This month, we are celebrating International Women's Day by featuring stories of courage and determination by ordinary women who are playing extraordinary roles within our Baptist community.

Finding one’s voice – Charlene Delos Santos

Charlene’s upbringing was not a typical one. Arriving in Australia at the age of six with her parents and younger sister, her Filipino heritage has largely shaped her family’s decisions and hopes. Her early experience of church, in a predominantly white youth group, was one of being on the fringe.

“It was hard being the only Asian person in my close group of friends.”

Charlene’s good humour, and affable smile belie the struggle for identity and finding her own voice in leadership in a culture where she does not fit the status quo. A life shaped by expectations from cultural heritage along with power structures pervading Western society are shared by many who call themselves second-generation Australian. For some, this tension can be overwhelming and destructive.

However, Charlene’s love for Jesus and desire to make him known has opened up a place for ushering in peace through right relationship with God and across cultural distinctives. Towards the end of the high school, Charlene had a strong encounter with God.

“During that time, I felt so loved by my father in heaven. I felt so surrounded and embraced by his love.”

Charlene was compelled to do what she could to share God’s love with others. As a student and with the support of Scripture Union (SU), she started a prayer group in school, and ran lunch time programs. “It was hard work, and at times really disappointing, but I felt Jesus was close.”

This foray into ministry leadership brought Charlene to a point of tension with traditional expectations of her migrant family. “Even though they were Christians, there was a lot of resistance to me seeking to be in ministry. As a child of migrant parents, they were worried about me not being financially secure or having a stable job. To compromise, I ended up doing a youth work degree at RMIT, rather than studying at Bible College.”

Upon graduation, Charlene accepted a position with SU in schools ministry and ran an internship program for culturally diverse leaders. After 11 years with SU, Charlene stepped out in faith, seeking God for a workplace where culture was celebrated and affirmed.

Through God’s sovereign hand, SURRENDER Conference sought her out and Charlene is now in her fifth year on the team. Her work with SURRENDER built connections with the BUV, where she is currently coordinating IGNITE, the BUV’s annual multicultural youth conference.

Reflecting on the conference, Charlene speaks with deep understanding,

“Many of the second-generation youth at IGNITE live every day with pressure from both sides – from their parents’ or church’s cultures and from western society”.

“When they gather at the IGNITE conference, they can breathe. They feel like they can be themselves. Many are building bonds with other youths outside their church and community because they understood each other.”

Charlene describes it as not knowing where one fits in, yet also trying to integrate multiple cultural identities.

“Because of my personal journey, I am passionate to engage with and support this next generation of culturally diverse leaders.”

Charlene is working closely with the team to provide focus on international leadership development for the IGNITE leaders and for connections to be maintained beyond the conference.

Being one of the few Asian women in ministry leadership today, Charlene dream of a diverse church with more multicultural leaders – particularly female leaders.

“There are many good women leaders serving in their church communities, but there are also limitations to areas in which they can lead, many barriers and missed opportunities. Currently, there are also few role models for young second-generation leaders to follow.”

Charlene is in the continual process of deepening her relationship with Jesus and learning her own voice in leadership. But she freely admits that finding her voice in leadership has been fraught at times. The majority of leaders in meetings represent traditional Western society, and subtly hold the power of opinion. ‘When I am in a meeting, I listen to these voices in the room more than others to gauge whether I am on the right track, rather than ask, “What is my voice? What do I think?"

Charlene laments the times she has not listened to her gut and has shaped and filtered her ideas to suit what the powerbrokers may want to hear. “There are other times where I live out of that sense of what God has called me to do and be. And other times when I should have listened to my gut, but I decided to go with what I thought success looked like. And it has hurt.”

The journey to finding her voice has required self-reflection, courage and persistence. She freely admits, “It’s a challenge I’m learning to overcome!”

Charlene Delos Santos is the Co-Director of Surrender Australia and the BUV Multicultural 2nd Generation Coordinator. 

Source: BUV News

Source: BUV News

By Rev Dr John Sampson

J. D. came from Tasmania after being baptised in the Hobart Tabernacle in 1933. As a young man he served in pastorates at Deloraine and Yolla before being called to the ministry and entering the Victorian Baptist Theological College. He graduated in 1942.

After college he served in South Hobart 1943/4, and as an Interim in Hobart in 1945 before going to Devonport 1946. In 1949 he took up a position at North Adelaide and he stayed here until 1958.

