Ministry In The Alice
This page is made up from parts of the 'Ministry In The Alice' section of the Stuart's bi monthly newsletter.
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Ngkarte-kenhe areyeke ayeye akwete ilaye.
(2 Timothy 4:2a)
In our last newsletter, I mentioned I would fill you in on the dynamics of the
ministry here - or at least try to! For starters, we are quite content with the
way the ministry here at Alice is progressing. Things will always progress
slower here due to the cross-cultural nature of the ministry.
Why you might ask? Well, to begin with, at school, or even if you have been to
an Aboriginal cultural centre, you are told about the “Aboriginal Culture”. Well
that in itself is inaccurate as there isn’t just one Aboriginal culture! Each
tribal group (of which there are still many in Australia) has cultural
differences. Some of these differences are small, but others are large
especially between say the Ngungar people of the South West of WA, the Central
Arrernte people of Alice Springs or the Yolgnu people of North East Arnhem land.
They are all Chalk and cheese.
Not only do you have differences in culture, there isn’t even one Aboriginal
world view. Each tribal group has differences in their world view and Aboriginal
world views are VERY different from the white Australian world view. So when you
approach Aboriginal people with a white Australian world view, and vice versa,
you are bound to clash. For starters, Aboriginal people are relational, where as
we are individualistic.
(If you want to learn more on this topic, we can recommend a couple of great
booklets)
So, in our work with Spinifex Ministries, for every sermon I had to prepare, I
had to ask myself - ok where are we and which group am I preaching to? This was
so I would not offend and to make sure I used the right words and illustrations
and so on. I couldn’t use the same message everywhere I went without making
sometimes substantial changes to suit the tribal group I was preaching to.
So in we walk to Alice Springs. The church here has between five and 10
different tribal and therefore language groups that we have to contend with. On
top of that, the level of literacy
and grasp of English can vary from minimal to a reasonable level. So word choice
and English sentence structure is a very careful process. Sometimes you win,
other times you crash and burn and have to rethink how you say something.
In the last newsletter, we mentioned that we were learning Central and Eastern
Arrernte. This is the language of the Alice Springs area, but we don’t have any
C&E Arrernte people in the church. The benefit of learning this language is that
many of the people who come to this church would understand it to some degree,
even though they wouldn’t necessarily be able to speak it. Their understanding
of C&E Arrernte would be better in many cases than English. But then there are
others in the church who come from a long way away, and to them you might as
well speak Russian! So we have a dilemma.
We have a congregation that varies between
25 to 80 depending on funerals, ceremony, whether or not Yirara’s (Aboriginal
boarding school) AIM mob are at church and depends on who is in town from the
communities.
One of the world view differences is that Aboriginal people are oral learners
as opposed to the western literal learner. This means stories and teachings are
passed on through dance, song, art and stories. Consequently the western style
of preaching doesn’t work with tribal people instead the “sermon” is accompanied
by a drawing that tells the same story and will last about 10 min. It has to be
something they can retell. All your illustrations have to be concrete not
abstract.
For example this drawing I did using traditional Warlpiri Iconographs, tells
the story of God’s election in eternity, being born into Adam, calling,
conversion by hearing the gospel (now no longer in Adam, but in Christ), and
finishes with glorification. These drawing make even the most difficult of
doctrines simple to understand.
This one is Hebrews 10:25
Over the last couple of months I have been preaching through Paul’s letter to
the Galatian church mob and just the other week we learnt from Galatians 4:8-11.
This section is very important and relevant - not that any is not important or
relevant, but this section more so as many of our mob will say they are
Christian people, but in the next breath will talk about the Dreaming and the
witch doctor as though they go hand in hand and can co-exist with Christianity.
Many of our mob walk two ways - the Christian way as well as Aboriginal Law,
Dreaming, totems, ceremonies, witch doctors and so on, as though there is
nothing wrong with any of it. This is common in many places because Aboriginal
Law, Dreaming etc, is their default - it is what they know, and as Paul says in
Galatians - they are slaves to it.
There is a fear factor involved. If you don’t fulfil your ‘skin’ duties or you
don’t do a ceremony the right way or you don’t respect your skin’s totem, there
are repercussions from people or the spirit world. So for many to just dump the
old way can be quite difficult. Many Christian Aboriginal people will struggle
with this for the rest of their lives, but others make the transition very well.
