Our Moderator Rev. Denise Liersch has offered the attached Pastoral Letter re Bushfires which includes information about how to donate the Uniting VicTas Bushfire Appeal. A Bushfire Blessing by Rev. Jennie Gordon is also offered.
Your gifts and prayers will help mothers in Zimbabwe to become conservation farmers, so they can support their children and harvest hope after years of devastating drought. For Sri Lankan refugees, your generosity means the chance to return home and build safe, peaceful futures after years of displacement and civil war. By supporting the [...]
On Sunday 29th December we reflected on the part of the Christmas story told by Matthew where Jesus and his family become refugees (Matthew 2:13-23). We listened to (and watched) a number of different stories to help give us insight into the refugee experience. Follow the links below to relive them! Will Willimon's Christmas Parable [...]
God's love in action Jesus tells us that whoever follows him will have the light of life. But we can’t let others on our earth walk in darkness. This Christmas, you can shine Christ’s light by bringing safe, life-giving water to families like Sunday’s in South Sudan. Sunday and her five children live in [...]
Finding strength in love after fleeing Syria How do we share God’s unconditional love with those who have suffered unimaginable violence? When their city of Hama came under siege, Rima and her husband Kateb fled for Jordan with their children. As they were escaping, one of their young sons was killed by a chemical [...]
Finding joy in resilience Is it possible to be joyful when the natural disasters that batter your island home become more destructive with every year? Your Christmas Bowl gifts help the vulnerable people of Tonga to stay safe through worsening disasters. People like ‘Asena, who has found great joy in protecting her family and [...]
God's love in action The prophet Isaiah told people who had lost their homeland and who had been through enormous suffering that they could live in peace again. His message resonates this Christmas Bowl, as we support Sri Lankan refugees to return home and build peaceful new lives after years of bloody civil war. [...]
Harvesting hope in Zimbabwe Hope is scarce for mothers like Nyevero, who couldn’t feed her family after losing her crops to Zimbabwe’s merciless drought. Most days, she and her husband, teenage son and two young daughters had just one thin bowl of porridge to survive on. Nyevero felt desperate as she watched her children get [...]
Sharing God's love through the Christmas Bowl It was 1949. Millions of refugees were starving in war-ravaged Europe. And as Frank looked at his heavily-laden Christmas dinner table, the contrast between our abundance in Australia and the needs of others around the world could not have been more stark. As a Christian, he felt [...]
On Sunday 10th November Rev. (Deac) Jeanne Beale* presented Rev. Richard Collard with a certificate celebrating 65 years of ordination. Responding to this Richard shared a story about his first placement in the Mallee. He had two manses situated 68 miles apart. He lived in one manse 9 days at a time and 5 [...]