We’ve been in Darwin for three days and it’s our first Sunday night church service in our Aboriginal community. We arrive around three hours early some of us can setup the community pavilion while the others drive the cars around to pick up the people.
I busy myself with dragging out all of the various sound equipment from the shed. As I search through three large boxes of cables, I notice an aboriginal man as he stumbles around the corner of the pavilion in my direction. I attempt not to make eye contact, I’ve got things to do.
A dirty palm is stuck in my face, “my name is Howard.” Uh. Why is it always me? I stand up from my tangle of cables and grab his extended hand. Howard looks and smells like he hasn’t bathed in weeks. His grizzled beard and hair are filled with dirty and food. He reeks of alcohol. I look Howard in the eyes and notice that they are tainted yellow, an affect of a life of alcoholism. “I like to play bass…” he murmurs and stumbles off towards another world racer. “Well, I’m glad that’s over, poor guy.” I think to myself. One of our contacts mentions that they let him play the bass guitar when he’s almost sober.
About thirty minutes later and Howard finds the bass guitar. With a thud the bass falls to the concrete as Howard opens the case upside down. “Bass guitar, I like to play bass” he exclaims. Before I walk over to confront him, Howard manages to find a cable and jam it into the wrong hole of an amp.
Before I can finish my sentence, Howard changes from a slow and drunk to enraged and violent. I quickly place the bass back into case and take the case to the shed, hoping for his apparent rage to simmer down. No luck there. Howard has changed. The stumbling of a drunk has turned to clenched fists and a straight walk. “Come here boy, I want to talk to you, I want to f***ing talk to you,” he growled. I immediately begin to look for one of the other 10 T-squad men, but they’re out cleaning shards of glass from a sand pit at a play ground (a common occurrence in bagot).
The only other authority figure in the area is our should-be-retired-but-isn’t-because-she’s-incredible contact Isobel. I manage to convince him (drunks are very suggestible) to go tell Isobele instead of attempting to drag me behind the shed. Isobele somehow manages to step between the two of us. Only issue is she’s about 2′ shorter then I am, so her barricade is more of a kiddy fence. Despite our attempts at reasoning, Howard is still very drunk, still very angry and still swearing like a sailor. Eventually, something else snapped and the angry demon inside of him decided to start throwing punches through Isobel at me. The good thing was that my face was so far above Isobel that she was out of the way even though she was standing directly between Howard and myself.
I dodge the first, and block the second, all the while attempting to decide if I should just put this drunk, demonic aboriginal on his ass. After a few more profane words, Howard throws another punch and manages to connect with my left temple and my glasses fly. But I am completely at peace. The weight of a full future month of ministry and the very words of Christ weigh on my heart. It’s evident that it is not Howard that is swearing and throwing hooks at me. In a moment it becomes obvious that this simply a poor attempt by our enemy to disrupt our ministry and our night.
This circus has gathered the response of my team-mates so Howard is separated and sent home still swearing and stumbling.
Howard doesn’t show up to any of our meetings for two weeks. The night he returned, he returned a different man. His decaying beard had been shaved and the stench of alcohol was gone. Vinny speaks that night about the chains of alcoholism and drugs that are so common in the aboriginal culture. And right there in the front row of lawn chairs is Howard yelling confirmations of “amen” and “hallelujah.” At the end of the night he approaches me and says “God bless you brother.” He is completely oblivious to what had happened two weeks prior. Completely oblivious to the chain and addictions that hold him back.
This is but a small story of the spiritual reality of the Bagot Community of Darwin, Australia. Please join me in continued prayer for our incredible contacts David and Isobel as they serve with relentless hearts. Pray for breakthrough and a generation of aboriginal leaders.