The evil spirit world is very much alive - just come here on a Sunday! Come
ceremony time, getting through a Sunday service can be a task! When Aboriginal
Christians try to walk two ways, they invite so much hard times into their lives
and they do not grow as Christian people. So please pray for Aboriginal
Christians, they do go through a lot more hard times than White Australian
Christians. We have it so easy compared to them.
This ministry section was going to be about the pastoral care barriers, however
that will be next time as it is important for you to understand more about the
Aboriginal World View so you can get you heads around how Aboriginal people tick
compared to White Australians. This will then give you some background about the
difficulties ministering cross culturally.
Dreaming:
The Dreaming or the Dreamtime is not just a bunch of stories that Aboriginal
people tell. To Aboriginal people, the Dreaming is real and is the basis for
understanding Aboriginal World View. The Dreaming is real and eternal - it has
always been. It has no beginning and no end and is not located in chronological
or lineal time or Western space time thinking. No one created it or thought it
up, it just exists in it’s own right. It is difficult for a Westerner to
understand this concept, just as it is difficult for Aboriginal people to
understand our Western World Views. We have no parallel to compare it to. Now
this Dreaming description can be applied to anything that it is attached to such
as, dances, stories, songs, ceremonies, places - the list goes on.
Totemism:
The best way to describe this is to say that in Aboriginal World View, people
have a connection, a oneness with an animal or something else that is not human
depending on their skin classification. For a person of a Japaljarri skin, their
totems are the Kangaroo, Rock Wallaby, Milky Way, Possum and Goanna. Their
spirits become connected and therefore, you must respect your totem(s) or face
the consequences. This is most common for Westerners to see in Aboriginal
dances.
(Your
‘skin’ name is your classification of who you are, who you can marry, it
determines what your duties and responsibilities are in your tribe and in
relation to the world around you and it also transcends tribal groups and
languages - Japaljarri (Warlpiri Tribe) = Peltharre (Arrernte Tribe). Basically
it’s best paralleled with brother, sister, uncle and aunt etc, but doesn't
follow blood lines. These things can be very hard to simplify. It can take years
to grasp and then when you think you’ve got it, you get told more!)
An Aboriginal person’s Totemic ancestor also transcends space and time. Space
and time cannot limit it. It was around and involved in creation, but is also
currently present in people, places and things. So much so that the person can
be identified with it. It can also be in many places or things at the same time
- basically omnipresent. This is one reason why Aboriginal sacred sites have so
much meaning to Aboriginal people and why Aboriginal people have such a
connection with their country - it is due to the oneness with their totem.
The totemic ancestors were involved in creation. The world was already here,
but unformed and undefined, so the totemic dreamtime beings like the totemic
ancestor of the kangaroo, honey ant
and fig ancestors moved about the earth giving it its shape and form and
meaning. And they have had a permanent association with the things they formed
such as rock pools or hills etc. They also gave people their languages, social
categories and established social rules and ritual actions.
When each person is born, they receive their totemic life thus becoming a
member of that totemic group. So it is important for initiated men to continue
the role of causal agent by performing ceremonies to continue to make life
entities available. Hence if their totem was a kangaroo, they are responsible
for the continuing of that species. If ceremonies are not performed, they
believe things will grind to a halt & animals and plants will become extinct.
This is just a small sample of Aboriginal World View, and from it you can see
their connection with the world around them. It is their default. So for them to
walk away from it, there is a fear factor, almost a -
what if the old way was true and I fail in my skin responsibilities and I get
punished for it?
I’m
not even going to go into the spirit world side. So please pray for Aboriginal
Christians. They have a lot of opposition when they turn from the old way.
If you want to know more, read (to begin with)
‘White Men Are Liars’ by Margaret Bain.
It is available from AuSIL and it is what I based the above information on.
Over the last 12 months, there have been some very positive changes in the life
of the church. One in particular was and is the scariest of them all - the
Sunday School.
For
the first seven months, we didn’t even have a Sunday School. The kids we had
were from one family and would sit in church with everyone else or sit down the
back listening and colouring in.
But
then things changed. Cathy took on the Bradshaw Primary School morning bus run,
picking up Aboriginal kids from Amoonguna Aboriginal Community, from the Town
Camps and from town itself. One Thursday I filled in for her and one family
recognised me as the -
pastor from that AIM church -
and asked if they could come to church on Sunday and if I could pick them up. I
told them
yes
and continued on my way fearing what was to come. When that family came a year
ago, the kids destroyed the place - tables and trees were left broken and
rubbish was everywhere! So keeping my word, we took the bus out and picked them
up. They had to sit around church for an hour and a half while Cathy went and
did the rest of the church pick ups and I hid away from the kids. I don’t do
kids too well - well, undisciplined, feral kids, that is.
