Urban churches: here is your mission, should you choose to accept it

Drought is insidious, unspectacular and just as devastating as bushfires, says JENNY JONES, yet the church’s response is very, very different.

Gilgandra. A country town 70 kilometres north of Dubbo on the banks of the Castlereagh River. It is the centre of an area that has been drought-declared since the winter of 2002.

Always abbreviated to “Gil” by its people, it is a neat, friendly town, where the standard greeting is “G’day, how are you going? Do you think it’ll rain?”

The main street, Miller Street, is thriving and it still has banks and doctors — it is the loss of these that rips the heart out of country towns. There are good schools, and a new hospital nearing completion.

Gil has a good spiritual life too, with most of the Christian denominations having churches in the town. Every Tuesday morning an ecumenical prayer meeting is held in the Uniting Church hall to pray for the town and district.

The Uniting Church has had no-one in settlement since the middle of 2000, so I went to Gil for three months to help with the preaching and to do pastoral visiting.

The drought is a great concern for Gil. The talk is always of rain: “They had 17 points in Mendooran last night.” “My daughter rang from Narromine — it’s raining there. Do you think it will get this far?”

When I first went there in early May the farmers were anxiously debating whether to sow their crops, a debate which grew more urgent as the deadline for sowing came, and still no rain. Many sowed anyway, only to see their crops sprout and turn yellow and eventually become fodder for the stock.

The retired people, especially those who have moved into town from the farms, watch the sky and wonder what the future holds.

Shirley Mudford is one of their number: farmer’s daughter, farmer’s widow. Shirley has five sons and several grandsons, all on the land. She is greatly concerned for them, praying that they will have the physical, mental and spiritual strength to cope with this latest crisis.

She took me to visit a property owned by her son Noel, to see the shearing. I went with Noel to feed the sheep, necessary because there was almost no feed left in the paddocks.

As we drove into the paddock, sheep seemed to come from everywhere. There were hundreds of them, all intent on following the ute with the big yellow hopper on the back. This released a trickle of grain as Noel drove along; and soon the mob had spread out into a long line, eating as fast as they could.

It was lambing time. If the ewes know that they can’t feed their lambs they will walk away and leave the lambs after they are born.

On their farm, Philip and Julie Ward are bottle-feeding 25 of these abandoned babies. For the first month of their lives, these poddy-lambs must be fed four times a day — a hundred bottles a day for four or five weeks!

Philip’s hands are big enough to hold two bottles in each. Julie holds a bottle in each hand, and one between her knees but by the time they are finished it is nearly time to start again and the rest of the farm work and house work has to be fitted in around this.

When Philip has no-one to feed the cattle he puts the four-wheel drive truck into low range so that it just creeps along, then he stands on the back tossing the fodder off.

Recently the Ward’s oldest and best working dog was stolen. She was found three weeks later, dead, floating in the dam near the house. This may seem only a minor incident, but the loss of a good working dog in such circumstances is hard to bear and adds to the burden of the drought.

A testing time

Ross and Beryl Barden are feeding poddy-lambs too, although not as many. Their biggest problem is the kangaroos that live down by the Marthaguy Creek and come into the paddocks at night to eat the crop.

As well as being chairman of the church council, Ross is the mayor of Gilgandra Shire. He said that the southern end of the Shire was in better condition than the northern end, but that the rain at the end of August had given them all hope and Gil would definitely be okay.

Ross’s brother Alan has been using the dry weather to clean out and deepen his dams. He was philosophical about the succession of beautiful sunny days, saying that if we couldn’t have the rain we needed it might as well be nice weather!

Some of the farmers’ wives have jobs in the town, and sometimes this can be the only money coming in. Church council secretary Veronica Quayle, however, works on their farm alongside her husband, Alan. She told me about having to shoot stock during the previous drought. It was a very matter-of-fact account, but she admitted that at the end she felt “pretty yucky” and hoped that it would not be necessary this time.

Not long after I arrived in Gil, Gwen and Beryl asked me to go to a presbytery meeting with them, saying that it was at Parkes (200 kilometres away) and they would pick me up at 7. Reality suddenly hit — “You mean 7 am?”

“Yes, 7 in the morning.”

Almost forgotten

This was my introduction to presbytery, rural style. It was a most interesting day, a crash course in a lifestyle previously outside my experience.

Central West Presbytery is enormous, stretching from Coonamble and Coonabarabran in the north to Cowra in the south, and from Nyngan in the west to Lithgow in the east. The presbytery meeting was well attended, despite many people having to travel great distances.

It was sad to hear how many areas had no ordained person in settlement. One small town, Peak Hill, had at that time no minister of any denomination.

I remember my perception was that at least some of the people at presbytery felt that the city had almost forgotten about them, or at least had no concept of rural life. Many of the churches, including Gil, are without a minister because they can’t afford one, but I don’t remember reading that Jesus said, “Sorry guys, you can’t afford my ministry.”

Gil Uniting Church is doing its best to look after itself. There are several lay preachers, some of whom also help out at Mendooran and Coonamble; and members of the congregation are always willing to take part in the services leading singing, Bible reading, and bringing intercessory prayers.

There is a small Sunday school and a thriving KUCA club. The Ladies’ Fellowship conducts monthly services for the nursing home wing of the hospital, and for the retirement hostel, Cooee Lodge. A seminar on grief and loss held in July was attended by over half the congregation.

I went home reluctantly at the end of my three months there, and would love the opportunity to go back.

My home is in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, and every summer we face the threat of bush fires. When the fires do come; as they did last Christmas, they are swift, spectacular and devastating. Church assistance, both material and spiritual, is quickly there.

Drought is insidious, unspectacular and just as devastating, yet the people in the drought-stricken areas seem to be left with no spiritual support.

It is a tragedy that people who have spent their days dealing with the effects of drought are expected to provide their own pastoral care. They need someone not directly involved with the drought to stand alongside them, to care for them, to listen and learn and demonstrate that they have not been forgotten.

I believe that it could be part of the urban churches’ ministry to do precisely this.

This has been Gilgandra’s story. It could also be the story of many other western New South Wales communities.

Written originally for Gil, the following is my prayer for all of them:

God of the Outback
God of the drought-stricken farmer,
Of the bare dry land,
Of small towns
Losing people, losing hope
We love our land
And all it needs is rain.
Send us the rain, Lord,
Don’t leave us desolate.
Remember us, your faithful
people,
Send us rain.
Restore our hope we pray.
AMEN

Jenny Jones is a lay preacher and pastoral care worker in the Uniting Church at Blackheath in the Blue Mountains.