South Sudanese women welcome Caroline Welby | Photos

Women from Melbourne’s South Sudanese community have welcomed the Archbishop of Canterbury’s wife Caroline Welby, during a visit to Australia by the pair.

Women danced and sang in welcome to Mrs Welby and wife of the Archbishop of Melbourne Joy Freier.

Mrs Welby spoke to the women about God’s plans for them as His beloved children, drawing attention to three women ordinands in the community.

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Mrs Welby recalled an image God had given her during prayer, of one of her own children as a very small child crying and screaming. She said through that, God reminded her that what she did in those circumstances was to come down, and love and cuddle her child until they stopped crying.

“What God said was ‘Caroline, all you have to do is to be the person I have called you to be’,” she said.

Mrs Welby said this was both very freeing, and very challenging, as she was not yet that person – because everyone was on a journey, learning all the time, and not yet like Jesus.

“We know we are beloved children of God, that we are loved even while we are making wrong choices and doing silly things, that God has made us as we are, and that is good, but that he has plans for us, so we have to walk to find them,” she said.

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