When St Anne’s, Ryde recently hosted a 51-strong confirmation service, people’s joy was all the greater to know well over half of the confirmees were from non-English speaking backgrounds who’ve only recently come to faith.

The service was conducted in both English and Mandarin. Thirty members from Impact, the church’s Mandarin-speaking congregation, were confirmed on the day.

“Normally we don’t have any confirmations at all, but we had this group of people who were all interested at the same time and we decided to run our own confirmation course – which we did in both English and Mandarin,” says the rector of St Anne’s, the Rev Greg Burke. “There was an interest not only in the core parts of the Christian faith, but also what it means to be an Anglican. I think that was particularly true among the Chinese group just because the whole Anglican thing is fairly new to a lot of them.”

Another seven of those confirmed were refugees from Iran – many of whom have been involved at St Anne’s since receiving temporary refugee visas some years ago. Other members of the cohort were from the church’s English-speaking congregation.

“We had quite a lot of family and supporters come along, which was good to see,” Mr Burke says. “Many of the Chinese folk don’t have extended family in Australia with them but they brought friends along, and we had most of the church turn up as well. We also had a good time together afterwards, with a mix of traditional Chinese food and Anglo fare for lunch.

“We make an effort throughout the year to have time when the whole church comes together, and this was a good example of that.“

Among the confirmees were Pastor Kau Lee, who is a lay stipendiary worker at St Anne’s overseeing the Impact congregation, and Pastor Tay Un Hui, an honorary associate at St Anne’s who works with the Mission to Seafarers. 

Photo: Kingdom celebration - Bishop Chris Edwards and Pastor Kau Lee at the service.