He then accepted the position of secretary of the Australian Baptist Missionary Society where he served until 1983, leading the mission through the difficult transition from a colonial world to a post-colonial world. It was he who developed the policy that saw the mission aim to develop an indigenous church and get out as soon as possible, rather than continue with the colonial model where you build a local church dependent on outside leadership.

In 1984 he joined the team at North Balwyn and remained here until 1992 after which he completed his life’s work with a number of Interim ministries until the year 2000.

In all this time he remained single and I wondered how much this influenced the opportunities open to him?

We all recognise that Jesus never married but seem very hesitant to appoint people who follow his example and deliberately remain single.

Surely we do not believe that a single person is incapable of maintaining a house or cooking a meal. If we really valued them we could support them by providing home help or a housekeeper. This was suggested in a letter to the South Australian Baptist paper Truth & Progress in 1893 in a letter that bemoaned the state of affairs in which the churches are deprived of the services of a minister’s wife. To quote ‘How is it possible for her to go among the people, visit the sick and attend the various meetings of the Church when her whole time has to be given to domestic duties because she cannot afford to keep a help’.

But real life is far more complicated than this simple argument.

For example Jesus was not a lone itinerant preacher. He lived in a community made up of the disciples. Devoted men & women, who shared his life. Also when he sent his disciples out they went in pairs. So to follow biblical precedent perhaps we should look again at communal living. The Community of the Transfiguration comes to mind, but others with fewer resources may well find a share house fits the bill.

And then I discovered that JD did not live alone. He lived with his sister Leslie who maintained the house and cared for him for the whole of his time in Melbourne.

When I sent a draft of this article to the Rev. Tony Cupit he pointed out that there are many other examples of single ministers who have done great work in the BUV. To quote him;

‘Clarrie Edwards had some long and successful ministries, for example Boronia and Nth Balwyn,

 Peter Arnold ministered in churches before marrying Yvonne.  

And there have been a number of unmarried female ministers; e.g.,

Jill Manton after Peter’s death,
Marion Welford,
Marita Munro (though not in a congregation),
Sue McDonald. etc, etc’.

We could add to this the list of Deaconesses from the 1950’s as they were all expected to remain single and celibate while they served in the churches or the mission field.

Note why did Baptists only expect the deaconesses to be single and celibate while serving the church while the Roman Catholics expect both men and women to be single and celibate?   

Footnote:
If you would like more info on JD we have a good introduction to his work in his article ‘Twenty Five Years in the Australian Baptist Missionary Society’[1]. If you would like a hard copy please contact me. As treasurer of the Victorian Baptist Historical Society I can provide you with one for $20 plus postage or I could send you a digital copy for free via my email.

JD was a character and there was far more to him than you will ever find in one article but at least we have a good starting point. However there are so many others whose lives need to be celebrated.  

So please choose a subject, arrange some interviews & do a bit of research. Then pull out your laptop and start typing.

If you submit your work as an essay to the Victorian Baptist Historical Society’s Essay competition you could even earn yourself with a nice little bundle of cash for Christmas!

Source: BUV News

Bairnsdale Baptist Church have been working hard since the fires hit. Youth leader, Geoff Freiberg, has been leading teams clearing up some of the properties that were devastated by the fires. He has also been co-ordinating efforts to determine the other immediate needs. The physical needs are varied. Some have lost everything, many have lost fences (livestock are wandering), others have had all their electrical goods destroyed by power surges, and the list goes on. Where possible the church team assign a case officer to work with each family to work through the needs, look at the place of insurance, as well as the place of government funding and other agency contributions. This means they are able to co-ordinate their efforts with other agencies such as Blaze Aid and Rotary, thereby determining how their help is best utilized where the needs are unable to be met in other ways.

However, it is the generous, caring and servant-oriented spirit in which it is being done that contributes to the deep and lasting impact as people deal with the emotional and mental anguish that is a significant part of the trauma in these times.

These stories of help and assistance are your stories. Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of our Baptist family, the local church communities are able to serve in ways that would otherwise not be possible. 

"We just want to say thank you so much to our BUV family. With the bushfire relief funds being provided we feel hugely empowered to help our community recover from these terrible fires.   It is such a privilege to be able to be God’s hands and feet in such practical ways in service to those impacted by the recent fires.  We can’t thank you enough." – Geoff

Source: BUV News