subscribes to its journalistic and editorial codes of conduct.

CONTACTS

Editor Linda Macqueen PO Box 664, Stirling SA 5152, Australia phone (+61) 08 8339 5178 email linda.macqueen@lca.org.au

L is for Lunch.

Lots of Ls are for lots of Lunches— Long Lutheran Lunches of course!

Staff of the LCA National Office in Adelaide already have their Longest Lutheran Lunch T-shirts. Do you have yours yet?

Order quickly from www.operationconnect.org/LLL

National Magazine Committee Wayne Gehling (chair), Greg Hassold, Sarah HoffZweck, Pastor Richard Schwedes, Heidi Smith Design and layout Comissa Fischer, Greg Haar Printer Openbook Howden

ADVERTISEMENTS and MANUSCRIPTS Should be directed to the editor. Manuscripts are published at the discretion of the editor.

Those that are published may be cut or edited.

Advertisements are accepted for publication on a date-received basis. Acceptance of advertisements does not imply endorsement

by The Lutheran or the Lutheran Church of Australia of advertiser, product or service.

Copy deadline: 1st of preceding month Rates: general notices and small advertisements, $18.00 per cm; for display, contract and inserted advertisements, contact the editor.

28 October (or whenever it suits you)

SUBSCRIPTIONS and CHANGES of ADDRESS LCA Subscriptions PO Box 731, North Adelaide SA 5006 phone 08 8360 7270 email lutheran.subs@lca.org.au www.thelutheran.com.au 11 issues per year— Australia $40 New Zealand $42 Asia/Pacific $51 Rest of the World $60

www.operationconnect.org/LLL

Issued every month except in January

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We people in the LCA national office thought we ought to practise what we preach about the Longest Lutheran Lunch.

So we donned our T-shirts on a miserable, drizzly day, just to prove that any day is a good day to be getting into the spirit of the Longest Lutheran Lunch.

Thanks to all of you who are getting into the spirit with us, especially those who have registered your lunch event and spread your creativity and energy around. We are amazed by your great ideas. The fact that 2012 is the Year of the Farmer hasn’t been lost on you; some lunches will be held in cow paddocks or wheatfields. Clever!

And this year we expect to announce the Longest-Distance Lutheran Lunch, with some of you planning to skype with friends in other countries. In fact, a Sydney congregation hopes to be lunching via skype with past members, now in the United States. So their lunch will actually start, ummm, yesterday—that’s got to be a first!

Here at The Lutheran we thought we’d get in on ‘the firsts’ too. This year we’re printing thousands and thousands of extra copies of the October edition, so you can share it with the friends who come to lunch with you. If you are one of those people, welcome to our Lutheran table! We hope you’ll enjoy the experience of eating, drinking, laughing and sharing this day with us.

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FEATURES 05 Plugged In 07 Teachers, toilets and tarantulas!

10 Too much to bear 12 Home away from home

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14 Heartbeat 16 Flour religion in full bloom 19 21 things I didn’t know 24 Knit one, pray one 26 Bend and stretch

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COLUMNS 04 From the President 18 Reel Life 28 World in Brief 30 Coffee Break

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We hope too that you’ll find some friends among us— friends you can count on to be there for you whenever you need them. Don’t hesitate to write down their phone numbers and stick them on your fridge.

We Lutherans in Australia and New Zealand want our church to be known as a place where love comes to life.

It’s not meant to be merely a catchy tagline—we truly do want you to see and experience the love of God coming to you through us. No strings attached.

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In this edition of The Lutheran, we’re bringing you some examples of how we’re reaching out with God’s love to people near and far. But just as importantly, we want you to know God’s love too.

So, we hope you enjoy your time with us at the Longest Lutheran Lunch, and that you’ll call us if there’s anything we can ever do for you.

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Eating together in holy communion with Christ is where the divine touches the human. It is where salvation is assured for the sinner.

Keep up to date with news, prayer points and call information by visiting http://www.lca.org.au/ presidents-page-archive.html or by subscribing to the president’s electronic newsletter. To receive the newsletter, send an email to itofficer@lca.org.au giving the email address you would like included.

