This is part of a series of articles by Rachel Winn (member of St Mark’s, Picton), helping us to get to know other Church members.

“I grew up in Earlwood, Sydney and most of my life has been in the Inner West. I came from a family of 3 girls. My father was a POW in Changi during WWII and he was often not well (during my upbringing),  having suffered a lot of ill health as a consequence of being in Singapore, Burma and Japan during the war. He most probably had PTSD but we didn’t know it then – it was just described as having bad nerves. So we had to keep very calm in the house. My mother looked after everything and kept us interested in school and helped us do our homework, insisting we had good grammar! She supported us in all the extra activities that we wanted to do. I was always interested in dance, starting ballet classes at 7 years old. And while I played piano and also picked up cello, the dancing was what continued; I always really loved ballet, tap and jazz. 

My mum was a very keen member of the Presbyterian church, so we went to church every Sunday. That was something I continued doing,  even though my sisters didn’t. I always wanted to learn about God and drifted into Sunday School teaching, which meant I wasn’t able to sit in church because there was only a Sunday morning service. I did want to grow in my faith and the catalyst for me was the 1979 Billy Graham crusade. While there I was thinking, “Well, I don’t need to go forward and make a commitment,” but when Billy said, “If you want to publicly declare your faith, come forward,” I thought, well that’s what I want to do. I publicly declared my faith! Through that the church, my school ISCF and my family found out because they sent all these letters! After this I officially joined church and also went to the local Anglican church’s youth group and a bible study there. My understanding of Christ’s love and sacrifice really grew after that. I’d felt like I was a Christian already and knew a lot about Christian things, but I had so much more to learn!”

How am I going:  “I like to ground myself in God’s Word. One bible verse that really helps me (because I get quite anxious about things) is Proverbs 3 verses 5 & 6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not unto your own understandings . Acknowledge him in all your ways and he will direct your paths.” I frequently return to this:  trusting in God in everything. It’s challenging because you do want to take the reins of your life and lean on your own understanding and your own interpretation of a situation. Sometimes I do forget to acknowledge God, or I might pray about things and forget to thank him, or  just don’t see that he’s actually been there with me. By acknowledging him, trusting in him for everything, and not leaning on my own understanding he has directed my paths. You can look back on your life and see lots of ways that through God’s grace he has directed those he Ioves where he wants them to go. We still go through hard times and struggles, but the bible says that we learn through trials. become stronger and learn to rely on him more. At the moment I have a job that’s in Westmead, so I live in Sydney during the week. I’d really like to have a job that’s closer, so I’m trusting God at the moment that I will find something closer to home. Then I can be in Picton during the week, be more of a part of the church and build up friendships here (in Picton). I’m praying for this, or maybe God will guide me to stay where I am!”

How am I growing: “I listen to sermons in the car, like those by Simon Manchester on 103.2. I go to church weekly and love getting to know the faithful saints down at (St Mark’s) Picton. I am missing being a part of a bible study but I keep in touch with my Christian friends and we pray for each other.  I’m thankfully seeing how God is answering prayers in our lives. I regularly read the bible and am reading through Ephesians at the moment. Sometimes I pick up a Christian book, but I do try to read the bible every day.”

— Gillian Bale, member of 9:30am @ St Mark’s Anglican Church, Picton.

This is the second in a series of articles by Rachel Winn (member of St Mark’s, Picton), helping us to get to know other Church members.

“It was always a dream of mine to own a horse and to live on property. After Dave & I were married, we eventually had the opportunity to move out here to Wilton in the year 2000, the Olympic Year. We bought our first horses, with varying degrees of success! I’ve had a few accidents on horses that weren’t suitable for me. Now we have two beautiful stock horses we named Reuben and Maggie, after Dave’s grandparents. Horse riding is a big part of my leisure time. We don’t compete or anything, it’s just recreational riding and we train them in natural horsemanship, building a relationship with the horses and asking them to partner with us rather than forcing them to do the things that we want to do. It’s something that I love, and Dave loves, and we do it together.
As a child I was quite shy. A bit of a loner, I wasn’t one to have lots of friends; I sort of clung to one or two. I hated getting in trouble. One of my earliest memories is from kindergarten, sitting on the mat with Mrs. Pasfield. I was fiddling with the fringe on the mat and she smacked my hand. I’ve always been one to follow the rules since then. And maybe that’s got something to do with why I chose to be a Police Officer as a profession! I joined the Police Force pretty much straight after leaving school, so I was only 21 when they gave me a gun to protect the world. I did about 2 or 3 years in general duties around the Sutherland Shire and then got sent to the Court Unit section. I had the choice of working in the prison van transporting prisoners, or working in the cells feeding the prisoners. And the other choice was court. I’ve been a Police Prosecutor now for probably 25 years, currently still working part-time, attached to the Narellan / Camden police area (which incorporates Picton). I mostly work out of Picton court. If you ever go to Picton court on a Wednesday – I hope you don’t – you might see me there!
I always believed in God, so bible verses that talk about being chosen, I can sort of relate to because neither of my parents were Christians. They always wanted us to have good friends, and I suppose to be morally taught well, and encouraged us to go to youth groups and church and things like that. Much to their annoyance in later years, my sisters and myself were all Christians and our parents weren’t, though we were always encouraging them to think about God and to come to church and investigate what God had to offer. I remember, at different times as a teenager, going to church and committing or recommitting my life to God after a particular sermon or something really touched my heart. In GFS (Girls Friendly Society), I remember the first bible verse I learned, where God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.””. Verses about light and being a light always were extra meaningful to me. I think my faith is something that has grown over the years as I’ve learned what it means to put my trust in God.”
How am I going: “I’m in a bit of a transition period at the moment in quite a few different respects: in work, in my health and spiritually a little bit too. Health-wise, I’ve just had a few incidents which I’m getting investigated at the moment and I feel a bit up in the air about where that’s going to head. But that’s okay, God’s got all of that under control! Work-wise, I’m in the process of thinking about retiring from the police and transitioning out of the workforce into something else. Last year I did a course in professional pastoral supervision.  I have a passion for helping ministers and church workers to reflect on their ministry and work life so that they can stay serving God for the long haul and not burn out. Spiritually, I’ve just been thinking about where God wants me to serve this year and about different creative ways that I can serve… phone call ministry, or something like that! We’ve had our granddaughter and our daughter living with us for a few months while they prepare to move overseas. We’ve been able to have really quality time with them. That’s another transition moment and we feel that we just want to spend as much time with them as we can while they’re here with us. Being a grandparent has just been the biggest blessing ever and something to give thanks to God for every day.”
How am I growing: “Because of all these challenges and changes I’ve been growing spiritually. I think that always strengthens your faith a little bit. I’ve started this little thing:  I’ve got into the habit of looking up words that I don’t understand and I often find that words mean something totally different to what I thought they meant in their written context. Even just words that I read in the bible – like peace and joy and comfort – I’ll look up their meaning. What does it actually feel like to feel joy and what does joy mean as a Christian? Or peace? Or comfort? So I think that’s been really good for me, growing in that way and understanding those simple words that you take for granted. Dave and I both do a morning and night bible meditation on an app. That’s been really helpful for reflecting on our day and how God’s been working in our lives, how we can serve him, as well as reflecting on forgiveness and confession and things like that. I feel like I’ve been growing and moving closer towards God and trusting him through the uncertainty that I feel at the moment. And I’m sort of excited a bit too by what God’s got in store – because I just have no idea what the year is going to look like!”

— Carol Parnell, member of 5:00pm @ Wilton Anglican Church