There is a small but not insignificant tree newly planted in a garden in the Alpine region of northern Victoria, Australia. It is young and fragile and it represents for some the start of a new relationship between white and Aboriginal Australians.
At the planting, which was part of a service of worship, a senior white woman, Honor Thwaites, handed the tree to Aboriginal hosts Reg and Walda Blow. 'My great grandfather took thousands of acres of land which belonged to your people,' she said. 'As a result they destroyed your culture. Tribal territories were broken up and consequently thousands of your people died. I want to ask your forgiveness, personally and on behalf of all of us here who are beginning to understand the wrongs your people have suffered.'
Blow responded, 'We can forgive, as Jesus taught us. I'm sure this Bicentennial year is meant to be one where we grow together, and we cannot do that if we have deficiencies such as guilt or bitterness between us.' Mrs Blow added, 'This is a wonderful gift for repentance, because a tree is a gift of Biami - the name for God in some Aboriginal languages. I believe it is a piece of the bridge that we hope to build between our peoples.'
The ceremony, attended by over 200 people, was the climax of a week-long New Year family-style camp. It was the latest in a series of such Jungais (an Aboriginal word for getting together and having fun).
Each morning giants fell, evil was faced and vanquished and pitfalls surmounted, as daily adaptations of Pilgrim's Progress were acted out by some of the 70 under 17. Sessions on subjects like honesty, faith and commitment produced hard thinking and sometimes painful exchanges of experience that always brought newness of life and conviction. 'A miracle has happened to me this week,' exclaimed one woman, as she described steps she would take to heal the hurts in her family.
Perspectives on some of the world's needs, as well as seeds of hope, came from many. There were the two young Cambodian women from a refugee camp in Thailand, 10 from Papua New Guinea, a family from the USA and an Australian Sri Lanka couple, newly returned from a mission of reconciliation there. As the mother of several teenage children said, 'I have allowed my vision to be so foreshortened by family matters that I had lost hope. Here I have been given it back again.'
Among the talks, mountain hikes, swimming in a large disused quarry 95 feet deep, fun and games, there was also space for silence, and the opportunity for individual communication with God alone. A young man summed it up, 'I found the Jungai a completely new experience that threw light on many questions. I left in a new frame of mind, enthusiastic about the future.'
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