A Daughter for the Bishop
When I was studying to be a minister of the Gospel, my student churches were two adjacent wooden churches in the inner slum areas of Melbourne. For seven years during the 1950’s and 1960’s the people of those inner slum areas were my parish.
At different times while I was a student minister at the churches in Newmarket and Ascot Vale I have mentioned the wonderful support that I gained from my girlfriend Beverley. We had started going together when we were both thirteen years of age. The very day I had decided to leave the Box Hill Church of Christ Sunday School, in a fit of pique over not being awarded first prize for attendance and excellence in Sunday School lessons, I saw a new girl walk into the Sunday School Hall door. She had lovely ash blonde hair, and as she stood in the light of the door it seemed as if there was a golden glow about her.
My plans to leave the Sunday School were abandoned immediately, and I went over and introduced myself to her Mother and offered to escort her to the appropriate Sunday School class, which of course was mine. Her Mother asked if we had a Christian Endeavour in the church, which we did, but I was not a member of that group. Seizing an opportunity immediately I replied, “Yes, we have a very good Christian Endeavour, and as a matter of fact I am going this Friday night. If you like, I will make sure your daughter is introduced to everybody and I will see that she is brought home safely.” Considering I was only thirteen years of age myself it was rather a rash promise.
In spite of a few hiccups, with a few other people wandering in and out of the scene, we started to go steady and have been doing so ever since.
While I was studying to be a minister Beverley was teaching Sunday School at Box Hill Church of Christ, leading a large girls club, and very active in a number of youth activities. On a Sunday afternoon she would catch the train out to Newmarket, where she would join me for our Sunday afternoon youth programmes or visitation to the homes of members, and then the evening service.
There was a great deal of rejoicing after my first year as a student minister when we announced our engagement. The churches, when we went there, were mainly filled with older people and they took a great deal of delight in the young fiancee of their student minister. As the next few years went by and our youth work built to some considerable strength, Beverley played a very active role in the youth programming.
When we were married the church again delighted in our wedding and looked forward to the coming for their first married minister for more than forty years. We lived with my grandmother in Moonee Ponds sharing one of the small worker’s cottages of two bedrooms a lounge room which became my study and our common sitting room, and a shared kitchen. This became the centre of much of our youth work and church ministries. Here people came for counselling, young people gathered after church, and together we planned our youth activities, Bible teaching programmes, youth camps, and a large central city youth rally which I used to compere.
But probably Beverley’s most important task in the first three years of our married life was to earn a full wage while confidential secretary to the managing director of a Melbourne firm, to support me while I was still a part time student at Melbourne University. If it had not been for her income, I would never have been able to graduate in the time span that I did. While I was a part time minister upon graduation from the College of The Bible, I was still a full time university student, and Beverley’s support in sitting up late at night typing essays and a thesis was essential to my university development.
But she was also very actively involved in every other way of the church. She also taught Sunday School, helped with the youth club, organised church activities, shared in the women’s work, supplied suppers without number, helped us in keeping the weeds off the church tennis court and gardens, and generally taking part in every kind of activity within the church life.
We had great delight in establishing a Young Adult Fellowship, and our car was always full of either elderly people being taken home from a function, or young people who were going for a night out somewhere.
We had very little money in spite of her salary because of the cost of establishing a home and buying university books and establishing our ministry. Beverley was always making clothes, having been taught by her mother not only the skills of cooking but what has been a blessing ever since, the remarkable talent of being able to make and to sew.
After three years of marriage we were absolutely delighted when she became pregnant and our first child was on the way.
That did not stop her, however, standing with me during her pregnancy up the 35 foot ladder while we painted the inside of the church, nor did it stop her being involved in all of our other activities.
Our one bedroom apartment was obviously too small for the coming baby, and the church worked together with great delight to get our first manse in forty years. It was a small brick building, but one of the nicest in the street and we felt proud as any young couple could be when we officially opened the manse and established the first full time ministry in the inner suburban areas for those four decades. I spent many nights setting up my study and making bookcases and then, in a great labour of love, making a wooden drop side cot for the new baby. That wooden cot has travelled with us ever since, and became the cot into which we laid four babies over the next eight years. And the cot, still in its original colours, slept ten granchildren whenever they came to stay overnight. Today, disassembled, it lies in piece3s in the roof of our barn, awaiting the first great grandchild.
When the time of the birth of our first child came, it was as you might expect, on a Sunday. It happened to be a very busy Sunday in the life of the church and Beverley told me that the warning signs of the imminent arrival of a very big baby were already beginning to show. During the afternoon she told me that she was sure that she would need to go to hospital in a few hours. That would be right in the middle of the evening service. I told her to try to hang on if she could, and I would get the service finished as soon as possible, and then take her to hospital. That was exactly what we did. Finished the service, in somewhat of a hurry, then picked up the packed case which had been waiting for several weeks and headed off to hospital.
The baby certainly was on the way and we had little time to spare.
