Chaplain

Our Winter School students have been learning all sorts of life skills especially around living in community and being independent. I have had a few days at Winter School speaking with students and hearing them reflecting on their experiences.

On Monday night we had a community chapel which was more interactive than we usually can do in Sydney. Students engaged with the reading, posing questions and answering each other’s queries. Callum Wardman-Browne accompanied us on the piano as we sang, which was both generous and brave. One student reflected, “I really miss chapel, I miss the time to reflect”.

In the beautiful surroundings of Winter School there is so much to reflect on and praise God for. This has been accentuated by a late season snowfall. The beauty of the pure white flakes floating down and coating everything is a fine powder of glistening white brings out the child-like delight in us all.

The beauty reminded me of the verse in scripture Isaiah 1:18 “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;” The snow covers the trees the rocks and the ground so that the familiar colours of the Australian terrain disappear and white glistens all around. This is the image God wants us to visualise. God sees the darkness and red stain of guilt with in all of us, yet He is determined to provide a way for each of us to be cleansed as pure as the snow. It costs him, in the death of Jesus but he longs for each of us to be made clean and restored to a relationship with him and so we will be white as snow and yet to him even more beautiful.

Blessings

Ms Bronwyn Lihou
Senior Campus Chaplain
blihou@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9968 9830

Ms Fiona McKenzie
Junior Campus Chaplain
fmckenzie@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9953 6022