“Of course it rained—we made plans.”

Australian Lutheran World Service’s (ALWS) Walk My Way is an event Concordia has been involved in for many years. This year we planned two major walks during the last week of Term 1 to raise money for the work of ALWS, especially to help send refugee children to school in East Africa—this year with a focus on girls.

Then came the rain…

Sadly, we had to postpone our Concordia Campus walk in the Adelaide Hills until Term 2, which was a disappointing result for our 25 Year 7–12 students who had volunteered to walk from Balhannah to Lobethal.

The previous day was planned to be a combined Primary School walkathon day where all students were to walk together at St John’s Campus or through the Waite Arboretum at Urrbrae. The threat of rain caused St Peters Campus to stay put at Blackwood and we forfeited our walk to the Arboretum. Unperturbed, both campuses made alternative plans to ensure the walks were completed. At St Peters Campus, before the heavens opened, students walked around the adjoining Blackwood footy oval. Meanwhile, at St John’s Campus our younger students did many laps of the College oval and the older students did 1.3km laps around the adjacent suburban streets.

While raising money is an important part of this event, creating awareness for the plight of refugee children is critical. Students were able to engage in fun learning activities led by our teachers and staff from ALWS as well as hearing a talk about how the money we raise makes such a big difference to many young lives. We even had a small lunch of a handful of rice to remind students of the meagre amount of food many of these young people must live on (thanks to members of St John’s Lutheran Church and Principal Ali at St Peters Campus for cooking the rice).

At the time of writing, we have raised over $11,000 and hopefully this will grow when the Concordia Campus students complete their walk. On behalf of ALWS, we are so thankful to our whole Concordia community who have, once again, so generously donated to this important project.

He will be kind to the weak and poor.
He will save their lives.
He will save them from cruel people who try to hurt them.
Their lives are precious to him. 
– Psalm 73:13-14

Mark Rathjen
Chaplain – St John’s Campus