We touched down in Darwin, Australia, at 5:45am Friday morning after many hours and miles of travel and very little sleep. Our contacts here, Roger and Vivienne Latham, have been working in the bush of the Northern Territory for the past four years with the indigenous Aboriginal people. In the past year they have moved back to their home 1.5 hours outside of Darwin and are ministering to the Aboriginal people here in a community called Belyuen.
After sleeping a few hours, grocery shopping, and a long, sleepy drive to our Aussie home, we settled into our bunks and sat down to chat with the wonderful couple that has taken us in. It was in the midst of this conversation that we encountered our first calamity for this month…News of the earthquake in Japan and the resulting tsunami hit Australian airwaves and TV stations and sent everything into a temporary tailspin.
Being situated only 1km from the beach (don’t be too jealous, we can’t enjoy it because of crocs AND large jellyfish) we immediately prepared to evacuate inland. We gathered our packs, threw together some groceries, and began calling our loved ones in the States to let them know our plans.
Thankfully, the warnings for the Northern Territory were soon canceled, so after watching the news intently for a few hours we settled back in to enjoy dinner.
We also discussed the general plan for our time here. The first week we will remain here at the Latham’s home, helping do repairs and yard work to clean the mess the cyclone left behind when it hit Australia one month ago. We will also spend some time with the children in the Aboriginal community. Next week we will be driving down to an area called Katherine to work with a young woman named Rachel who has been doing Bible translation and relationship building with the Aboriginal communities in that area. Finally, we will spend our last week at a Christian academy called Woolaning. There are around 40-50 indigenous children that attend, and we hope to be in the classrooms as well as participating in after-school sports and activities with them.
We have already learned a lot about the challenges and obstacles currently facing the Aboriginal community in Australia…I’ll save that for another blog…and we’re learning more each day as we adapt to life and ministry here.
Saturday night we had 6 aboriginal girls 10-11 yrs old come over for a slumber party. It was Fantastic! Though fairly shy at first, after eating spaghetti, singing worship songs, and giving general introductions, they were attached to our hips and chasing each other around our cabin. Vivienne told them I ‘was the boss when it came to bed time, and when I said to stop chattering and sleep, they had to obey me’. Thus the girls started calling me ‘boss lady’…a nickname that has stuck and called to me every time we’ve seen the girls since our party.
