180th Anniversary of Lutheran mission school at Encounter Bay
On 27th October 1844, Pastor Henry August Eduard Meyer opened Encounter Bay’s first mission school. To mark the school’s 180th Anniversary, Members of Victor Harbor Lutheran Church, together with key representatives of Encounter Lutheran College, Miwi Inyeri Pel-epi Ambi Aboriginal Corporation (MIPAAC) and the Ramindjeri Ngarrindjeri community, together acknowledged the legacy of Pastor Meyer on Sunday 27 October at Victor Harbor Lutheran Church.
Unlike so many schools of the time, religious or government, that sought to erase First Nation’s languages from their curriculum, Pastor Meyer’s mission school documented written Ngarrindjeri language – one of the main languages belonging to the First Nation’s people of the Southern Fleurieu.
Pastor Meyer’s approach would later become critical to the protection and celebration of the region’s language for teaching and cultural heritage.
This heritage is one that Encounter Principal Kelvin Grivell, is proud to carry on. “The Lutheran Church believes firmly in the power of language to spread the gospel,” Kelvin said.
“The early missionaries of the Dresden Society, a Lutheran mission movement out of Germany in the early-mid 1800s, believed that sharing the gospel in the local
language was key.”
Teacher Nyree Davis, said teaching of the Ngarrindjeri language forms an important part of Encounter Lutheran College’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). “We aim to incorporate and normalise the use of language as much as we can,” she said. “Through our curriculum, our school signage and daily school life.”
On the morning, Ngarrindjeri elder, Aunty Leonie McCallum sang Amazing Grace and the service also featured The Lord’s Prayer, originally translated by Rev G. W Taplin.
“It’s very important to keep the language alive for the next generations,” Aunty Leonie said. “We weren’t allowed to speak our language growing up and now we are trying to revive it and bring it back.”
The event also included an acknowledgement of country, led by Encounter Lutheran College School Captains – Valentina Plisko and Tyler McCreanor.
Following the service, attendees travelled to the site of a monument marking the approximate location of Pastor Meyer’s school building, which officially opened 180 years ago on the corner of Maude Street and Bay Road at Encounter Bay.
