Indigenous garden takes shape in Rotary Park
Warragul Rotarians have been busy over the past few months with development of the Indigenous garden at Rotary Park.
Last week, Rotarians and community members came together for a barbecue to celebrate their efforts and the planting of trees as part of the Queen’s Jubilee Program.
The program provided $17,000 funding to plant trees, creating a woodland area in the northwest corner of the garden.
Featured in the garden are six large carved totems and seating in the centre circle, which many attendees saw for the first time at the celebration.
The totems were designed by Dr Aunty Eileen Harrison, whose painting “Art from the Air” is the basis of the garden’s design, and carved by local chainsaw sculptor Paul Stafford. Mr Stafford created the totems in his studio in Noojee.
The celebration saw the seating and yarning circle used to tell the stories of the totems and the animals carved on them.
Construction of the garden paths central circle was funded by Baw Baw Shire Council and the Rotary Club of Warragul.
Baw Baw Shire mayor Annemarie McCabe said it was exciting to see the progress that’s already taken place as part of the Indigenous Art Garden.
“This project draws inspiration from a painting by local artist Dr Aunty Eileen Harrison and once complete will provide space for the community to connect with and care for the environment.
“It’s fantastic to be part of this incredible project that acknowledges our local Kurnai people as well as the valuable service of the Rotary Club of Warragul and we look forward to its completion.
“Well done to all involved for their outstanding efforts over the weekend,” she said.
The garden is intended to celebrate the the culture of the Kurnai people, and was an idea first formulated as part of the Warragul Rotary Club’s celebration of 100 years of Rotary in Australia.
After Dr Harrison’s artwork was selected as the basis for the garden’s design, local landscape architect Prue Metcalfe was engaged to translate the piece into a plan for the park.
For several months, Rotary Club members and community members have been working hard to bring the garden to life, planting trees, building pathways and placing mulch.
An official opening of the park will be held later in the year when all works are completed.
“It was a bit crazy, but that’s what you do.”
Those are the words of local pastor, the Reverend Stephen ‘Steve’ Jones, who recently had the opportunity to travel to Zambia on a three-week retreat to train 100 pastors on how to interpret and teach the Bible.
Having been a pastor at Drouin Presbyterian Church since 2019, Steve has become well-known to many people in the community as a shoulder to lean on.
And when the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) reached out to the Victorian denomination asking for help, he couldn’t help but answer the call.
“I’d been thinking about it for a while,” he says when asked whether he’d thought about taking his talents overseas before.
“I’ve been trained by some of the best people in Australia to do what I do.
“Overseas they are very limited in who they can get to train people, so I felt that I’ve been given this good ability do things and I should use that to encourage and train others who don’t have what we have.”
With Hawthorn Presbyterian Church’s the Reverend Graham Nicholson, Steve set out and found an experience unlike any other he’d had before.
The pair, who Steve describes as a bit of an “odd couple,” travelled through the country to give their pastors a greater understanding of how to fulfil their roles.
While Graham taught them about the counselling side of being a pastor, Steve was in charge of teaching them “how to understand and apply and interpret the Old Testament.”
In particular, he says, it was important they understood how the individual stories of the Bible played into the bigger picture of Jesus.
“They responded really well.
They were eager to learn, they’re humble and they were just really excited that someone had come,” he says.
“In their mind it was ‘you loved us enough to come and help us’ and from my perspective it was an easy thing to do, but from theirs they took it very deeply to heart that people over here would care about them over there.”
During their travels, however, Steve says the culture shock was something that took some getting used to, particularly with how poor Zambia is.
“It’s the strangeness of the things you can’t see in photos. It’s the smells and the feels and the sounds and the things of just being in a different culture that I hadn’t experienced,” he elaborates.
“It’s a beautiful and peaceful community, there’s a sense of ‘I care for you no matter who you are’,
“I love Australia, I’m Australian through and through, but there’s a sense of community there that we just don’t have, or maybe we had but we lost.”
One of the more remarkable things about the trip is that Steve almost didn’t make his Australian departure.
Just days before he and Graham were due to begin their 50-hour journey to Africa, Steve collapsed in church, having contracted viral meningitis.
Lying in hospital and with his doctor telling him there was no way he could go, all Steve could do was accept the prayers of the community.
A few days later, however, things took a turn, and he was able to make the journey with few problems.
“It felt like God wanted me there so this was his confirmation of ‘let’s do it’,” he says.
Since returning from his retreat, Steve has an appreciation for the little things he didn’t before.
“It gave me a new appreciation for everything I have and it gave me an appreciation for what you can actually do with so little as well,” he says.
“There are so many things that we just don’t need here and they’re so desperate for things there.”
Steve also now has an admiration for the “incredible resilience” of the people he met along the way.
“They keep going and they keep going with a smile on their face.
It’s really impressive,”
“They’re the people who have nothing but everything at the same time.”
He now hopes to take the things he’s discovered in his time away and use them in his own preaching at Drouin, and admits he may have “learned more than (I) taught.”
“It’s easy for us to get weary in doing good, but in Zambia they are constantly weary yet they continue to do good and that’s impressive and inspiring.”