A short history of Heather

This posting is from my father’s history of the den Houtings in Australia. If you want to know about my early years, then you’ll enjoy this read. I did consider deleting the embarassing stuff, but to honor my dad I have kept it complete.

Heather Ruth den Houting was born on 13 February 1964, at Yallourn District Hospital. Her parents, Koos and Anne, were living at 49 Moore street, Moe, at the time, and her father Koos, was minister of the Presbyterian Church in Moe-Newborough.
Heather was a big, healthy, lively infant, and a delight to her parents.

Later in the year in which she was born, the family moved to Mildura, and lived in the old manse in San Mateo avenue for two years, before moving into a newly built manse in Eleventh street, next to St Andrew’s church.

Heather went to Kathleen Kelly Kindergarten for two years, before starting in the Prep grade at Mildura South Primary School. Her older brother Philip looked after her as best he could on the bus and at school, but sometimes she caused him a good deal of concern. On one occasion he arrived home to report to his mother: “This time I have got my schoolbag, I have got my lunchbox, but I have lost Heather”

Fortunately, Miss Morris had seen Heather miss the bus, and looked after her until she could be collected.

In 1974, when the family moved to Maryborough, Heather transferred to Primary School 404. She completed Primary schooling there, and went to the Christian Community College, an Ecumenical school, to do her secondary schooling.
Heather did very well at school, scholastically, sportswise, (Hockey) and socially, and obtained her HSC in 1981 with good marks. However, they were not quite good enough to get her straight into the faculty of Law, which was her first choice, so she started off in the Commerce faculty at Monash University doing the first year of an Economics degree. At the end of the first year, she was able to transfer to the Law faculty, and she did both courses in parallel, obtaining a Bachelor of Economics in 1986, and Bachelor of Laws in 1988.

During her time at Monash, she became a member of the Student Christian Movement, and for some time worked as State secretary of the movement.

Graduating in 1988, she returned to the country to begin practising in law, and then moved to Gladstone in 1990 with her then partner Richard Hulse. The shock of Queensland country life was a bit too much for her and she moved back down to Brisbane where from 1991-1994 she was the coordinating solicitor at the Community of Inala Legal Service.

After her first child James was born, she practised in a small law firm on the grounds of Griffith University, which she eventually purchased and ran as a sole practitioner for some years. In 1997 after the birth of her second child Sarah, she began to work full time for the State Government, eventually working as the Senior Legal Officer in the Juvenile Justice Branch of the Department of Families. It was at this time she also separated from Richard and lived and worked as a single mum for a couple of years.

She started a graduate certificate in Management, through the Public Sector Management Commission. This process enabled her to think through her career goals and a call to do something else with her life became stronger.

Just as she experienced a moment of clear call to return to the gathered community of Christ, the church, the position of Social Responsibility Advocate and International Mission Consultant for the Queensland Synod of the Uniting Church in Australia was advertised. Seeking to test the sense of call, she applied and was successful in attaining that position. She worked in the Synod from 2001-2007 and during these years married her husband Jim, and they had their child Lucy in 2002. Jim is a solicitor who works in private practice and also sits on the Queensland Guardianship and Administration Tribunal.

The call to ministry continued during those years, and despite her strong resistance (!), became even stronger. The process of the Period of Discernment allowed her to come to the realisation that the renewed diaconate in the Uniting Church in Australia matched the skills and abilities she had developed, and she began as a candidate at Trinity Theological College in 2005 on a part time basis. Early in 2007, she left her job and became a full time student and is due to finish the academic requirements for her ordination by the end of 2008. She is studying at a post graduate level and at this stage is thinking of doing a Master’s thesis on something around the areas of God, feminism and the new physics.