By Madeleine Collins

“Life is better here,” says Sophie Rajdev, as he pushes his daughter on the swings at the park across from his Liverpool flat. It is a windy, humid Sunday, his one day off in a long working week.
That morning, his family, wife Pinky, a high school economics teacher, and daughter Jesswy, had been to church at St Anne’s, Hammondville, where they have become committed members of the Indian Sub Continent congregation.
The young family is from central India and migrated to Australia last year. “I was not knowing anyone in Australia, nobody,” Sophie says. The Radjevs are proof that parish-based practical care for migrants is effective in working alongside government programs, and can grow churches when the whole parish is behind it.
St Anne’s has a new community worker in the ‘transitions’  program, Sneha David, whose aim is to reach out to more families like the Rajdevs by drawing on her own experience as a new migrant six years ago. The program, which helps new Indian migrants find jobs, accommodation, and furniture and gives social support in the absence of family networks, is funded from the Archbishop of Sydney’s Appeals Unit Community Care and Development program. And it is expanding – a jobseekers course will start next month.
The Rajdevs story is one of God’s unfailing care for them, Sophie says. On the plane to Sydney he met a passenger who told them Liverpool, home to Sydney’s largest Indian community, was the best choice for cheap rent. He fell into conversation with a stranger on the train within a day of arriving, who took him to a migrant resource centre, where he was put in touch with the parish.  A church member they had never met offered the family free lodging in her home. And they have never looked back. “The church is very supportive,” Sophie said. “We would have been lonely. They know what difficulties we will be facing.”
Assistant Minister at Moorebank-Hammondville, the Rev Manoj Chacko, coordinates Transitions. He says the church has seen many Hindu families and nominal Christians accept Christ.Migrants are also encouraged to support mission back in India. It is hoped that with the addition of Sneha, more families on the fringe of the community will become involved in church life.
Manoj cites a Hindu family that have claimed refugee status who recently became Christians, and had their two children baptised at St Anne’s. “These migrant families experience unemployment, pain, loneliness and cultural isolation,” he said. “We want to reach out to people of Hindu background who will be able to acknowledge Christ as Lord.”