Three Australian Women See No Age Limit for Strengthening Their Communities

Still going strong after retirement, Pam Mamouney, Jane Furey, and Margaret Lenan Ellis are each committed to making friends of all faiths and unifying their respective Australian communities.

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As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they not only strive to live the two great commandments of loving God and neighbour, but also show how a lifetime of this commitment brings light and joy to themselves and the world around them.

Pam, who turns 89 this year, has been a member of the Dandenong Interfaith Council for over 30 years. A founding member and president of the Casey Interfaith Network in Victoria, she found organising “Tours of places of worship” for schools, politicians, and the public to be effective in developing interfaith understanding.

When a local mosque was being opposed by residents, Pam showed her support on an SBS television program. “I have many Muslim friends,” says Pam. “I love attending Iftar dinners, especially in their family homes.”

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Admired for her inspirational leadership in working to contribute to a greater understanding between many faiths and cultures, Pam was awarded The Order of Australia for her community, council, and church involvement.

Pam says, "My greatest contribution to The Church of Jesus Christ was helping all my five children serve missions when I was a single mother."

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Since then, her favourite community service is the University of the Third Age, where she tutors a weekly Current Affairs class of 20 members. She also co-organises a group of 21 adults who play a card game called 500 each week. For six years she was on the activities committee in her retirement village, which has 220 units and was involved in organizing musical afternoons and fund-raising activities.

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Jane Furey is going on her fourth year of serving from home as a Church Communication Missionary. “It soon became the best part of my life,” she says.

Jane has a gift for connecting with people around the world. She recalls being interested in the news as a nine-year-old. Later, while travelling in Asia with her parents and talking to all kinds of women on public transportation, she overheard her father ask her mother, “How does she know her? . . .Who is she talking to now?”

Jane even wrote to Queen Elizabeth 2, congratulating her on the birth of Prince Edward. The queen wrote a letter to Jane in return.

From brightening recipients’ days by chatting on the front porch after delivering “Meals on Wheels”, to hosting 64 students as a “Homestay Mother” over 11 years, her life has been a life of devotion to others.

She talks about the day her life changed forever when she awoke in the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane with two

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artificial heart valves. As a patient, surprised to be alive and able to serve, Jane wandered around the hospital visiting other patients.

“I feel a deep and abiding gratitude,” she says. “What a gift all these extra days and years have been. I’ve gained significant insights to pain and patience and become compassionate in ways that I doubt I could have grasped from any other experience.”

While previous years involved being a single mum to two young children, serving her local church women’s organisation or helping create women’s conferences involving 1500 participants, an ordinary day for Jane today is no less serviceable.

Just recently, she checked on five different friends who recently had surgery and made slow cooker chicken soup for another friend with the flu. She reaches out regularly to friends of all faiths across the world. Though often tired, she says, “This is a normal part of every day. I have come to understand what I suspect is my mission in life; many moments have clarified this."

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Margaret Lenan Ellis was volunteering for her church as a public affairs specialist when she was given the charge to search out and join her local community interfaith organisation. With no such organisation existing at that time in Ballarat, Victoria, Margaret says, “I duly set out on a totally unknown journey to form what has since become the Ballarat Interfaith Network (BIN). Its purpose is to demonstrate that we are all connected as part of the human family—by expanding people’s understanding of different life journeys and to build bridges between people of all faiths, philosophies, and spiritual perspectives.”

As the community and multifaith diversity have grown over the past 20 years, BIN events have gradually built a network of friendships, respect, peace, love, and service to God and others.

“Friendship Walks” have been held between the mosque, synagogue, and various Christian churches in the city. Forums with panelists and speakers from various faiths have addressed spiritual and community concerns.

From holding an open barbeque as a gesture of fellowship to a new mosque opening, to writing letters of support to the Ballarat City Council to allow for Buddhist and Hindu temples to be built (with a similar endorsement soon anticipated for the Sikh community), a BIN voice of support has found respectful credence at the local City Council level.

Under Margaret’s direction for over 20 years, the Church of Jesus Christ hosts a choral festival of both religious and non-religious choirs every year in local cathedrals.

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“The Cathedral is always packed, and the feeling of joy and goodwill it generates is especially palpable in the combined-choirs finale, where all participating choirs join together to lift the roof, singing with one voice.”

These three women implement the words of President Howard W. Hunter, 14th president of the Church of Jesus Christ, who said, “Our charge is to seek to enlarge the circle of love and understanding among all the people of the earth.”