‘HEY, Dad, this is the ‘God Lady’ I was telling you about …’ That’s how one youngster described Wendy Greasley, a religious education (RE) teacher in state schools in Pine Rivers parish, north of Brisbane.
The boy was excited for his father to meet the ‘God Lady’ when he spotted her at the shopping centre. She was the one who had been visiting his school for one class a week to teach him about God.
Wendy, who has been an RE teacher in state schools for 15 years and now co-ordinates the Pine Rivers team, says it is common for children from her classes to come running up to her when she is out shopping, wanting to introduce her to their parents.
It is the kind of experience that tells her how important her role is and that she is having a positive influence.
‘With the little ones, even if they can’t remember your name but they know you’re teaching them about God, that’s the important thing,’ she said.
Brisbane Catholic Education’s field officer for state schools, parish and family RE, Carole Danby says there are far too few ‘God Ladies’ and ‘God Men’ to reach out to the thousands of state school students in need of hearing the Good News.
At the start of a new school year, parishes throughout the archdiocese are desperate for volunteers to fill the gap.
Carole says that is always the case but the situation is even more critical these days.
She said it was vital to the future of parishes that they make this a high priority commitment to young people.
With more and more of these children missing from Sunday congregations, they will grow up having no contact with the Church if parishes are not outreaching and present in state schools.
‘They’re the second generation un-Churched. Their parents don’t have the language of Church … and the grandparents are often not living nearby,’ Carole said.
‘Children are getting further and further away from Church practice and Church community. It’s an urgent priority.’
People like Wendy come face to face with that need in the classroom every week.
‘Some kids don’t know about God or Jesus. With the younger ones, they sing Christmas carols at the end of the year but they don’t know about Christian beliefs and morals – that God made the world and we need to care about it and each other.
‘Even if that’s all they get from our classes – that we need to be a loving, caring community – that’s worth it.’
Wendy, a mother and teacher, volunteered because she always loved being with children and she believed teaching RE in state schools was ‘such an important thing to do’.
She had taught in a Catholic school and she realised it was just as important that children in state schools ‘get to hear about God’.
‘I feel I have to do it. It’s what God wants me to do at the moment.
‘Jesus told us to go out in twos and teach the Good News. Catholics and Christians are missionary.
‘I can’t go over to Africa and I probably couldn’t go to Rosies but this is how I can be missionary.’
Wendy said many volunteers were needed in her area.
‘I’m teaching 16 classes this year, simply because we can’t get anyone else to do it,’ she said.
Another who answered the call 23 years ago was John Mullane, a staff referral officer with Australia Post, who is allowed time off work each week to run an ecumenical RE class in a special education unit at an inner city school.
He started by volunteering to take over a class from his wife, Cecilia, and has continued because he realises that without these RE classes ‘the kids miss out’.
‘Some people think you’ve got to have a degree in theology to do this but it’s just people relaying what they live out in their lives,’ John said.
He said the children may have vague concepts about God and Jesus but few of them have any involvement with Church at weekends.
‘In a group of nine, I might have one – two at the outside – who have contact with Church at the weekends.’
John, who is a parishioner at Newmarket, remembers taking a class to visit a church, ‘to let them see what it was like, because many of them had never been inside a church’.
‘This might be the only contact they have with religion, with God … I see this as an opportunity to tell them something about God in the hope they might take something away,’ he said.
‘You’re planting a seed. I’m only part of it, but there’s going to be others in their life who are going to continue that on.’
Anyone interested in volunteering or wanting more information about becoming an RE teacher in state schools can phone Carole Danby on (07) 3840 0504.
