A Blessing for our Firies

On 23 August, the driveway at Galston Uniting Church filled with red fire engines and a sea of yellow uniforms, as nine Rural Fire Service (RFS) brigades gathered for the church's annual Blessing of the Fleet service.

Galston sits in the Hills district of Sydney, surrounded by bushland, and so do many of the homes in its congregation. As Paul Udy, chair of the Galston Uniting congregation, said, "our Rural Fire Service volunteers are a very important part of our community." "Some of our congregation are part of the RFS, and we all have stories of ways these men and women have helped out in times of need”. Udy pointed to the timing of the service as deliberate too. "It is only fitting that we hold our rural firefighters in our prayers and ask for God's protection of them before the fire season commences," he said, adding, "these volunteers are prepared to put themselves in harm's way for us and give their time and energy to protect us from fire."

Rev. Akosita Tangi opened the service with a call to worship, and the service was jointly led by her and Rev. Nich Cole, RFS chaplain for the district, who is also minister at Mt Colah Uniting Church and soon moves to take up a new placement as minister at Taree Uniting Church.

Brigades from Arcadia, Galston, Dural, Cherrybrook, Middle Dural, Glenorie and Maroota were represented, alongside members of the aviation branch. "It's beautiful because it celebrates what the rural fire service does, because in the rural community like Galston, they do house fires, they do car accidents, they do rescues, search and rescue," Rev. Cole said. "In that area, the rural fire service isn't just putting out bushfires," he said, noting that with no city brigade nearby apart from Castle Hill, the local RFS also responds to light aircraft that have come down in the area. "It's a really good part of the community that they celebrate these men and women who just actively give up their time voluntarily to serve in the rural fire service.”

As part of the service, a "Why I Do What I Do" segment gave a brigade member the chance to share what has kept them volunteering. This year it was Len Best, former captain of the Middle Dural brigade, who has served with the RFS for 68 years, 25 of them as captain, and remains an active member at 86. Best traced it back to a single day in 1957. "On a hot, windy day in 1957, a bushfire was approaching the area from the northwest, and Captain Harold Cranston needed all the help he could get to defend his property," he said. "My father, brother and I all responded, along with all the able-bodied persons in the district, and we spent several days and nights to contain that fire, with no properties lost." That fire was his first response to a bushfire. He officially joined the brigade the following year, in 1958.

At the close of the service, Rev. Cole blessed the crews and their trucks with a knapsack spray. "One tradition which I believe has been used at Galston and elsewhere has been using a knapsack to spray crews standing in front of their trucks as a symbol of blessing," said the Rev. Dr. Stephen Robinson, a former Galston minister and long-serving RFS chaplain who serves us today as the National Disaster Recovery Officer at Synod Mission Services. "Part of the prayer ahead of that was an adaptation of a prayer from the Uniting in Worship baptism service. The service means a great deal to the firefighters and their families," he said.

The day drew in more than the brigades themselves. Staff and children from the Early Learning Centre on the church site, jointly run with Uniting, took part for the first time this year, presenting handmade thank you cards and native seed bombs to each brigade in recognition of their work. A children's choir from the Asquith Uniting Tongan congregation sang, and the Galston Men's Choir also performed. After the service, the RFS crews and the congregation shared a barbecue lunch, and children were able to climb up into the fire trucks parked along the driveway.

Rev. Cole has spoken of how this connection runs far deeper than a single service each year. Over time, the church has shared in baptisms, weddings, memorial services and burials among brigade members. "It's not a fifty-two week connection in the sense that they have to turn up every Sunday," he said, "but when there is challenge, when there is tragedy, when there is celebration to be had, they invite the church to be part of that with them." The Blessing of the Fleet is one thread in a much longer relationship between Galston Uniting and the volunteers who serve alongside it. It is the congregation's chance to thank the volunteers who protect them, and for many of those volunteers, it is the one point in the year where their connection to the church, however occasional, is warmly and visibly renewed.

Galston Uniting Church has held some version of this service for decades. The full service was livestreamed and can be viewed on the Galston Uniting Church YouTube channel.