Press Releases
16 December 2025
A message from our CEO and Pastor Jon Owen, on ABC Radio 702
In Times Like These…
In moments of tragedy like this, our instinct is to search for answers—to make sense of senseless violence, to find explanations that might somehow contain the horror. But this is not the time for that. Not while people are still fighting for their lives in hospital. Not while families are reeling from a grief so raw it defies words. This act of hatred has torn open wounds that will take far more than answers to heal.
So what do we do?
Choose love. Lean into it. Not the soft, abstract kind—but the tangible love found in reaching out to friends and family and community. Step away from the constant news cycle that suspends healing and perpetuates anxiety. That stream will still be there tomorrow, but the people around you need you now.
Avoid hate speech. Faith traditions warn against it, and for good reason—hatred only begets more hatred, more violence.
Beware of simple answers in complex times.
Where, then, do we find hope?
In the small acts of love and kindness. In the silent protests against hate that happen when we simply show up for one another—when we refuse to give in to the hatred, when we choose connection over division.
Yesterday morning, a Jewish woman came to our Community Services Centre with homemade latkes from a Hanukkah celebration that never happened. She’d tried every synagogue, but everyone was too distraught. She didn’t want them wasted. Could we feed people who were hungry? Fraser made Moroccan chicken and latkes for lunch. She wept with gratitude.
Today we farewelled one of our legendary Bondi visitors—a Māori man who died nearly a month ago. Always smiling, always sharply dressed, guitar always in hand. It took this long because the Coroner couldn’t release his body while his son, his next of kin, is incarcerated in New Zealand. A women’s karanga and a men’s haka rang out at Bondi as we finally farewelled him properly.
Two stories. Same truth.
This is where hope lives—in latkes that refuse to go to waste, in karanga that honours the forgotten, in every small act that says: you matter, you belong, you are seen. These are our silent protests. These are our refusals to surrender to hatred. These are the acts that will outlast the violence.
We honour people. We cross boundaries. We stand with those the world forgets or targets. That’s Wayside—not in the grand speeches, but in showing up when it matters most. Love is an action that demands we move, while we may be moving with a limp, and a broken heart, we do so in vulnerability and courage, which makes love real in a hurting world.
7 October 2022
Wayside Chapel disappointed to cancel the Long Walk Home physical event for Friday 7 October 2022
9 June 2022
1 June 2021
New focus areas for Wayside Chapel to help the vulnerable this winter
16 December 2020
Wayside Chapel Brings a ‘Week of Christmas Spirit’ to the Homeless
7 September 2020
30 March 2020
Wayside Chapel takes a ‘life over death’ stance on COVID-19
18 December 2019
Wayside Chapel’s Christmas Party gives love to the homeless
2 October 2019
Long Walk home to help people experiencing homelessness
31 May 2019
Wayside Chapel says more women will need help this winter more urgently than ever before
22 March 2018
Wayside Chapel announces new CEO/Pastor
8 February 2018
Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a clean pair of undies this Valentine’s Day –
15 December 2017
Sydney’s biggest Christmas lunch for the homeless
6 November 2017
Wayside Chapel to launch new social change event addressing inequality –
15 June 2016
Wayside Chapel expands to Bondi Beach
11 April 2016
Wayside Board Member calls for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal peoples –
27 January 2016