The birth of our daughter, Jenny, occurred in Bethesda Hospital, Melbourne, a magnificent Salvation Army hospital which specialised in maternity work. Of course Jenny was the most beautiful daughter we had ever seen, was nine and a half pounds in weight and very healthy.
When the time came to leave the hospital I went down to visit the Major in charge of the hospital to pay the hospital bill. I had been amazed how gracious the Salvation Army people were in the hospital, and with what fuss they greeted us every time I came to visit, and with what care they provided for Beverley and the new born baby. It really was beyond all that we expected. As a young minister I was not used to receiving any kind of special support or preference, but they treated us with a great deal of courtesy and consideration. I marvelled at the Salvation Army’s willingness to provide us with such extra care.
In the office of the Director of Nursing, I received my bill. Somewhat embarrassed the Major indicated, “And I have deducted 10% from the bill in appreciation for having such a distinguished person in our midst, Your Grace.” I looked up at her totally confused. I looked down at the account, and there on the top line was written ‘Account rendered to Bishop Moyes’.
The Salvation Army Major looked up at me and said, “What I admire about the Anglican Church since we have had you in the hospital, and I have seen you coming every day to visit your wife, is that the Anglican Church is so progressive. Fancy a young man like you already appointed a bishop.”
I then realized that she had mistaken me for my famous namesake, Bishop Moyes of the Anglican Church.
She was so pleased that the hospital had such ecumenical support, that I did not dare break the illusion by confessing that I was not even an Anglican. Apart from that I did appreciate receiving the 10% discount!
I wrote out a cheque and across the account I wrote ‘Paid in deepest appreciation’ and signed it simply ‘Moyes’ and underneath made a cross, the typical symbol of a bishop, and wrote ‘Newmarket’ as my Diocese!
As the years have gone by I have preached so often in Salvation Army Citadels, at conferences and clergy retreats, that I wonder if my extraordinary affection for and relationship with the Salvation Army might be because no one has ever told them any different and they still think that I am the Anglican Bishop!
For forty-six years Beverley and I have shared an extraordinarily happy marriage, and throughout all of that time in each of our ministries she has worked consistently and voluntarily in all the activities of our churches. While she has always declared that her first task was to be wife and mother of our family, she has always taken an active part in youth activities, Sunday Schools, children’s programming, women’s groups and has developed an incredible capacity to care for people. For many years she constantly provided meals for derelicts and transients who would come to our door, counselling for distressed people who would come seeking help while I was out visiting others, and the sympathetic ear and a good cup of tea helped many people through a troubled part of their life.
Over the years a number of people have come to stay with us while they were nursed during ill health. The frail and sick elderly lady, who had first helped us buy our engagement ring, from the church of Newmarket through to the young, tough cocaine addict who arrived on a motor bike after I had talked him out of committing suicide.
In more recent years Beverley has adopted a number of projects at Wesley Mission. Our biggest challenge came when the government asked if we could look after some orphaned Vietnamese boys who had been washed up in a small boat on the north coast of Western Australia. Their parents had been murdered by the China Sea pirates, and ill and frail the Australian Government had accepted these orphans. They asked us if we would care for them and Beverley readily agreed. The only problem was that there were more than thirty of them. But she organised the collection from hundreds of donors of everything we needed for those boys, their bed linen, blankets, clothing, underwear, school supplies, books, encyclopaedia, table tennis and sporting goods and, over the next years, we saw each of those young men complete their HSC and go on to become engineers, doctors, mechanics, restaurant owners and social workers.
Apart from that she has become the head of our largest fund raising programme and as President of the Spring Fair Committee has raised more money as a volunteer than any other woman in Australia for charitable works.
To date, she and her band of helpers have raised more than $3.5 million clear of costs to support the work of Wesley Mission in helping the poor, the homeless, the aged, and the children without parents. This has been a marvellous voluntary effort and the Mission deeply appreciates her continuing involvement.
For many years a dear lady from Petersham has purchased costume jewellery seconds from manufacturers, and has spent thousands of hours using her skills to repair and make ready for sale this costume jewellery. Beverley has then sold it on stalls in the street, and in Wesley Centre, and raised more than $20,000 from ear rings and necklaces.
It has been a long time since we first began ministry together caring for people in the slums of Newmarket. But the community knows and recognises such consistent long term effort and I knew the day would come when her ministry was recognised for the tremendous contribution she has made over all these years. The Bicentennial Authority would elect her one of the ten most significant women in Australia. The City of Sydney would proclaim her “Citizen of the Year”, and her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, would make her a Member of the Order of Australia. A.M.
Little did we realize what would lie ahead when we first began attending those evening services in the little church at Newmarket, when Beverley would return to the railway station to catch her train back to Box Hill, and I would go out into the night air with the wind blowing from the abattoirs and start my motor bike to head back to the College of The Bible to continue to train for the ministry thinking about my meeting with some of God’s children in the slums of Newmarket.
GORDON MOYES
