11 July 2007

A simple church

I've been meaning to post these photos for a while. I took them when we attended the funeral of a dear friend of H's a couple of months ago.

The Purga Creek Church and School sit isolated at the end a long, dry and dusty part-dirt road, west of Ipswich. The church is a non-denominational timber church about 100 years old, the interior is unlined
and unpainted. It is truly a simple and beautiful church.
The school house next door started out as a school for aboriginal children. It's stood empty and silent for at least the past 50 years. But both these buildings show the authentic beauty of funtional buildings that are built for a specific purpose and used for that purpose by ordinary people. Although they are not grand and prestegious buildings, I love how those people who went to church and school here look great care of their buildings, so although they are simple structures, they survived the years and are standing strong today. It's a testament to the generations before ours who valued what they had and made sure the buildings they used were cared for.

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3 comments

  1. What i would give to have a little house like this one, would love a veranda on the front just like this one...Dont these old buildings have so much character..
    Only to dream about

    Cheers
    Robin

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  2. Thanks for stopping by the blog. I am jealous that you can grow bananas! We live next door to a small white church, slightly fancier than the one you show - because it has stained glass windows. These small churches often serve an extended family - a small congregation, and the one next door to us meets only one Sunday a month, and then has reunions, funerals and get togethers at other random times. I should take a picture of it one of these days!

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  3. In the village there is a big fancy church with a prayer garden, shrine & all sorts, but that is the concern of the priest ~ HIS church, the fact that HE has put Kilcommon on the map, but children are unwelcome (apart from the mandatory school services as the Primary school belongs to the church)& there is no choir in case the childer sing out of tune. Down the road a way there is a corrugated iron church with a thriving family orientated congregation & priest, a children's choir & welcome for the childer.
    Not being Catholic, we frequent neither church, but guess which one we'd prefer to attend... Annon (despite being a child) is adored by Father because she is clever & reflects well on HIS school!

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