LCA Ordination – Welcome To Country
‘Welcome’. ‘It is good you all come to this place (Kaurna land and Country) on which we meet today’. ‘Let us walk in harmony together’.
With these few sentences, spoken in the Kaurna tongue, Rosalind Coleman (Narrunga/Kaurna woman) provided a Welcome to Country’ welcoming participants and attendees as they met together on Kaurna land on which the Concordia Chapel, Unley SA, sits. The occasion was the 2020 LCA ordination service, Sunday 6 December.
As an Aboriginal woman of faith, Mrs Coleman followed the welcome with an acknowledgement of our Triune God – creator of heaven and earth and His sovereignty over all. She continued, God has allowed others to migrate to these shores, but as First Nations people he has given responsibility to the Kaurna peoples, the Custodians and protectors of Kaurna Country, the stewardship of the lands and waters of the Adelaide Plains. ‘The cultural heritage and beliefs’, Rosalind concluded as she paid her respects to the Elders, past, present and emerging, ‘are still as important to the Kaurna peoples today as they always have been’.