This
continued for a number of weeks and Cathy would be at the end of her tether come
2pm when she finished the last bus run. She would do two hours of bus runs, and
then walk straight into what we called - crowd control - our version of Sunday
School, then morning tea which she had to make for everyone and then right back
on the bus again for two hours of drop offs, no help from anyone else, while I
cleaned up all the rubbish.
We
began to fear Sundays! These new kids that were coming were absolutely feral.
More and more families started coming to church from Cathy’s School bus run! And
not all those kids went to school.
Not
long after these new kids started coming, the original kids stop coming. They
didn’t like
the ferals.
These new kids were running wild! And as the culture goes, the parents didn’t do
a thing about it - it’s not their responsibility. Church was being disrupted, so
the kids had to go outside.
Cathy
tried doing Sunday School with them, but to no avail. Many didn’t know how to
sit on a seat let alone sit still. They had an attention span of an ant. You
couldn’t even put a Veggie Tales DVD on - 30 seconds and they were off, all over
the place, running and screaming, teasing the dogs, you name it, they were into
it. At one stage I told everyone, if they can’t look after their own kids then
don’t bring them. It was pretty bad. The kids would be into everything, turning
the morning tea trolley upside down and so on.
By week Easter, we had a plan. We fenced off an area for the kids. But after
church we still found poo everywhere - except in the toilet. Oh what to do.
Well,
you know God works in mysterious ways. I had to go away to Synod, much to my
family’s disgust -
please don’t leave us alone on a Sunday!
But worse still I had no one to leave the church service to until Josh stood up
and said -
I'll do it
(his version of Isaiah’s - send me). So I trained him up and the first Sunday, I
watched him lead. He had never stood up the front before except to pray once.
So
Josh led and then I got up to give the notices and then preach. As per usual, I
asked
if anyone wanted Bible Study to see me or Cathy...Well,
after the service, two ladies pulled me aside and asked for Bible study for them
and their families. Well, I almost fell over backwards. The first interest in 10
months! I asked them what they wanted to learn about and they answered -
We want to learn how to grow up our kids God’s way.
They had watched Josh and saw where he was at and where their own kid’s were at
and knew something was wrong. So we started Bible study with them and many
others of all ages on growing up
kids God’s way. It was all new for them.
Josh
then preached for the first time two weeks later while I watched and the next
week, I went away and Joshua did the whole service. Guess what?
Everyone
sat in church! There were no kids outside, no teenagers or adults off colouring
in, they
all
sat in to listen to Josh!
Since
then Sunday School has very slowly started to turn around, week by week things
are changing. Those once feral kids that broke everything and ran amuck, that
family I feared coming are now a joy to have here. You see parents/guardians
taking responsibility for their kids. And you don’t know how far they have come
until new ferals turn up and disrupt the kids and poo everywhere they want and
you see how far these kids have come from what they once were to now.
Josh
now willingly helps with Sunday school, sometimes he has to run the show if the
bus is late - sometimes it turns up 15 min after church has started and Josh is
out there plugging away. Crowd control is now Sunday School. It is not perfect
by any means, we still have ferals, Cath still pulls her hair out, but it is
never as bad as it once was. Lessons can now be done. But she still needs help.
We
put out a plea to all the churches in town - no matter what flavour they were -
we were desperate for help, but no one wants to help. Cath and Josh still have
up to 20 kids ranging in from 2-15 yo and different attention spans etc, too
much for one or even two groups. Please pray for help. Time and effort needs to
be put into kids, but that takes manpower. They are important. But also praise
God for what he has done with these kids. The changes in their lives. Pray also
for the parents/relations etc trying now to take responsibility for their kids.
There is so much against them, you could not even imagine.
If life is like a box of chocolates, then ministry is like a rollercoaster. Up
and down and round you go. It very rarely goes straight and flat and when it
does, it is for a very short time. But on a rollercoaster you always know what’s
coming up. When I went to Movie World a number of years ago, I found what I have
dubbed the
“Ministry Rollercoaster”.
It is inside and in the dark, so you really don’t know what’s coming up, but
after a while it stops and then you go backwards in the dark for a time and flat
chat at that, and then you wonder how do you get off this thing?
