Hillston visit from "The Secret Seven."

From left at back -Ellie, Bridget, Paul, Kodjo and Do Young. Front -Christine and Simote.

 I don't  know how secret they really are but it sounded a good title!

I guess you could say it's a well kept secret how great these students are. 

(Well, it was a secret from Hillston until the visit last week from this energetic,interested and caring group of future Uniting Church ministers.)

On November 14th Hillston hosted 7 ministry students visiting as part of their training, finding out more about the church in rural NSW. The students visited several towns and churches,of varying sizes and run in a variety of ways, during their exhaustive Riverina church tour over 10 days.

After their very hot drive up from Hay over the very flat Hay Plain, Sue met them at the local Historical Museum, showed them around and then handed out maps for them to have a walk and a look around Hillston.

John's lovely garden

They visited the local water spot, Lake Woorabinda, dug out by locals and at the moment, empty, waiting for the summer water allocation; they cooled themselves in the shade outside the lovely garden of church member John Kirton; bought postcards at the Red Dust and Paddy Melon Gallery and found their way to the church. Once there, they enjoyed the cool of the church building as we sat and talked about Hillston life and the lay ministry here. That led on to afternoon tea and then a BBQ, using the food which magically appeared in the church fridge after the word went out last Sunday that the group would be coming and would be dining at the hall.

Hillston Uniting Church building looking fresh and cool after its recent paint job.

In the evening Sue and John ( Uniting Church members) and Lindsay (Anglican lay pastor) talked about the activities of the church. We listed all the different ministries in the community, had a slideshow playing and a display table of flyers and posters we’d used to advertise.

They were very interested in the various activities, particularly in our hosting of the Backpackers at the BBQ last year and in church. (You can read about these in past blog entries.) 

The way we do lay ministry,with all members putting in towards the life of the church, according to what we can do, without an ordained minister, was very different from how things happen in Sydney so they found that, too, of great interest and inspiration.

We hope that they picked up lots of ideas to take into their future ministry during their time in the Riverina.

In return we got information about and offers of help for, the various activities we have running here but most significantly the students were an appreciative, open audience and those present from Hillston on the night felt greatly encouraged by their warmth and enthusiasm for what we are doing here.

The group prepares to leave on the following day.

On their way to the next venue the next day the students met up with Julie in Griffith (on her way from one place to the other as she does) for a few hours to hear about the work of the Rural Chaplains serving the communities of  NSW west of the mountains.