Communities

The offering from this year’s LCANZ Convention of General Synod in-person meetings is contributing more than $30,000 towards an FRM project producing, revising or reprinting Lutheran song and hymnbooks in Central Australian Aboriginal languages.

What continues to amaze me working at Lutheran Archives is the myriad stories contained in the archive, the stories in one item or one box of records, and the myriad ways those stories or records have impacted lives.

With the Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) document in hand and copies of the RAP poster, Marilyn Wall returned to Central Australia in October. The purpose of her visit was to discuss how best to share this information with the Aboriginal members in the Lutheran communities.

In late September the people of Imanpa, a Pitjantjatjara community 270 kilometres southwest of Alice Springs, welcomed Indigenous church leaders from all over Central Australia to a teaching course.

A new bush church has been dedicated at the small community of Engawala in the Northern Territory,150 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs.

Confirmation class at Alcoota. Often I announce it in the church services. The parents, especially the mothers, ask me to write down the names of their daughters and sons to be confirmed this year.

Pastor Rodney and I visited for Pepa (devotions) only late yesterday, but the lady asked, ‘Can you come again tomorrow afternoon?’

For a week in October, staff and students from Unity College in Murray Bridge, South Australia, visited the Utju (Areyonga) community in the Northern Territory. The service trip was eye-opening, humbling, challenging and rewarding for the students and staff involved.

Engawala? Have you heard this name before? In Aboriginal language, Engawala is also known as Intiarntwa. It is a small community of about 150 people located 200 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs.

The first FRM bush course for 2018 was actually held outside Mt Liebig community at Warren Creek outstation, 10km further west, the home of our host Pastor Roderick Kantamarra. About 30 attended, including FRM staff and volunteers.