Bethlehem News

This week we say goodbye to Pastor Alois Schwarz who's made quite the impression on us the short time he's been with us! Pastor Alois is currently on sabbatical from St George's Church, Nördlingen .  He has been in the Philippines the last few months to teach at the Lutheran Theological Seminary there and, on his way home, has detoured via Wagga Wagga. A long list of people in our Parish have opened their homes and gladly given their time to Pastor Alois.  He's spent some time with the kids at the Wagga Lutheran School, been given a Mayoral Reception and has seen quite a bit of country in and around Wagga. Pastor Alois delivering his sermon to us on Sunday  - an interesting mix of Nebuchadnezzar and Nördlingen ! Pastor Alois leaves us on Friday and will head down to Melbourne, then make his way to Adelaide for a little while. We wish him all the best for the rest of his holiday and a safe trip back to Germany. Have a look at the website for the Nördl...

Here are a few photos of Sunday's Celebration of Reformation Day and The Lutheran Longest Lunch...   Celebrating the good news of the gospel   with lots of red on display for this "red parament Sunday"   Audrey won the Lutheran Longest Luther Quiz!   Red ties for Malcolm and Rodney How many ways can you wear a Lutheran Longest Lunch bandanna? Hear are a few ways ... The food for the day was excellent with the theme being "Food close to our hearts". Thanks to Lunch coordinator Marg Kleidon for organising a fabulous event!!

WTL is a new group at Bethlehem for anyone and everyone in Years 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.  We’re getting together once a month at the church hall for a couple of hours on a Friday evening for some fun, food and to talk about God. We tend to spend quite a bit of our time playing games and eating too much food... Discovering the joys of a competitive game of Hacky Sack! Whose idea was this??! But we do sit down at some point in the evening and chat about God and how we can live his way.  At our last get-together we had a discussion about the “Way” in “Way Truth Life”.  We’ll be talking about “Truth” and “Life” in the next couple of months.

Congratulations to Linda Klimpsch who celebrated her 101st birthday on Thursday 18th September. Her special birthday cake (prepared by Dorothy Fischer) is pictured below. God bless the year ahead for you Linda.

Last Saturday we held a Quiz Night in support of the Lutheran School Project in Cambodia. Here is an update from LCA Mission Director Neville Otto on the latest status of the project. I am pleased to advise that the land has been purchased thanks to the generosity if God's people in the LCA and in the Lutheran churches in Cambodia and Singapore. We are waiting for some of the final costs but essentially we expect only a small shortfall now and so there is unlikely going to be a need for a loan.  The money raised at the quiz night is a really important contribution towards this. If we happen to raise more funds than the land cost these will be quarantined for the sole use of developing the pre-school and bible training facilities  On 4 September there was a meeting in Adelaide involving Cambodian Church leaders with a small team representing the major partners being the LCA and the Lutheran Church in Singapore. The people at the meeting included LEA Director Steve R...