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The Lutheran World Federation
Lutheran World Information |
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| 21.05.2004 |
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| Head of Australian Ecumenical Body Lauds LWF Humanitarian Work |
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Australian Lutherans Contribute Refugee and Development Aid through DWS
ALBURY, Australia/GENEVA, 21 May 2004 (LWI) - “One of the things that has given me great credibility in the eyes of the ecumenical community is the work of the Lutheran World Federation and Lutheran World Service,” Rev. John Henderson, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA), told participants in his greeting to a regional consultation of the LWF Department for World Service (DWS).
“People connect me with you, sometimes before they connect me with a local church because they may not have encountered a Lutheran church or even a Lutheran person before,” Henderson told heads of LWF/DWS country programs from the Asian region, as well as representatives of agencies that support LWF work. The 30 participants in the May 16-21 conference near Albury in New South Wales, gathered under the theme, “Quality Monitoring for Impact,” with an emphasis on defining desired outcomes and determining methods for assessing them.
The NCCA general secretary explained that Lutherans in Australia occur in clusters, and even then, not in large numbers. Membership of the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA), of which the Lutheran Church of New Zealand is a district, is around 75,100. About 40 percent of LCA members live in or around Adelaide, southern Australia. The LCA is an associate member church of the LWF since 1994.
Henderson described Australia as a country of “refugees and immigrants” and said the young nation has some issues to deal with. “We are deeply concerned about the situation of refugees, sometimes called ‘illegals’, and about Australia’s reception of these people. We are still learning how to treat refugees with humanity and compassion.”
Henderson is the first Lutheran to hold the position of general secretary of the NCCA, an ecumenical body representing 15 Christian churches in Australia.
Australians on the Road to Healing and Reconciliation
In his opening remarks to the regional DWS consultation, LCA President, Rev. Michael Semmler said, “We are a church that has taken a long while to look beyond our shores.” He acknowledged the LCA’s long history of mission work in Papua New Guinea and more recently with partner churches in Asia. “But the world is getting smaller,” he said. “Transport and communication mean we are more able to play our part in the wider world, and we are keen to do that.”
Preaching on the theme “Do you want to be healed?” (based on Jn 5:1-9), Semmler said healing was necessary not only for the physical, mental and psychological aspects of life. “Healing is also needed for the nations,” he said. “Nations and races, communities and congregations, and families need to be healed.”
Semmler said non-Indigenous Australians are being encouraged on their journey toward reconciliation with the Aboriginal people and also to reaffirm their commitment to healing. In particular, he referred to the “the stolen generation”—Aboriginal children who were forcibly removed from their families and land up until the 1960s. “It is important that these people be allowed to tell their stories and to be heard,” the LCA president said. “It is also important to give opportunity to those who cared for these people to tell their story and be heard as, in most cases, they sincerely believed they were doing the best thing for those Indigenous children.”
Albury: The Birthplace of Australian Lutheran World Service
It is no coincidence that the Asia regional consultation was held at Albury; it is the birthplace of Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS). In 1947, Rev. Bruno Muetzelfeldt (deceased May 2002), the local parish pastor, began serving as chaplain at the government migrant center at Bonegilla, about 15 kilometers from Albury. By 1948 there were over 1,000 Lutherans at the center. In 1950, the LWF established a Lutheran World Service (LWS) office there, with Muetzelfeldt as its first representative. In 1955, Brian Neldner was appointed to assist him in what was by now a vibrant and effective refugee and migrant resettlement program. This was the beginning of LWS – Australia (LWS-A), which later became ALWS.
Muetzelfeldt joined the LWF Geneva Secretariat in 1960 as Secretary for Resettlement and Material Relief with DWS, and was appointed the department’s director in 1961. He served in this position until his retirement in 1980. Neldner succeeded Muetzelfeldt as LWS-A representative in 1960, and later accepted a position as director of a new DWS program in Tanzania. In 1973, Neldner was appointed as DWS program secretary in Geneva, and eventually served as the department’s director from 1991 to 1995 when he retired.
Recently returned from a three-month consultancy with the LWF/DWS program in Jerusalem, on the West Bank and surrounding region, Neldner paid tribute to his three successors in the Australian operation. Sid Bartsch developed the idea that the Australian church should also provide assistance internationally. “He became a big fundraiser,” Neldner said. Gary Simpson became the first executive secretary when LWS-A became an LCA auxiliary, and was renamed ALWS. Peter Schirmer, the current executive secretary, has taken ALWS over the AUD 1 million per year fund-raising mark. “For a little church of less than 100,000 members, to raise this amount is a very significant achievement,” Neldner said. “ALWS has been one of the significant contributors worldwide.”
ALWS partners with DWS programs in Cambodia, Mozambique and Nepal, and contributes to emergency relief programs. DWS is the LWF’s international relief, rehabilitation and development agency, with 24 service programs and emergency operations in over 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe. (924 words)
(Written for LWI by Linda Macqueen, editor of The Lutheran, the Lutheran Church of Australia magazine.
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