LCA pastors and layworkers are automatically included in this list.

Rev Dr Mike Semmler President Lutheran Church of Australia

It is unthinkable that a father or mother could give up a healthy, loving child, an only child. It is just too much to even contemplate.

It would be easier for many parents to give themselves up in the place of their child.

That is why there is nothing like the gospel to shake us to the very roots of our existence with the staggering— today we might say ‘awesome’— implications of God the Father’s gift to us of his Son. ‘Christ crucified’ is all that the apostle Paul wanted to proclaim (1 Cor 1:23). This is for our salvation.

The reformation of the church focused on Christ alone for our salvation.

Martin Luther agonised over how he could possibly present himself in a way that would be acceptable to God. He heard the gospel, which turned his life around, when he realised that righteousness was given to him by the sacrifice of God’s only Son. As he walked on earth and taught us, this Son of God often referred to what would be in front of us. Through all the trials and tragedies that may lie ahead, there will always be a feast of celebration in heaven for us. Christ fulfilled the 23rd Psalm—which talks of walking through ‘the valley of the shadow of death’, but also of fearing ‘no evil’ because of the presence, direction and protection of God. Such a good shepherd is found only in Christ. There is no other.

A table is prepared for us right now on this earth ‘in the presence of our enemies’. Enemies are all those who would seek to take our eternal life from us. Enemies include not just

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The Lutheran October 2012

people who lead us astray, but also secularism and our own lust and selfishness.

Banquets are a common picture used by our Lord Jesus the Christ to point us heavenwards. He even instituted his own holy supper to give us himself right here in the middle of sin and death and among sinners, the enemies of God, which included us as we were by nature.

Eating together in holy communion with Christ is where the divine touches the human. It is where salvation is assured for the sinner.

As we give thanks for our daily food around our family tables, it can be a reminder of ‘his table’ and the celebration in front of us.

Should you choose to be part of the opportunity to invite your friends to a congregational lunch this month, when we celebrate Reformation Festival, remember that the feast in heaven is for all. It is a time to say a simple, heartfelt thanks to Christ and his Father who sent him.

We can make every meal a foretaste of what is to come when we say, ‘O give thanks to the Lord for he is good and his mercy endures forever’.

All are invited.

You and I are called to celebrate that we can never again return to the purposeless lives of those without hope. It is God who has given us, as rebellious as we continue to be, the faith to accept his gift. This is what we were created for.

‘Sing to the Lord a new song for he has done marvellous things.’

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Photo: Glenice Hartwich

—the power of connection

by Kendrea Rhodes The word ‘connect’ is bandied about like cardboard coffee cups—used too frequently and then thrown away, its value rarely appreciated. For, like the underrated cardboard cup, the word ‘connect’ contains something deliciously addictive.

‘Connect’ is all about relationships and all the potential that lies within them. To connect is to make contact, be in harmony and communicate. It’s about joining, linking or uniting—and it’s one of the main ingredients in Christian mission. For without connections, how would people hear the good news of salvation and the message of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:19)?

A group of young people from South Australia are discovering first hand some of the synergies that exist within the word ‘connect’. They have buckets of love inside them— love for God and other people. But where you see their love Vol 46 No9 P297

truly coming to life is in the way they make a difference in the lives of others, purely through connecting.

Based in the Adelaide Hills, the group is called SHWALLY— Spring Head, Woodside And Lobethal Lutheran Youth. They run on high energy and involvement, often helping others through donations of time, effort and money.

In the past, the group has had to have faith that their donations have made a difference. So, when choosing a new project on which to focus, they looked for something

Above: Malaysian and Australian Lutheran youth groups have been raising money to help establish libraries in Orang Asli villages … with the goal of providing much-needed places for children to study and learn.

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The indigenous people on the Malay Peninsula are the Orang Asli, consisting of 18 tribes and three main languages.

a little more substantial: something on which they could follow through, something to which they could give more than just money, something that would allow them to be a part of God’s mission in the world. SHWALLY member Erin Kerber explains: ‘Jesus said we should look after others’. It sounds simple when you put it like that, but really, where would you start?

