We’ve been at the Christian Outreach Center in Darwin, Australia, for more than a week now. Pastor Merv has been our main contact, but we’ve been working with all the staff here. Merv has really given us a new outlook on ministry and missions. The church here has about 80 members, but they give millions (that’s right, millions) of dollars to missionaries around the world each year! They have a wall with information about pastors they support. Upon first meeting Merv, I could tell he was a businessman and entrepreneur. He doesn’t do this to make money for himself but rather to make money for missions. Basically, Merv takes advantage of business opportunities then puts the profits into missions. The church runs a furniture shop and a farm in addition to the outreach center.
The center also is able to get many donations. Yesterday I went with Carol from the church to pick up bread. A bakery in town gives them all their leftover bread and pastries three days a week. It’s really good too! They also get leftover vegetables and fruits from a distribution center. What’s still good can be eaten by the residents of the center. The rest is fed to the pigs. Really it’s quite amazing how they use their resources. Merv explained they couldn’t do this everywhere, but God has provided the right place in Darwin for their ministry.
So, we’ve been doing a good amount of manual labor. We go to the farm and help feed the pigs. Here in Darwin, we work around the center, helping with kitchen duty, cleaning, folding papers and assembling newsletters that will be distributed to Aboriginal communities, spreading mulch, shoveling and many other things. Again, I’ve sometimes found myself getting caught up in the tasks I’m doing rather than focusing on how this is a ministry. However, God has shown us that what we are doing here is helping this center provide resources for other missionaries.
So, once again, God is teaching us this month that missions is so much more than our preconceived ideas. It’s about serving other ministries and other Christians as much as it is about evangelizing to non-Christians. Still we are having opportunities to reach non-Christians while we serve. Some of the people working at the center don’t know Christ, and we’ve met some others at the farm who aren’t Christians. So, we’ve been developing relationships with these people in hopes that they’ll come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior.
God works in so many ways! It’s been good to see different views of ministry around the world.
