By Talitha Fraser
At East Gippsland’s Johnsonville Uniting Church, a small congregation is showing a big commitment towards lifesaving health and wellbeing outcomes that start locally and extend across Oceania.
Working with Birthing Kit Foundation of Australia, Johnsonville members are saving the lives of mothers and babies in the Pacific Islands by providing a simple $5 birthing kit.
Wendy Flahive is one of the Johnsonville congregation members at the forefront of this work, her professional experience as a nurse and midwife proving perfect for the role.
“My interest in doing this is because I’ve done a lot of work in the different communities across the Pacific, both with AusAid and through Uniting World, and that’s where I got interested in helping people,” Wendy says.
“You can empower somebody with such simple information.
“It’s really amazing because it’s stuff we take for granted, yet I take over some pamphlets and they’re taken home as precious.”
Johnsonville has rallied support from Bairnsdale, Glen Waverly and Paynesville congregation members, as well as local op shops, to support the project financially, while local volunteers have assembled the kits.
In June last year, 200 birthing kits were sent to Tarawa in the Republic of Kiribati via a collaboration with the Kiribati Uniting Church.
Holding a communal vision allows the congregation to strategise for the long term, as well as deepen and grow existing relationships and networks, allowing for exponential reach.
This model allows local women to be trained in how to use the kits, before taking them back to their communities to distribute.
This year, RAK Women’s Centre co-ordinator Maata Yetze has obtained a grant from the Birthing Kit Foundation of Australia to receive 1000 kits directly, marking a sustainable project in which ministers and lay preachers will continue to take the kits to the most remote places.
The focus for Johnsonville members now moves to getting much-needed birthing kits to the Solomon Islands, especially the Western Province where the Uniting Church has a strong presence.
The small Johnsonville congregation credits its success with projects like birthing kits to being prepared to pivot to a new model as numbers shrank.
They have also been heartened by support from bigger congregations, especially Glen Waverley, where they join worship via Zoom, and more recent connections with the Bairnsdale and Paynesville congregations.
Where a larger congregation might have a council considering funding requests, decision making determined by a schedule of meetings, or many projects competing for outreach allocation, this small group of members have little turnover in their positions of office and are pleased to report that doing business is easier when everyone is on the same page.
The congregation’s last AGM took only 30 minutes and ratified their ongoing commitment, spanning more than two decades, to projects to promote physical and social wellbeing for the people of the Pacific Islands, with the focus on maternal health care and the support of seasonal workers.
At home, this focus continues on making connections with workers, from a number of Pacific Island countries, who are in Australia picking and packing vegetables around Lindenow.
While the seasonal workers are keen to attend church, language, transport, and other issues can make this difficult.
With the support of representatives from other denominations, Johnsonville congregation members provide a monthly barbecue for the Pacific Island workers, in addition to ongoing support in other areas.
While the Johnsonville congregation may not be large in number, there is plenty of optimism around its future.
Worshipping online with the Glen Waverley congregation is wonderful, although Wendy admits it would be nice to have their own minister.
“It would be wonderful, and we would all much prefer it,” she says.
“But if they don’t turn up, we are doing just fine for now.
“Our journey is God-focused, so we don’t need to worry about that.”
While it might be tempting to focus on what they don’t have, congregation members instead get on with their work cheerfully and confidently, grateful for the abundance of gifts and resources available to them to contribute to, and receive from, the body of the wider Uniting Church.