Farewell at a church

from w
Today we farewelled our minister, the Rev Richard Franklin who is moving to be a chaplain at The Scots School in Albury. There's a sadness about it as he is a very fine thinker who has excellent sermons and keeps up moving gently with the big questions of life. Today was also the birthday of the Uniting Church in Australia - which has been significant in the life of the Australian churches with the amalgamation of Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational thirty-four years ago. We were in a country parish then, a small wheat-farming community of Hopetoun an our boys were young. A rich wonderful life there. Today we had a splendid lunch too and a cake. Our family were busy as one lad had to hurry away to play football with St Albans by 11.30 and Peceli was driving up to Melbourne to a Fijian church gathering and to meet up with some politically hot matters.