Well, we have just finished the backwards part in the dark. It lasted around
two months, but now we are going forward again -
Praise God!
If God was not Sovereign, then I know I would have gotten off this ride in
October - mind you I probably would have bailed out years ago when I think about
it. And what a ride it has been. 16 years in ministry and it finally hit rock
bottom - well the lowest I have gotten so far - I know it can get worse, but
praise God he only allows things to happen to us that we can handle. And it all
started at Noreen’s Funeral.
I have done funerals before, Aboriginal and White, but never a Warlpiri
funeral. I had been warned of what can happen, but it was not an issue to me -
then. Now Noreen was from Yuendumu and if you have been watching the news, you
may have heard about the riots in Yuendumu over a murder in Alice. Well the
riots were the beginning of payback for the murder, and the police intervened,
so payback was never done. But peace was not to be achieved unless payback was
done. We expected in excess of 400 people at the funeral, many of whom were
coming from Yuendumu, and since payback had not yet been done, we had the police
here for the funeral in case things turned bad.
We crammed 200 in the church and had 200 outside. Cath was outside the back of
the church in the Sunday school area keeping an eye on proceedings there, Josh
was doing the same out with the dogs and our vehicles and police and prison
guards were moving about the bulk of the people.
Once the coffin came in, the wailing and screaming started. And wail and scream
they did for about half an hour or more until I could be heard above the noise.
This was expected, but not to that degree. It is fake wailing to show that you
are not to blame. It is a normal part of Aboriginal culture. The more you wail
and carry on the less you are to blame, and less likely to get repercussions
from the spirit world as well as payback for her death (someone has to be
blamed).
What I didn’t expect was that nearly everyone at the funeral had to come and
lie on the coffin, while the wailing and screaming was happening. I had never
seen this before, but as Noreen was a very popular and an important woman,
people wanted some of her life spirit, and so they laid on her coffin. She was a
Christian woman and would have been disgusted at this.
Now I wasn’t happy about this happening as this was a Christian funeral and
having this anti-Christian stuff going on was not good, but once started it
could not be stopped. But such is life. This wasn’t the worst of it. This was
just a normal part of ministry here.
Before Noreen died, she said the hardest part of being an Aboriginal Christian
was Sorry Business (which all this was a part of), and it was a struggle when it
was expected of her to participate. The pressures of the old way are very strong
for many who want to break away from them.
As per usual, we had to make sure that we put the vehicles away and anything
that could be stolen or broken and put people on guard to stop people jumping
fences to get to the rest of the property. So the caravan and the Troopy were
put away in the backyard and under Joshua’s guard, but we had no room for the
Spinifex Truck nor the Camry, although they were tucked away in the corner of
the car park. But unfortunately the kids being bored and not having any
accountability, they got to our car and the truck and used the roofs as
playgrounds and the windscreens as slides. There was probably a few thousand
dollars damage done, but the parents weren’t going to cough up, so we foot the
bill.
(Since that funeral, we now have the Baptist Pastors available to be at our
funerals to help keep an eye on everyone and everything).
After the service Josh told me about the vehicles, and I was not impressed! I
went to take the bus to the burial and found - no joke over 40 people in our 20
seater bus. I refused to move unless that halved. Also we had bins everywhere
with the hope that they might be used, but of course they weren’t. After the
funeral, Cathy and Josh couldn’t come to the burial as rubbish was strewn across
the road and all over the yard and in the church. It took them an hour and a
half to clean up and they collected over a wheelie bin full of rubbish. Cath
watched white people walk past shaking their heads at the rubbish left behind
and you knew what they must have been thinking.
At the burial, after everyone had their go at laying on the coffin
again,
before I buried Noreen, I gave them a severe growling for the damage done to our
vehicles and for the rubbish. Since then we have had to put on a bond to cover
any damage done & cleanup required at funerals. Mind you the Baptist church has
far more damage done at their Warlpiri funerals and I talked them into putting
on a bond too. But after a funeral there last week, their bonds are no longer
refundable due to the damage done and poo strewn everywhere. It is a real shame
job.
So, this took me on the down hill slide, along with the constant drunken
violence and carry on outside our gates nearly every afternoon and night. The
shop wall across the road from us all day long being used as a toilet by men and
women didn’t help and to top it off, for months the drunks used the property
next door to drink at, walking back and forth along our front fence to the shops
for more grog. It got that bad I had to leave the dogs out of their pens at
night to protect the place - much to the delight of grateful neighbours. This
was not everything, there is far more, but I don’t need to go into more, but I
must say Alice is a depraved place and alcohol and sit down money are much to
blame.
