About seventy five people gathered at Kincumber and later in the day at Charlestown on August 28th for two Bush Church Aid Rallies.
Peter Adkins, Regional Officer for NSW/ACT, shared about how BCA has “gone the distance” for for 96 years taking the good news of Jesus to communities across rural, regional and remote Australia.
He shared examples of how this ministry continues in mining towns, distant island communities, farming areas and strategic regional centres across our nation. All this is made possible thanks to the generosity of God through his people who pray and give to support this vital ministry.
Cheryl Hallinan, BCA’s Bush Scripture Advisor was the main speaker. Cheryl greatly encouraged the gatherings by recounting how through her ministry in the last two years, God has raised up scripture boards in country towns across NSW. These boards are now supporting Special Religious Education teachers in about dozen schools, where previously there was no SRE.
Another aspect of Cheryl’s work is mentoring SRE teachers, and those who attended were intrigued to hear a story of one lesson Cheryl observed, where a young lad from the bush was very deeply engaged with the parable of the sower in a way a city young person just couldn’t be. A new video resource is being produced by BCA and Generate which will be especially relevant in SRE lessons with Aboriginal and rural young people.
This resource will form part of the curriculum to be delivered by BCA’s Distance Scripture Education teacher, Peter Volkovsky.
Cheryl shared how our goal is for every single High or Central School in NSW to have access to Special Religious Education by 2020, a goal which, praise God, is rapidly being fulfilled!
