Meet Cailey Raffel
Just before Sydney went into lockdown, another significant change took place for Cailey. On May 28th, 2021, her husband, Kanishka Raffel was installed as the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, making her our new Archishop’s wife. With stay-at-home orders still prevailing in Greater Sydney, we’ve not had the usual opportunities to meet and welcome her. Cailey kindly answered a few questions here, to help us get to know her.
Tell us a bit a bit about yourself?
I was born and spent the first half of my childhood in Nyngan, NSW, a small country town west of Dubbo. My family moved to Sydney when I was almost nine and (apart from a year in Denmark) I lived in that home with my parents until Kanishka and I were married in 1988. We have two daughters, both of whom stayed in Perth when we moved back to Sydney in 2016.
I studied Linguistics and Education at uni and have enjoyed teaching children and adults in various contexts. I’m now in a role supporting churches serving culturally diverse people in their area. English classes is one way we can meet a felt need and also introduce people to Jesus. I love this work!
How did you come to know Jesus?
I am blessed to have grown up in church-going family. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know that God was the creator of everything, including me, and that Jesus had died for the sins of the world.
But it wasn’t until I was 12 that I realised knowing about God was not the same as knowing him; knowing that Jesus had died for the sins of the world was not the same as recognising my own need for a Saviour and asking to be rescued.
In conversation with friends at an ISCF (Inter School Christian Fellowship) weekend away, the Spirit helped me to understand that even if I was the only person ever to have lived, Jesus would still have needed to die… and he would have done so, for me! I remember thanking Jesus for his great love, asking for his forgiveness of my sin and his help to follow him as my Lord. After the camp, I was given some memory verse cards by our music teacher. The ISCF and my local church were both really significant in teaching me the Bible and shaping my discipleship. It’s through the pages of Scripture that I continue to grow in my knowledge and love of Jesus.
How did you meet Kanishka?
The first time Kanishka and I met we were on opposing school debating teams. We had some mutual friends (a couple of Kanishka’s school friends were church friends of mine), so our paths crossed over the next few years. A few months after Kanishka was converted, we started dating and were married about two years later.
What things are key for a healthy marriage?
It’s important for a husband and wife to have a mindset of being on the one team – we’re partners with each other and with God. Marriage is not a competition or about who is right but together working out what is good for us and the gospel. That doesn’t mean I keep my thoughts and feelings to myself – in fact that is something I had to learn, along with being quick to forgive and asking for forgiveness.
What are some joys and struggles you’ve had as a ministry wife?
The joys and struggles in ministry for me revolve around relationships. We were at St Matthew’s, Wanniassa in the ACT for 3.5 years, then at St Matthew’s, Shenton Park, WA for 16.5 years, before moving back to Sydney to serve at St Andrew’s Cathedral, where we’ve been for the last 5.5 years. When I think of each of those places, I see the faces of the people I served alongside, especially in music, Bible study and SRE classes in the local schools.
One of the great joys of being a ministry wife has been the privilege of seeing God at work up close in a number of lives. We were empty-nesters when we moved to the Cathedral and I was only doing one day a week of paid work, so I had plenty of time to read the Bible 1 to 1. Watching God reveal himself through his Word, bringing about new birth, convicting and encouraging – that’s a real joy and privilege.
For me, the great struggle of being the wife of a minister is the flip side of that: when people are indifferent to the gospel, or turn away from Jesus, and the heavy burdens and griefs that come with sickness, marriage breakdown or death in the church family. Sometimes I struggle to remember that God is loving and good, that Jesus is the Saviour, not me or Kanishka, and to persevere in praying.
do you have a Short message for us as we live in lockdown?
I was encouraged this morning by one of Paul’s prayers for the Colossians.
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:9-14)
It’s so easy to be fed up with lockdown and all the cancelled plans. We need great endurance and patience with this ongoing situation, one that is beyond our control. But more than just enduring, we have the opportunity to be giving joyful thanks to the Father. Why? He has brought us into his kingdom of light – this world and its frustrating deathly pandemics will pass – and we are promised an abundant, disease-free life of peace to enjoy forever with Jesus and his people. Plans for next year and even next week are uncertain but not our inheritance. He has qualified us, and there is no uncertainty over whether we will spend eternity with him. God has done the rescuing, transferring us from darkness to the kingdom of his Son. In Jesus, our sins are forgiven, our redemption secured.
There is plenty of mental health advice around to cultivate the practice of thankfulness but it seems a bit hollow to me, if the gratitude we are expressing ignores the giver of the gift. I’m actively looking for new things to be thankful to God for each day. But these verses help me see beyond the blossoming trees and blue skies - which are good gifts from our Father that I do thank him for - to the bigger eternal picture.
So rather than just enduring the lockdown, I have a goal to give joyful thanks to the Father for the rescuing work of his Son and the transforming work of the Spirit.
Along with Paul, I pray for myself and for all ministry wives that God will indeed, fill us with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that we may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.