So it is a very easy slide into the resentment of Aboriginal people here. This
is one reason we started Spinifex Ministries, to prevent this and help those in
it. It was now something that I had to deal with. I looked at these people with
disgust over this behaviour that is “normal” and it made church time a difficult
process. But I just had to keep things in perspective. Christian people do far
worse to God, yet he still loves us and puts up with us. I just had to keep
reminding myself of this.
It is a hard feeling to describe, but when there is no relief from it,
everywhere you look it was there, it just drags you down. This is the reason I
spend my days off from ministry at the Ghan - to refresh me, so when I drive
home and back into ministry, I can keep my perspective.
But praise God, it did not affect my ministry, it was just something I had to
work through in my head. It took around two months, but my rollercoaster is
going forward again. Please pray for us here, as we minister to a people group
we love. Pray also for the Central Desert Aboriginal people especially as there
is so much constantly dragging them backwards into depravity.
March '11 Newsletter
Many of you may know of the appalling condition Alice Springs has slid into over
recent months. Alcohol fuelled violence, sex abuse, break-ins etc have spun out
of control. Latest stats say that break-ins have gone up 450% since 2004 and sex
assault 97%! It has become too much for the Police to handle and many calls to
Police go unattended. We gave up calling them due to their lack of attendance,
but sometimes you just have to try, so we called them again 2 months ago at
7:30pm, as did friends two buildings up the road. There was a drunk Aboriginal
man upending wheelie bins and throwing glass bottles at the passing cars. Our
friends were told when they humbugged the Police that they were the 110th caller
that night (remember this is only 7:30pm) and there was no way anyone was able
to come out that night. The Police are so stretched and the gaols are full in
Alice and Darwin.
To give you more of an idea of what it is like to live in Alice, more so the CBD
and around the grog shops - of which we live over the road of one of the worst,
please if you have access to the internet go to the web pages below and read
them. Yes I know the names are long, but if you go onto our newsletter on our
web site, you can copy the web address and paste it into your browser.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/destroyed-in-alice/story-fn59niix-1226008040782
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/02/3152426.htm?site=alicesprings
Now since these stories were written, the Town Council has put up large
generator powered work lights around the trouble areas in the CBD.
Unfortunately, this has now moved the trouble out of the CBD and some of that
trouble has joined up with our trouble, making it double trouble! You go to
sleep at night with the yelling and screaming and the dogs barking at nuisance
people and people coming over the fence. Everyday we are confronted by
Aboriginal people defecating and urinating outside our fence and on the shop
wall across the road. Seeing fights is an everyday thing. The other night I
heard this woman screaming outside the gate. Her fella was kicking and bashing
her up. She was calling for someone to call the police. I went outside to
investigate and saw him dragging her by the hair and kicking her, so I went and
confronted him. He left and as per usual, she followed him. Ah! Sometimes you
think why bother?
Now we are not alone here. Ours is just one story amongst a growing multitude.
This week with parliament here in Alice, there was a huge public protest over
the government’s inaction. Having to put up with all this day after day, night
after night really tests people’s patience and tolerance of Aboriginal people.
It is not right that you can’t feel safe and relax where you live. In fact, the
friend who lives just up from us is the property manager of the units she lives
in. The occupants of these units are regularly fending off break-in attempts.
It’s not right. Even Naomi was verbally accosted on her way to the toilet the
other night by drunks at the back fence. We are looking forward to moving to a
quieter part of town next year, to get a break from the trouble each day, to
sleep well at night knowing that someone isn’t coming over the fence, and to be
able to see the people your are ministering to afresh and not feeling tired,
haggled and resentful.
What Alice needs is prayer. White people are being bashed even in daylight in
the CBD, shops and homes are being broken into night after night. It won’t be
long before people are so fed up that they will take matters into their own
hands and vigilante groups start to pop up. We pray that if it’s God’s will that
He will bring revival to this depraved town, or at least, clean it up!
