Thursday, October 6, 2011

A trip to Albany!

September was a great time to head south to Albany to visit and encourage women in the Presbyterian Church there. Having usually only travelled the road in January it was amazing to see the difference in the scenery - especially given a year of near average rainfall! Instead of brown fields and the occasional orange Christmas bush in bloom we saw field after field of ripened canola - their yellow flowers stretchingas far as the eye could see. Not to mention wildflowers and wattle. It was just beautiful.

Albany is a city on the southern coast of Western Australia and about 5 hours drive from Perth - that means it is about 5 hours drive to the nearest Presbyterian church! The Presbyterian Women's Association thought it would be great to take a trip there to spend time with the women in Albany because it is so hard for them to join in activities put on in Perth. We had 8 women from Perth able to come and so we headed south for the weekend.

We had the chance to explore some of Albany, enjoy good coffee (or milkshake!) and a wander along the foreshore. We also had an afternoon gathering on Saturday with women from the Albany Presbyterian Church. This was a great time to get to know each other as well as an opportunity to talk about the aims of the Presbyterian Women's Association and how they can link in if they want to. This includes joining as an individual, or if particular women's groups within their congregation want to become affiliated, they can. The main point is that the PWA is there to help women grow in their knowledge and love for Jesus and to encourage them as they serve Him in their local congregations!

Here in WA most PWA groups are in Perth and so access to events is relatively easy for all but the Albany Ladies, hence why we decided on a visit south. Why should they always be expected to come to Perth!

Sunday morning half our number shared with Chris Woonings (PIM Padre) as he took a service in Denmark. This is a new church plant and only the second time they have gathered there. The rest of us joined with the Albany Presbyterian Church which was celebrating its 2nd Anniversary. What a joy to see God at work in these two new congregations within the Presbyterian Church here in WA. Please pray for these 2 churches as they reach out with the gospel of Jesus to the people of Albany and Denmark.

2 comments:

Rachel said...

Margaret, It sounds wonderful. Brilliant have the chance to meet together, especially with those from the new church plant.

Marion Andrews said...

Praise the Lord! It's so good to read about all this.