Do Justice does just that

November 13, 2014 by Brenton Stacey

Review: Do Justice: Our Call to Faithful Living

Mark Webster
Chief executive officer
Adventist Development and Relief Agency Australia

Do Justice coverBrowse through the 192 pages of Do Justice: Our Call to Faithful Living and the answer to the questions, “What is justice?” and “Why compile a book about it?” become clear:

  • Justice is a biblical concept central to God’s vision of a world not only created but also living in His image
  • Justice—as an experienced, living thing—is also as complex and diverse as the number of people on this planet

Do Justice effectively and compellingly addresses the statements. It pulls together the wisdom of 27 justice advocates, harnessing their thoughts, experiences and advice into a cohesive whole.

Authors such as Kendra Haloviak Valentine and Ty Gibson explore that foundational nature of justice to our faith and indeed our existence. Dwight Nelson and Lowell Cooper, among others, explore the nexus of faith and justice in the context of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and its beliefs. Lisa Clark Diller and Zivayi Nengomasha join their voices with those of others seeking to make justice an intentional part of their lives. And another group, including Tim Gillespie, Ella Smith Simmons and Mindi Wiygul, share guidance from their own experiences of justice in practice.

In the end, the problem with justice is not doing it: it is the assumption it has been done.

Jesus calls His people to do justice by loving others as we love ourselves. Reading Do Justice will inspire, encourage and equip you to do just that.

Nathan Brown and Joanna Darby (editors), Do Justice: Our Call to Faithful Living, Signs Publishing, 2014

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that design: a retrospective

November 7, 2014 by Brenton Stacey
that design exhibition

Lecturer Donna Pinter established that design in 2006 to give final-year visual communication students professional practice. Some of the studio’s best work featured in a retrospective Learning and Teaching Week exhibition in the Joanne Felk Gallery. Credit: Haley Forrester.

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A walk for water

November 7, 2014 by Brenton Stacey

Village in Nepal to benefit from student’s Sunday hike

Ellyse Brooks
Bachelor of Arts student
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

I bush-bashed from Swansea Heads, past Catherine Hill Bay and into Wybung Head on a hot and blowy Sunday. That’s 21 kilometres. I walked with containers of water over my shoulder alongside 20 other students from Avondale College of Higher Education. We walked for change. We walked for water.

Students carrying water on walk

Avondale students carried containers of water on their 21-kilometre Fit to Drink walk.

I almost caught myself complaining about the unbearableness of it all, then I had a flashback.

Four months before Fit to Drink, the name Avondale student mission club COSMOS gave to the walk, I tried to carry 30 litres of water on my head, Nepali-style. I could walk barely five metres while my 12-year-old friend walked with a full container at a steady pace. She does this every day. She held my hand as she showed me around her family’s home and its surrounds in the village of Hoxe east of the capital, Kathmandu.

My Development Field Experience classmates and I travelled to Nepal in June and July. We traversed 19 of its 75 districts to visit 15 villages, all beneficiaries of Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) projects. Hoxe would benefit from a COSMOS donation if the villagers developed a plan and received professional local advice to fund a water project.

Fit to Drink has raised more than $5000 for Hoxe. With further consultation and follow-up, COSMOS will help make the collection of safe drinking water an easier task for the villagers.

What did I learn from this uncomfortable coastal walk? We can all do something to change the world, one step at a time.

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East meets West

September 18, 2014 by Brenton Stacey

Nepalese women share maternal health message

Lawson Hull
Public relations intern
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

Three women’s rights advocates have presented a seminar at Avondale as part of an Australian speaking tour to raise awareness of maternal health in Nepal.

Women's health advocates

Rama Basnet, with daughter Dr Angela Basnet and friend Samita Pradhan, meet with lecturer Brad Watson and students to discuss women’s health in Nepal. Credit: Paris Lawrence.

Studies indicate about 600,000 women in the landlocked country suffer from uterine prolapse, says one of the advocates, Dr Angela Basnet. Young marriages and heavy workloads, particularly while pregnant, are the two main causes. The cost of the medical procedure to permanently treat it: $300.

“We need to inspire change, particularly in rural communities, by raising awareness of uterine prolapse and by helping women suffering from it receive a second life in ways that respect our culture and traditions,” says Angela, a consultant physician for the Community Service Academy Nepal.

Education, for women and men, is one of the keys to success. It will “reduce the problem, not eliminate it, and open up opportunities to help more and more women,” says Samita Pradhan, co-founder of the Centre for Agro-Ecology and Development. She speaks highly of women in Nepal, despite the way they are marginalised, describing their resilience as the factor that “will ultimately lead to change.”

Samita’s not-for-profit entity, along with the entity for which Angela works, are partners of Asian Aid, which presented the seminar. Joshua Moses is one of its communication coordinators. “If people in the West were more globally minded about people in the East,” he says, “health issues could be far closer to being cared for.”

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Artist makes mural with kiwi kids

September 4, 2014 by Brenton Stacey

Ends lecturer’s week-long school-based intensive

An Avondale visual arts lecturer has helped staff members and students from a New Zealand primary school create an outdoor painting celebrating their Christian multiculturalism.

Andy Collis and Joanne Andrews

Teacher Joanne Andrews and Andy Collis framed by their mural.

The 4.8- by 2.4-metre mural by Andy Collis and the South Auckland Seventh-day Adventist School depicts a contemporary Jesus surrounded by children in a New Zealand native fauna and flora setting. The border borrows from traditional decorative symbolism to describe the creation story.

The unveiling came at the end of a week-long art intensive Andy, with wife Sally, delivered to the school’s 305 pupils and to its teachers.

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