AIM Bible Storying Workshop - “OneStory”
“The majority of the world’s unreached people groups are made up of oral-preference learners, who often have no written language of their own. In order to reach them, OneStory works with mother-tongue speakers to develop and record worldview-sensitive, chronological Bible “story sets” for each specific group - typically 40 to 60 stories in a two-year period. Mother-tongue speakers spread the stories to others. These story sets form the beginnings of an “oral Bible” to be told and retold for generations.” www.onestory.org
AIM was able to organise for it’s workers the 4 week ‘OneStory’ workshop, but
was compressed into 12 days!
Here we had to learn the art of story telling and learn how to craft parts of
the Bible into ‘stories’ as best we could for each of our Aboriginal people
groups.
Now as the Aboriginal culture has an animistic worldview and spirits play a
large part in their lives, we were given 14 stories from the Bible relevant to
animistic people. This set covered Bible teaching from the creation of the
spirit world through to the book of Acts. Once a person memorizes all these
stories they have a broad picture of God’s plan and action to redeem sinners.
Obviously there are many more stories which could have been included but our
time was limited!
These 14 stories covered the story telling aspect of the workshop. Each day we
would be told one of the stories and we would have to learn it together and
someone would try to retell it - exactly. It’s harder than it sounds! On the
second last day, we all sat around and each one in turn told the story they had
chosen to specifically learn. Many of us changed the way the story would be told
as though we were telling it to our mobs back home.
The second part of the workshop was learning how to choose stories to fit a
specific theme and then the process of storying. The two main parts of storying
are facilitating the story -
that is putting together the resources,
and crafting the story. Crafting is ideally done by an Indigenous person, who
once they have heard a few versions of that part of the Bible, talked it over,
drawn pictures to help them remember, they then make it into a story to tell
others using words and expressions familiar to their people group. The story
then has to be tested by telling it to a person who has not heard the story
before, and after discussing the story, fix any problems that need to be fixed.
To understand the process we tried it out. Working in pairs, one as Facilitator
and one as Story Crafter, we had different Bible parts to story and test and
then teach them to others in the group.
One of the things which impressed us all about ‘OneStory’ is the absolute
commitment to make the stories line up with the Scriptures and that can take 12
months or longer for a facilitator to get the story set right to recorded and
then use. The process is precise and thorough.
Now AIM as a group has chosen 19 stories for our first set. Our broad theme is
“God is the Winner!” Each AIM centre is going to work on two or three stories,
finding a suitable person to be the crafter and then others for testers. In
October, we will all meet again to discuss our progress.
A while ago, December 09 to be exact, I promised to write about the pastoral
care barriers associated with working with tribal Aboriginal people. One thing
led to another and it was forgotten. Cathy kept receiving letters asking when
this topic was going to be addressed. So she has humbugged me and here it is.
Now
in the March 2010 newsletter
(available online)
I talked about some aspects of Aboriginal World View that have to be known and
understood when dealing with tribal Aboriginal people pastorally. Well, not only
does World View play a large part, so does their culture(s) and how much they
have been influenced by the dominant western culture and how much they have
assimilated into the Australian culture.
So when dealing with each individual, there are many factors to take into
consideration - where they are from, what western influence they have had and
what is my relationship status with them. Do I have a relationship with this
person or not? And if so, how strong is this relationship? You see,
relationships is one of the things that makes the Aboriginal world go round and
relationships between Aboriginal people and white fellas can take a long time to
build - years in fact (and can be damaged or destroyed by careless actions or
words in minutes). And even when you think you have made it, you learn you have
a long way to go. So how much liberty you can take in asking questions and
digging around in a person’s life is dependant on how strong your relationship
is with that person. But in saying that, many Aboriginal Elders have died taking
valuable historic details and stories to the grave because they did not think
the younger generation was ready or even worthy of receiving that information!
So you can imagine how difficult it can be when doing our hospital
visits/chaplaincy and therefore meeting people for the first time! We often
don’t know these people from a bar of soap and so have no idea where that person
fits and so we have to default back to the basic denominator - little
assimilation and this makes for difficult pastoral care. Mind you, many don’t
care and just want us to fix them up as we are God’s Ngangkere (healing man).
So, first pastoral care hurdle - how good is my relationship with that person I
am dealing with.
Next hurdle in pastoral care issues especially in a big town like Alice Springs
is the fact that the relationship will never be as strong like it would be if
you lived in an Aboriginal community with them, seeing them everyday. In most
Aboriginal cultures, it is rude to ask too many questions. A major part of
pastoral care is asking questions. We like to know how people are going in their
walk with God - if they have one, what are they struggling with etc, etc. We
like straight out answers so we can pray for them and help them out in areas of
need and especially not say or do things that you know they are sensitive about!
