A Flourishing Life - Serving With SU

Camps and SUFMs teach you what being in a Christian community means - and our family’s had a lot of experience with that! My first beach mission was back in the ‘80s at Portland. A friend from church invited me to join the team and I just loved it. As a teenager I’d never been very confident, but here I could have a go at a whole lot of different things like drama, puppets, storytelling and art. I flourished. That’s also where I met my husband, Andrew. We did many beach missions, including Port Campbell and Inverloch, continuing even with very young children.

Being a young family with little kids on mission was not always easy, but we wanted to bring up our kids in the way we wanted them to go, and to take them along with us while we served. My kids would see me go out and be with other families and show Jesus’ love. Our kids are all actively involved in church life today - ministry and outreach, including SUFMs, and SU played a part in their lives too.

Andrew and I settled in Bairnsdale and Faye Hutton invited me to come and volunteer at the kitchen at Camp Coolamatong’s Farm Camp. It reminded me of a camp I attended as a teenager. I loved being back in the camp environment and I loved being with the young people. I had been praying that God would lead me to a job when I received a call from SU asking if I would be the cook at Lake Camp. I said ‘Yes’! The hard work was in the cooking and cleaning, but the real purpose for me being there was to be like a mum to the interns and to be with the campers and the teachers.

I finished working at Coola in 2018 after more than 12 years, but I still have a role to play for God with Scripture Union. We’re connected as Christian community, connected to love others and to share that love with our communities. I continue to do that through prayer and encouragement. Our home has become a wayside stop for interns, current and past, and we mentor two of the current interns who have come from India. We encourage them, love them and love having them around. It’s not always been easy, but it’s been an absolute joy to serve SU and to flourish personally.

— Heather

This story is part of the April 2020 issue of CONNECT. Read the latest update from our State Director here. For other stories from this issue, click on a tile below.