Walking God’s way in the big blue
To Rosemary Lange, it looked like a blue waterfall coming towards the vineyard where she was waiting for her husband Kevin to appear from among hundreds of blue shirt-clad walkers.
Rosemary stood with her walker to witness the wash of blue wind along a 26-kilometre walking trail past the Lange’s vineyards in SA’s Barossa Valley, during the Australian Lutheran World Service event, Walk My Way. Then she spotted Kevin.
‘She said it was like a waterfall as we were all wearing the blue Walk My Way shirts’, recalls vigneron Kevin, 83. ‘My wife is a bit of an inspiration. She’s had cancer and had both hips and both knees replaced, and she is still out here supporting me in whatever I want to do.’
Kevin was the oldest of 650 walkers to complete the full 26-kilometre trek, a fundraising effort helping more than 7300 refugee children in East Africa go to school for a year. (Across Australia in 2021, LCANZ members and friends have so far raised more than $350,000 – enough to support more than 13,500 children.)
Accompanied by his 16-year-old grandson Halen, Kevin raised $800. And even months after the event, donations haven’t stopped, bringing Kevin’s fundraising total to enough to support more than 34 students!
The Langes are members of St Petri Nuriootpa (Kevin’s a sixth-generation member, while Halen is the seventh generation of Langes to worship there). The family remains connected to the land, where Kevin still works his 18 acre-block (7.2 hectares) and caretakes another 12 acres (4.8 hectares).
Over his life, Kevin has been guided by Ephesians 2:10, which reminds us that God has created us for a life of good deeds. ‘He’s already made preparations for what he wants us to do’, Kevin says. ‘We can always do what is within our abilities. Give of yourself the best way you possibly can.’
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