Assembly '97 News Home page Documents next story		Tears of forgiveness Tuesday, July 8 Introduced as a living story of the stolen generation, Rev Sealin Garlett, moved the Assembly to tears yesterday. In a hushed auditorium, Sealin began his story at a corroboree he was taken to by his uncle as a young boy in 1965. "My job as a little boy was to get the wood, to start the fire, and then when everything was in place this old man would sing," he said. "Then he said to us boys 'you've got to follow my footsteps'. "I remembered that corroboree six months later when welfare came and picked us up and took us to Mogumber. I remember that corroboree. I was a young aboriginal boy just beginning to learn how to step into manhood, but I was taken away to a mission. "The government gave me a bible — Good News for Modern Man. I remember reading that bible from Matthew to Revelation and I thought 'Gee, I've accomplished something that's good in the white person's world. "They never ever took me back to my land — but I struggled hard because I had an Aboriginal spirit." When Sealin did return to his homeland, he was embittered by his experiences. "One thing when I got back home, I didn't want to go back to church," Sealin continued. "I thought the white people had a funny Jesus. But when my wife told me there was an Aboriginal guy preaching I went to listen. "It was in 1979 that I met a man called Jesus Christ. I came out of that church building and I said I wanted to start an Aboriginal church. "I felt something inside that I didn't want to join the white people." Sealin was then asked to be a pastor in Queensland at a church which had 1000 Aboriginal and just a few non-Aboriginal members. Later, in 1988, he was asked to preach on reconciliation just before he spoke he heard a voice. "It said 'Sealin, you haven't crossed the line!' You see, for 12 years I had been working with the assumption I was going to be a minister to my Aboriginal people. "I wanted to study for them but this voice said 'you haven't crossed the line!' I knew who that voice was. "For 12 years he'd allowed me to stay where I was comfortable with but he said you must now step out for me. That day I said 'Yes Lord, I want to do that'. I wept and wept and wept. "It was just that standing up and telling God that I forgive the white people. I forgive them and I love them. They take a lot from me but I still told God I love them and he's taken me in steps from there on." Rev Bernie Clarke of the South Australian Synod also shared a story of his implication in the stolen generations. "I was also at Mogumber when Sealin Garlett was there," he said. "But I was in the superintendent's house — my father was the superintendent.

"The Uniting Church affirms that it belongs to the people of GOD on the way to the promised end." Basis of Union, Revised edition published 1992