Apr2015
The perfect cuppa
by Reid Matthias
I’d never really been exposed to tea drinking while living in the United States. Until I met my wife’s family, who are prodigious tea drinkers, I’d learnt to live on a pot of brewed coffee per day. Tea drinking was something I only saw on the Public Broadcasting System. My exposure was limited to images… Read more
Mar2015
The beauty within
My mother always encouraged me not to judge a book by its cover. Difficult in my line of work! Imagine soft leather, gilt edges, embossing and filigree. Tempted and swayed, too often I’ve disregarded Mum’s advice and fallen for the cover and not what is inside. But what if I open the book and am… Read more
Mar2015
Prayer: As individual as you are
by Rev Dr Steen Olsen
If we were attending a leaders’ retreat and it was announced that instead of the planned program we were to be silent for the whole weekend, my wife Ruth and I would respond differently. Ruth would say, ‘Great! Let’s get started.’ I, on the other hand, would be driven to prayer: ‘Lord, send me a… Read more
Mar2015
Night terrors
by Reid Matthias
All 75 were nestled in their beds, visions of Vegemite sandwiches dancing in their heads. When all of the sudden, with a shriek and a shrill, the fire alarms went off and they awoke … screaming their heads off. The last night of Year Seven camp. We’d had a great, tiring day, and after some… Read more
Feb2015
A pastor, a bike and a portable reed organ
by Rachel Kuchel
This is the story of Pastor Albert Ewald Reuther, born at Bethesda mission, South Australia, in 1892. After completing his seminary training at Neuendettelsau in Germany, he was called to serve the Western Australian home mission field in 1913, where he joined his stepbrother, who had been working there since 1907. We’ll begin, however, at… Read more
Feb2015
I am making all things new!
by Rev Dr Steen Olsen
Back in our New Zealand days, my then vice-president gave my wife Ruth a fridge magnet that says, ‘Living with a Dane builds character’. That just about sums it up—except that it doesn’t just apply to those who, like me, were born in Denmark. All of us can be hard to live and work with…. Read more
Feb2015
Real cheep food
by Reid Matthias
Every spring an amazing thing used to happen at the Matthias household in small-town Iowa. Sometime right after Easter, when most of the snow had melted, the mail truck would stop in front of our house. The mailman would descend his metal steps in a cloud of dust, slide open the big back door of… Read more
Dec2014
The travelling trowel
by Rachel Kuchel
I call it the travelling trowel. Its working life begins in Perth in 1903. It is 29 April and the day of the foundation-stone laying for the new St Johannes school and church. Rev EH Fischer had been sent to the Western Australian mission field two years earlier as a church planter, staying until 1910…. Read more
Dec2014
Familiarity breeds … impatience?
Jesus told us to pray, ‘Lead us not into temptation’. But every year my parents did what we asked God not to do—they led us into temptation. And temptation was called The Christmas Tree. Every year, about four weeks before Christmas, our parents would drive us 20 kilometres down the road to a tree farm… Read more
Nov2014
We want to grow!
by Rev Dr Steen Olsen
Is your congregation on autopilot? Maybe it is time to pause and reflect on why your congregation does what it does. The fundamentals of what we do don’t change. It is still all about God giving us his love and grace through his Son Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit at work through… Read more
