Langham Australia Executive Officer honoured in Australia Day Awards

February 11, 2009

By Joshua Maule

Wendy Toulmin, Executive Officer of Langham Partnership Australia, together with her husband, Graham, was awarded an Order of Australia in this year’s Australia Day honours.

The local bank manager told Graham Toulmin he had “rocks in his head” when he sold his dental practice in the Blue Mountains and moved with his wife Wendy and their four young sons to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), formerly Zaïre.

That was more than two decades ago and was the beginning of what would become years of humanitarian work by the Toulmins for the devastated African nation.

This Australia Day their work is being recognised as they were each awarded an AM (Member of the Order of Australia) for service to international humanitarian aid, particularly through the provision of dental health services and pastoral care to the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and to the community.

“We’re absolutely stunned,” says Graham of the award. “We’re in disbelief.”

In the 80s Graham established a small dental clinic in a town called Butembo in the state of North Kivu where he was the only qualified dentist in a region of around 5 million people.

“We arrived and there was nothing there,” Graham said. “There was no water, no electricity and no building. So we started the dental work in the vestry of the local Anglican church.”

As well as working in the clinic he travelled around the region providing dental services and training local nurses in dental procedures so they could eventually take over the work.

Unrest in 1991 forced the Toulmins to return to Australia but their ties with the Congolese people remained strong.

Back home they formed an organisation called “Brass For Africa” where the profits from cassettes, CDs and concerts funded a dental clinic, a maternity ward, clergy support, assistance for AIDS orphans, school building projects and food for refugees from Congo’s civil war.

Brass For Africa is now is an arm of the Springwood Winmalee Anglican Churches.

Wendy returned to DRC following the Rwandan genocide in 1994 to work with Care Australia in the unaccompanied children’s camp.

There for 14 weeks, Wendy was deeply affected by the scale of suffering.

“As a mother it made me think about how my own children would have reacted if they’d lost their parents,” Wendy said.

“If I hadn’t been a Christian the whole issue of forgiveness would have been unthinkable given the scale of brutality.”

Having given considerable time over the years motivating Australians to remember the people of Congo, the burning question is: what drives their compassion?

“I never wanted to be a missionary in Africa,” says Graham.  “But a CMS (Church Missionary Society) conference challenged me to think about the enormous need. As a committed Christian I decided I’d better put my money where my mouth is. And Wendy agreed which made the whole thing possible.”

What kind of hope is there for a restored Congo?

“The future is very difficult for them,” Graham says. “It’s not trendy. A thousand people can die in Gaza and it is front page news but more than four million people can die in Congo and it hardly rates a mention.”

“If this award does anything we hope it brings attention to the plight of the Congolese people and the scale of their suffering.”