“Can you tell us the next part of the story?”
With your support, lunchtime groups are thriving in a rural Aboriginal school, and the kids want more!
When SU Australia Ministry Catalyst Mel arrives twice a week at an Aboriginal school in Alice Springs, it doesn’t take long for the children to find her. In fact, as many as two-thirds of the school’s students regularly drop by to visit Mel and other SU volunteers, under a tree, to braid friendship bracelets and to play skipping games.
The relationship with the school began several years ago, when the then-principal approached the Uniting church about the possibility of having a school chaplain. The Uniting Church got in contact with Mel, and while offering chaplaincy at that stage wasn’t possible, Mel suggested the idea of a lunchtime group.
In as little as 20 minutes two times a week, it’s amazing already the trust and connection that has been established.
“One lunchtime after the programme was over, there was a girl crying on the playground. I walked over and chatted with her, and ended up helping calm her down, and walked her back to her classroom,” says Mel.
“We’ve been invited in to speak to different classes a couple of times … Including when I was helping run a Children’s and Youth ministry training for local Aboriginal church leaders, and because of my contacts with the school, we were able to practice sharing Christmas stories with the kids in the four different Central Australian languages taught at the school.”
Though the relationship is growing, it took time to get to this point. When Mel first arrived at the school, her aim was to get to know the students and staff, and to be a positive, loving presence.
“There are a lot of people that come and go in this school, and I wanted to be someone they trusted, so they would give me permission to speak into their lives,” says Mel.
Mel has since been joined by two volunteers. One lunchtime a week, the team share Bible stories while they craft, working through the life of Jesus.
Mel has found giving the kids a craft activity to do while they listen works very well, and even though the kids don’t always respond verbally, they are definitely taking it in.
“One of the kids drew a cross as part of her listening to the story. We weren’t talking about Jesus, but she’d interpreted what we were saying … she was connecting the dots,” reflects Mel.
And if Mel needs any more evidence the children are listening, it’s in their eagerness to keep going.
“The moment you finish the story … someone says, ‘is there another story?’ Or ‘can you tell the next part of the story?’” says Mel.
Feedback from staff has also been very positive, especially as the school has been through some difficult transitions in recent times. One senior staff member commented: “What you’re doing is good. You bring calm.”
An advantage of Mel being in the school more than short term is the wider relationships she has been able to build with the children and their families who come from the local area, town camps, and communities.
“The other thing that I just really want to be able to do with this ministry is for these kids to be able to see and know friendly faces when they’re around town,” says Mel. “One young student, whose grandmother sells paintings in the Todd Mall during market days, saw me arrive for church, and came over to meet me and introduced me to her Grandmother. We chatted briefly, and grandmother described how she shares her Christian faith with her granddaughters”.
As much as Mel and volunteers give to serve the children, they also receive:
“Being in the school with the Aboriginal students, and trying to think about how to share in culturally appropriate ways, has taught me to read the Bible from a perspective that is closer to the original culture than my own, resulting in my faith being changed in the process,” reflects Mel.
Thanks for supporting work like this in remote parts of the Northern Territory. To find out more about how you can pray and serve Central Australia please visit: https://su.org.au/nt/