The Benett Foundation (D19)

It is the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a day of rest and worship. It is the seventh day, so for me today, although it is Saturday, I'm going to church. The Stanmore Seventh-Day Adventist Church to be precise. Tristan has come down to Sydney to stay with his mum and that's what he'd like to do too. Tristan has a gift for preaching, but he's not preaching on this occasion. He's down for his sisters birthday party tonight. So Viviane, me, Tristan and Wendy the lodger set off for the Adventist church.

Viv is also excited because we might meet some very distant cousins there. Sure enough Henry and his daughter Michelle. Henry is the son on my Granmere Suzanne's cousin. It's a small world. Well perhaps. Remember how the Italians came over and tended to stay in areas where they new people, and that the church supported them. The same happened to Mauritians, and I suspect all migrating people.

After church introductions are made and photos taken. Henry looks uncannily, I mean uncannily, like one of my Indo-Jamaican patients. I wonder all over again if I'm related to my Caribbean patients. Everyone is very pleased to see me even though they're a bit mystified about the connection. He thinks he can remember my uncle Raymond (Phanphan) Benett. Well of course, he was a famous surgeon on the Island. Phanphan had five sons by his first marriage and one by his second. He also had a daughter and named her, appropriately, Suzanne. The others, in order, are Robert, Julian, John, Richard, David and Charles. I will be meeting Julian next week when I go to stay with him in Brisbane . Robert lives round the corner from us here in Sydney, but doesn't seem keen to meet. John, Richard and David all live in England. Of these three I've only met David once briefly in forty years. I don't know Charles at all, or where he lives, except that someone was trying to find him once and phoned my house. Note to self, make more effort when I get back. You're a Benett too? asks Tristan naively.

Stanmore Church can only be described as cute. It is a wooden structure dating back maybe a hundred years. The pews are straight back and wooden too. It holds about four hundred people when full. Today there are about fifty. It's the faces that are so cute. Every race under the sun again, but I mean especially the children. Dressed in their Sabbath best. Many are Mauritian, but there are Black, White and Chinese faces too. When we arrive the choir is singing. Four women and one fabulous male base. They are singing tight harmonies of tunes I thought I'd forgotten. Rousing old style evangelical tunes. The words are full of the imagery of people coming home from their toils, gathered in from the fields, rest after their labours. There's a negro spiritual feel about the hymns. They are sung in English and the service is in English. There's a piano, a rhythm guitar and a solitary trumpet, played by Henry. For some songs there's a backing track, Karaoke style. There's a little boy in the front row with his parents, he has neatly cut hair, a chequered shirt and a mischievous face. I am moved before the service even starts. This is my heritage.

There's something marvelously not quite professional about the proceedings. The leader of the service, an older white man with a broad Aussie accent, is wearing a terrible flowery shirt. Half way through the service the 'Mauritian Signers' do a piece. They have to start again because they had got out of synch with the backing track. The pastor is an Indian-looking man, who also looks like a patient. His jokes fall rather flat, but the congregation encourages him with 'hallelujahs' and 'praise the lord' especially when he asks them increasingly 'wha d'you say?'. The congregation is also invited, and responds, to complete verses of the Bible he introduces during his sermon.

I was critical of Adventicism in an earlier blog, and I stand by what I said. But this, this is what worship is about for me. People, not necessarily many, gathering regularly and amateurishly to support each other and praise the Lord. I love it.

The Adventist Church in Beau Bassin, Mauritius, was much larger. I dare say more formal too, judging by it's web-site, I can't remember. For all it's faults it was a focal point, a meeting point, and the centre of their social lives for many people. Couples would meet there, marry there, and bring up their children there. Many were poor and unable to complete their education or pay the fees to take their exams. How wonderful then to hear of The Benett foundation. Viviane tells me about it, and I hope I got it right. My grandpere, following up on an idea of his brother-in-law, donated a sum of money to L'Eglise de Beau Bassin, to put into a Trust fund. This fund would, through the interest it gained, be able to pay for the completion of the education of children whose families couldn't afford it. This is The Benett Foundation. But wait Viviane has more. For various reasons this first fund wasn't enough and so my father, tonton Yves, set up a second fund. How brilliant and bizarre is that? They are dark horses, my parents are. I'm very proud of them.