I am A scripture teacher and have been for many years. Often over that time I have wondered why i do all that I do when the participation of the students is often random at best.

My granddaughter comes from a broken home. her parents separated before she was born. Her father, my son, has her for six hours each week. This situation causes much regret and sadness to all the members of our family.

In order to prevent a bad situation from becoming worse I have never mentioned the name of Jesus in my granddaughter's hearing, neither have I bought her a scripture book, but I have prayed for her earnestly since before she was born.

When she has time with her father, they usually phone me. The week before Easter her conversation began with an excited, "Grandma, Grandma I need to talk to you about God. You know what they did to him? They nailed him to a cross, but don't worry, it's alright; He came alive again. He's alive. Don't worry. And do you know Adam and Eve? It was all their fault. They didn't do what God said so Jesus had to be put on the cross to put it right. But it's alright. He's alive".

This breathless sort of 'Good News' had been imparted by a faithful SRE teacher and was well worth passing onto Grandma.

The conversation went on to talk about a picture Bible my son had had when he was young. I was able to deliver the book to my granddaughter and she and my son have been reading it together.

My heart is singing on three levels:

Thanks to God for answered prayer
Gratitude to the SRE teacher for her faithfulness
Great joy that my granddaughter wanted to share all this with me

Sometimes I wonder why I am at my school SRE class when no one seems to be listening, but now I know it's in the Lord's hands.

 

Churches Unite to Educate
A few years ago we sadly lost VR to England.  VR taught Scripture to each and every class at Merriwa Central School – an unbelievably huge achievement.  Upon her leaving, well, let me just repeat what Father Michael Davies (Anglican priest) wrote in his report for the year ending 2004 – “Scripture at Merriwa Central still suffers”.  VR was, and is, very missed!

However, in his report for last year Michael also wrote, “I am pleased to say this is no longer the case”. Scripture at Merriwa Central School no longer suffers.

So what happened to change things?  Well basically Michael spent much time discussing the lack of SRE teachers with others from the Uniting Church, Catholic church and staff at the school. The plan to teach the school students ecumenically came up and with Michael’s leadership and the full support of those churches it has become a reality.

Michael now has the whole primary school being taught ecumenical scripture on a ftornightly basis.  But there’s more good news…Not only have the three churches and Merriwa Central School come together, but Trinity Markets, which is run by people from an assortment of denominations ( aside from the ones already mentioned) have also come on board by financially supporting our cause.  Every single student is provided with an Activity Book and each scripture teacher is provided with a Teaching Guide, which outlines every lesson’s requirements and basically makes our teaching possible.  These item  are certainly not cheap and their support and generosity is deeply appreciated.

But wait, there’s even more!  Last year the Carols by Torchlight was well supported by the Merriwa community.  At this gathering the money raised from the BBQ was also donated to Trinity Markets to be used for purchasing scripture material. So now the whole community is helping to support this one fantastic cause.

When you consider that people in other countries are building walls up to keep each other apart due to their different beliefs ( and even killing each other!) the fact that in our community our three churches have joined forces to share the good news with school students is something for the whole community to be exceedingly proud of.

We all hold different beliefs on all sorts of subjects and that’s perfectly okay.  To not support each other due to having differences of opinions is not acceptable and thankfully the people of Merriwa are proving that we can all unite in spit of our differences.

All great things begin with one idea…however, for anything to happen it takes a community to unite and get it done.  This has been the case here and I believe that Michael Davies deserves to be hightly commended for making all of this possible.  If only all communities could unite as he is working to lead ours to.

Sharon.