Formerly nomadic people, they have been forced to settle in small communities throughout Malaysia— communities such as the hard-toget-to villages in the rugged and remote Lake Temenggor region in the country’s north.

The young people sought help from Glenice Hartwich, the LCA Board for Mission’s project officer, who put them in contact with the National Youth Ministry Program of the Lutheran Church in Malaysia. And wow, what a connection! It’s almost as if the two groups were just waiting to be plugged into each other.

The LCA provides support for the Lutheran Church in Malaysia (LCM) to work among the Orang Asli and to provide for the training of their pastors.

The Orang Asli are generally an animistic people, worshipping the spirits that they believe surround them.

Due to the efforts of the LCM and LCA partnership, many of the Orang Asli are now coming to know Jesus.

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The Lutheran October 2012

Photo: Kendrea Rhodes

When choosing a new project on which to focus, [SHWALLY] looked for something … on which they could follow through, something to which they could give more than just money, something that would allow them to be a part of God’s mission in the world.

Both are outgoing groups, with something to offer the other, and their partnership has hit the ground running.

They’ve created a strong bond through the sharing of photographs, stories, blogs, websites, newsletters, experiences and each other’s company.

All of this positive connection spearheaded SHWALLY’s decision to get involved in the Malaysian youth ministry’s work with the indigenous people of Malaysia, the Orang Asli.

The two youth groups have been raising money to help establish libraries in Orang Asli villages, and a computer room in the Cameron Highlands—all with the goal of providing muchneeded places for Orang Asli children to study and learn.

As this edition of The Lutheran rolls off the presses, seven members of SHWALLY will be travelling to Malaysia to work with the youth ministry there and the Orang Alsi. They will visit and worship in Lutheran churches in Malaysia and meet more enthusiastic young people while participating in the Lutheran Youth International Mission Night. They will climb mountains and stay in an Orang Asli community on Bandang Island, all the while connecting with the young, old and everyone else in between, and further strengthening relationships with the LCA’s partner churches in Malaysia.

Talk about synergies … so many connections will be made within this one single trip, but most importantly, SCHWALLY young people will be connected with God in his mission and will bring to life the essence of servant love: ‘Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others’ (Phil 2:3,4).

On their way to Malaysia— SCHWALLY members (from back, left to right): Chloe Pearce, Bradley Rohrlach, Jesse Sumner, Cameron Seidel, Amy Sumner, [leaders Vicki and Chris Sumner], Erin Kerber, Daniel Norsworthy

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed your cuppa (cardboard cup or not) while reading about Christians connecting with each other cross-culturally. If you’d also like to explore a partnership here or overseas, please contact Board for Mission project officer Glenice Hartwich at the LCA national office: 08 8267 7334, glenice.hartwich@lca.org.au Kendrea Rhodes is Mission Communications Assistant with the LCA Board for Mission.

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Teachers, toilets and tarantulas!

Lutheran churches have supported the people of Cambodia ever since the fall of genocidal dictator Pol Pot in 1978. Sue Beelitz joined a group of Australian teachers in Lutheran schools who saw the benefit of this work today.

Cambodia is famous for its interesting rustic ‘delicacies’.

Skewered frogs grilled over a flame.

Deep-fried tarantulas. Even bull-ant eggs stirfry, complete with bull-ants themselves—and tasted by one of the braver (crazier) members of our ALWS Teacher Study Tour!

Yet the strongest impression all of us will take away from Cambodia is the joy people experience by being empowered to improve their village communities. Teachers were excited about the way that individual villages’ needs were catered for, while educating people and giving them ownership of village development. This ensures that their dignity is maintained.

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Seeing positive transformation in people’s lives is so encouraging, especially when you know what an important role the Lutheran family is playing.

During a visit to Chue Teal Chrum village, teachers were told that in 1997 life was much more difficult than it is today. There were no roads, no school, and the water was dirty.

