As the Anglican Church across Australia embraced the idea of HOPE 2025 between Easter and Pentecost, our focus has been “Being Salt and Light” to our community. Following a suggestion from the 2024 Parish Council, we focused our support even wider, to the everyday people of Ukraine. Our plan was to have a fundraiser in the form of a Charity Concert where ALL money for tickets, raffles and donations would go towards supporting the peoples of war-torn Ukraine.
God soon took us down the path of supporting the Perth Charity group “Mobile Crisis Construction” who take rubble and engineer it into bricks like Lego that join without mortar to rapidly build shelter, homes, schools and hospitals. The equipment fits amazingly into a sea container. Amazing!
Local choirs Vocal Fusion Inc and Vocal Fusion Youth Choir both jumped at the opportunity to support and perform. Personal contact with MCC Director Blake, a member of Ukrainian Folk Group “The Buevskies”, resulted in an offer to headline our concert, bringing authentic music, costumes, yummy foods and heartfelt stories of the hardships facing family members in Ukraine.
A wonderful afternoon featured an hour of a wide variety of choral songs, from classical peace songs like “Ose Shalom” and “Ave Maria” to “I am Australian” from the Youth Choir before joining together for “What a Wonderful World”.
The second hour featured beautiful Ukrainian singing and music from the 6-member folk band.
All involved were thrilled to donate the amount of $5026 to the worthwhile charity, and we pray God will continue use us and these gifts to help the less fortunate people of Ukraine through the work of our Christian friends at MCC, spreading Salt and Light across the world.
