Knowing your space

WEEKLY BIBLE study is perhaps second only to the Sunday gathering as the common expression of church.

For eight women in the tiny coastal communities of Taylor’s Beach and Halifax, the weekly Know Your Bible (K.Y.B.) class
has forged a fellowship that even cyclone Yasi couldn’t interrupt.

Mavis Spann has been opening the side room at Halifax Uniting Church for her K.Y.B. friends every week for more than 11
years.

Joining with Anglican women, they focus on the scripture.

“For me, the Bible has been the solid foundation of faith since Sunday School, Comrades, all through my life,” said Ms Spann.

“My earliest recollection of church was a service beside the Salvation Army truck parked on the hill near the dairy farm where I grew up.”

From the weekly Bible study around the vestry table, a powerful fellowship has grown.

She describes it as togetherness.

“We cry together. If one hurts, we all hurt and we know that togetherness in happy times.”

Ms Spann understands church to be much wider than the local congregation where she feels so at home.

During the winter, when tourists come north, the Halifax congregation numbers around 20.

While preparing for her tenth significant surgery in recent years, she was aware of people asking church members as far away as Townsville to pray for her.

“I was perfectly at peace,” she recalled.