Many people contracted malaria and subsequently died. At that time people had no real understanding about hygiene and sanitation.

The famous Lutheran long–drop loo! David Grieger from St James Lutheran College, Hervey Bay, Queensland, sees the result of a $62 donation through ALWS. Not just a loo but a lifesaver, protecting children from diarrhoea and disease!

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Toilet-proud!

Over the years, people have been issued with mosquito nets and educated about the dangers of the diseases mosquitoes carry.

healthier now—‘they don’t get sick as often’. People have a far greater understanding and are now willing to make changes so that their children can stay healthy.

Water—safe and certain In most villages that the team visited there was also a strong emphasis on water.

Around some of the villages were signs encouraging villagers to drink water that is safe. When we visited Say village, the leader told us that, before the team supported by Lutherans began working with the people, there were no water filters in the village. Now water filters are starting to appear in homes.

Clean water direct from Lutheran support—at just $11 a household

People now have a far greater knowledge of personal hygiene standards and the benefits of using a latrine. Villagers proudly showed us their toilets. It was encouraging that families were able to articulate the health benefits for their families.

One lady told us, ‘Since many people have been using latrines, their health is much better’. Another happily said that her children were much

A tree is planted in Cambodia to recognise anyone who says they will leave a gift in their will to help people through ALWS 8

The Lutheran October 2012

He also told us that while some people still drink from streams, they have been educated to boil their water first in order to keep them healthier. Many of the villages now have shallow wells, which mean that villagers no longer have to walk long distances to collect water for cooking, washing or general household usage.

importance of education, made the sacrifice to send their children away for schooling.

It was clear that children saw school as a real privilege. At the same time many felt guilty that they were at school instead of being home working hard with the rest of their family to generate income.

We observed many differences from Australian schools. There were large class sizes—sometimes 50 or more children—minimal teaching resources in classes, and few toilets for the number of students in the schools.

Despite these challenges, it was encouraging to see so many children attending school. They were being equipped with a variety of skills and therefore broadening their opportunities for later in life.

Where school is a privilege For us teachers it was very interesting to visit and see the blessing of the schools built with Australian and New Zealand support.

Prior to the establishment of schools in some districts, many people were illiterate. Some, realising the

Sturdy well-balanced pumps mean that even children can easily pump water from shallow wells

The reason I support ALWS and have included them in my will is that they do groundwork. They don’t just deliver water once-off; they dig the wells.

They don’t just give people handouts; they give them loans so they can better themselves. It’s not just for now but also for the future. It’s God’s work for the benefit of future generations and the betterment of their lives — Helen Mickan Vol 46 No9 P300

Above: Sue Beelitz, from Waikerie Lutheran School, shares Aussie lessons. Here in Cambodia, education is the most effective way to free children from poverty Left: This shop was started with a $50 loan from a village bank.

Through ALWS, a village bank can be started with around $1500, providing six–month loans to around 30 families each year

A bank you can bank on!

The establishment of a village bank is a great asset to many families in villages. Families are given loans of between $25 and $50 to establish shops and small businesses, plant crops and raise livestock.

not necessarily empowered to take responsibility to pay it back.

These investments generate income for the family as well as educate them for the future.

It was exciting to see the growth in the villages supported by our Lutheran family through village partnerships, ‘Gifts of Grace’ and other donations. To see the impact this support has made on the lives of the locals, and the pride they have in achieving progress, was a most rewarding experience— tarantulas and all!

One bite isn’t enough, is it?

When loans are taken out from the village bank, people are trained in finance and savings. They establish a business plan to pay back the loan, along with a small amount of interest. If loans were taken out using outside lenders, the interest rate would be much higher and the people

A rewarding experience

All of us who participated in the ALWS Teacher Study Tour were impressed to see how people were empowered to take responsibility for their own village development. This is a result of long-term programs, and shows the importance of making a lasting commitment to people—not simply zipping in and out.

To find out more about Lutheransupported work in Cambodia,

visit: www.alws.org.au or contact

Here’s how to get the whole apple.

Jen (Pfitzner) on 1300 763 407

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