All ages step out for refugee kids

When more than 40 people on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula gathered to do their own 12-kilometre Walk My Way recently through Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS), young Amos gave it his all. ‘I’m exhausted, because the walk took two hours’, he said. ‘My feet are dead. I did the walk because of people that had to run away from their homes because they were getting attacked.’

Hannah, the youngest walker in the 25 June event near Cleve, is just five. She might have had a bit of help from her dad as they walked 4 kilometres, but at the finish line she was all smiles.

But you don’t have to have young feet to Walk My Way – Carly Zacher and husband Geoff have, as she says, ‘161 years between us’.

ALWS created Walk My Way in 2017 to raise money to support refugee children to go to school. Since then, more than $960,000 has been raised by thousands of dedicated walkers and their sponsors, supporting education for tens of thousands of children in places like Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya.

During the two years of COVID restrictions on large public gatherings, ALWS developed Walk your Way, in which local groups could do their own walk, on a date, in a place and across a distance that suited them.

That’s where passionate people like Eyre Peninsula organiser, Dawn Briese, come in. ‘I did the Walk My Way in the Barossa Valley last year, and thought it was a good opportunity to bring it out to the Eyre Peninsula’, she says.

Led by Dawn’s hard work, the people of Eyre Peninsula have raised more than $6,800 – enough to support 261 refugee children to go to school!

On the weekend of the Eyre Peninsula walk, Assistant to the Bishop – International Mission Pastor Matt Anker and Julie Krause from ALWS shared how these two LCANZ agencies work side-by-side but serve differently. As International Mission supports overseas partner churches to reach out with the no-strings-attached gospel and ALWS provides no-strings-attached practical aid, our church helps bring love to life.

Love will come to life again this year, when Lutheran schools host a Walk My Way for the wider church at Victor Harbor South Australia on 21 October. The walk is being held on a Friday to maximise the number of students who can take part alongside the broader Lutheran community.

Find out more or register at www.walkmyway.org.au or phone 1300 763 407.