Keeping the faith on and off the field
Keeping the faith on and off the field
On the Friday of round one, the majority of Richmond and Carlton players would have been waking up battered and bruised after another exciting season-opener at the MCG.
New Tigers recruit Tom Lynch would have been reminiscing about his three-goal debut, while Patrick Cripps made the early running in the Brownlow Medal race.
But Bachar Houli was in tears.
That day, having collected 24 disposals and tearing his hamstring with five minutes left in the game the night before, Houli was landing in New Zealand, to meet with the families who had been affected by the Christchurch massacre, where a gunman killed 51 people a week earlier.
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Houli was invited to New Zealand by rugby union star and local sports royalty Sonny Bill Williams, and the two visited and spent time with mothers, fathers, sons and daughters who had lost beloved family members, friends and community members, as well as victims who had survived the horrific ordeal.
"I had tears, but they were actually joyful tears," Houli told the Sunday Age, as he reflected on attending a funeral service in which 27 of those who had died were laid to rest.
"No one wants to see their family members pass away and leave this world but I come from a faith that we believe that we belong to God, and to God we shall return.
"The greatest thing that these families had in their mind is that there is no better way to leave this world than in a state of worship.
"These young men and women were in a state of worship at the mosque at the most blessed time of the week being a Friday.
"They were in the state of prayer … there is no better way to pass away, to be quite honest."
After the service, Houli and Williams went out for ice cream with some survivors and family members who had lost loved ones.
Houli began talking to a young man in his mid 20s. He soon became aware that he had lost his three-year-old brother, who had been praying next to him in one of the mosques attacked.
We believe that we belong to God, and to God we shall
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