We landed in Darwin, Australia and immediately felt the heaviness of the place. It wasn’t that any one of us is so spiritually in tune to our environment. It was the heat. Every day has about 80 to 90 degree heat with the humidity that makes us feel like we’re swimming through the air. Yet as we have been here, I am realizing that the weather is merely a reflection of the community my team is working with this month. Our team has been assigned to work with the indigenous people of Australia. They have also been labeled “The Forgotten People of Australia”. The community is called Bagot. It’s an indigenous community that is right in the middle of Darwin. It reminds me a little of LA because it appears to have some pretty incredible houses and dwelling places but the community of Bagot sits untouched in the midst of that thriving city much like Skid Row. When we drove in, it looked like 3rd world, with garbage strewn on the ground and abandoned baby carriages on the side of the road.
We had talked with our contact for a good hour before we went into the community on Tuesday evening and found out some very interesting things. There is rampant alcohol usage
among these people as the whole purpose of their lives is to push away
the boredom. They do not even have the thought that life could be more than what they experience moment to moment. They use each other’s things and houses like they belonged
to themselves and there is a general sense of no boundaries amongst the
people. The average age of the indigenous person is age 50. They generally experience great domestic violence due to mental insanity brought on by alcohol and drug usage. Suicide is also common especially among the young people. It is fairly common to hear of a young person hanging or killing themselves because of the seeming hopelessness of their situation.
among these people as the whole purpose of their lives is to push away
the boredom. They do not even have the thought that life could be more than what they experience moment to moment. They use each other’s things and houses like they belonged
to themselves and there is a general sense of no boundaries amongst the
people. The average age of the indigenous person is age 50. They generally experience great domestic violence due to mental insanity brought on by alcohol and drug usage. Suicide is also common especially among the young people. It is fairly common to hear of a young person hanging or killing themselves because of the seeming hopelessness of their situation.
These are all physical representations of what is occurring on a spiritual level. There is a depth of hopelessness and apathy that runs deep in the currents of these people’s history. We were informed that during the ceremony when a youth becomes a man, they are given the gift of a demon to go with them for the rest of their lives. During the ceremony they also see something called the Great Rainbow Snake who appears to them in order that they might know it’s strength and trust the strength of their demon. If an Aboriginal man or woman has been wronged they can pay someone to put a curse on the individual who has wronged them. While this may seem like a harmless thing, most times the person who is cursed will actually die.
So while the Western world moves at the pace of a sports car on the highway, the forgotten people of Australia continue to remain in the spiritual strongholds that have been with them for generations. As my team entered into this community on the first night we FELT the oppression that is clinging to that place. We immediately felt an uncomfortable fear come over us in the face of these people we had only heard about. What we felt for a moment, these people feel on a daily basis. Yet it only took an evening of interaction with the people to fall in love with their hearts. The children love to be loved and the adults seem stand-offish at first but are also hungry to be seen, noticed, and loved just as we all are.
On a different level, our team has been declaring all last month that God is going to do some crazy things through our group and the enemy has heard and is angry. Each of us has experienced attack in some capacity recently. Two of my teammates came to Australia late because they had left a passport in the van while headed to the hospital for a kidney stone that showed up the day before leaving New Zealand. Several of us have been feeling insecurities and irritations that can only be fruit of the enemy attempting to break us up. We have found ourselves sometimes more easily offended than we ever thought we would be and are learning how to see each other as Christ sees us; holy and righteous, given the full capacity to love well and invite others to life. We are learning how to pray and fight for each other and “put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For
our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,
against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:11-12).
our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,
against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:11-12).
While I know this is a longer blog, I felt that it was important to paint a picture of the people we will work with this month. I also said all of this so that each of you can pray with us. Specifically pray
~for life to flow from us to the people
~for hope and purpose to break out over that community
~for the church that is reaching out to these people, that they may have many workers for the plentiful harvest
~for unity for our team as we learn how to fight for each other and not against each other
~for spiritual covering for us as we are obedient to a God who pours life into dead places