But in Aboriginal culture, they don’t ask direct questions. They find out what
they want to know by watching and observing or by asking in roundabout ways.
Like when we meet someone, be it for the first time or whatever, we ask
questions. That is polite in our culture, even if it is just chit chat. To meet
someone or walk over to another person of our Australian culture and not say boo
is deemed as rude, but not so in Aboriginal culture. It is the opposite. And
this can be very hard to get used to.
So often, when we do ask pastoral or even general questions and we don’t have a
strong relationship with that person, then many times we’ll just get ‘yes’
answers to our questions, especially if they don’t understand and they don’t
want to be shamed. Also, often it is rude to say ‘no’. And forget about asking
questions with options - such as this or that, or either, or. You’ll probably
get a ‘yes’ answer to both.
Catechism questions, questions in front of others at Bible study nearly always
get a non response by people in their late 40’s and above. The younger
generation are more attuned to answering questions at school. But then again, if
too many of the opposite sex are present, they might be too shamed about getting
the answer wrong and so again will remain silent.
Many Aboriginal people don’t like other people to know when they have done
wrong or when they are struggling. It is easier to suffer in silence than to
admit sin and be shamed especially when it is deliberate sin that requires
church discipline. So the next pastoral care hurdle - questioning can often be
seen as rude.
Closely associated with the last pastoral care issue is this one - in
Aboriginal culture, it is rude to push yourself into other people’s business.
You are in turn told what they want you to know. So pastoral care can very much
be watch and wait and glean what you can. So the next hurdle is - be patient,
don’t push yourself into other people’s lives. They will tell you in time if
they want you to know.
Next is interaction with the opposite sex. In Aboriginal culture, there is more
division and separation between the sexes. Men talk and interact with men and
women with women. It is seen as rude if a man or woman joins a group of the
opposite sex or even an individual without being invited. Now for us here, this
hasn’t been an issue, in fact the opposite is true. I talk more with the women
and the men talk more with Cathy. Don’t ask me why, it just is. But when it
comes to hospital visitation, Cathy (and Naomi while she is with us) visit the
ladies and I the men. So this pastoral care hurdle is to play it safe and have
same sex interaction until you know what is ok.
Lastly is when it comes to visiting Aboriginal people in their homes or camps.
Most times their homes, yards and camps are by invite only and we wait at the
gate (if they have one) until we are invited in. Even if the door is open and
the music is blaring, wait. A good strong relationship lets us into the yard.
They are so used to pushy white people, who don’t care about protocol, the last
thing we need is to be tarred with the same brush. So the last of the pastoral
care barriers that I can think of is privacy. Just as the inside of our bedroom
is private to us, so is their space, be it their camp and or yard and home.
I hope this has been helpful. It did take me 3 weeks to write it racking my
brain for examples. When you are involved in something long enough, you do
forget as things become natural to you. It is even harder to remember when
teaching people who come to help you until they have made a mistake and then you
realise what you should have told them!
Righto, people have been humbugging us, eager to know how the changes here at
AIM Alice Springs have gone since I mentioned about them in the last newsletter.
Well here is the first update...
Now on the first of July the bus run was stopped. I’ve already been into the
reasons why. If you don’t remember or would like to refresh your memory see the
last newsletter (available on line).
Then for the next three and a half months none of our church mob came back. This
was not due to a lack of transport as many have cars or access to them and even
when we visited them during the week, they are never at home, but have made
their way into town. Even those who lived behind the church stopped coming as
the bus didn’t pick them up. No one came back as there was no desire to make
their own way to church. There was no desire to worship God! The free ride to
the shops was gone, we were just a means to an end.
But
the church has not been empty! We moved church outside to around the fire place
during winter and now its summer, we sit in a small circle outside in the shade.
Anywhere from one to seven people would walk to church from the hospital (2kms
away) or from a number of the Aboriginal hostels around town. We even had two
people walk nearly 6km just to church and then walk back home again after for
over a month (until they went back home). But none of these people were of our
local church mob. They were from out of town, here for medical reasons. Now
these people may have health issues, but the church was alive and healthy. The
church has gone from a dead and cold place to a place where people wanted to
come, they wanted to learn, they wanted to worship God!
We also introduced a pre church cuppa. Most people start turning up one and half
hours before church and we sit down outside around a cuppa chatting away. Both
Cath and I can spend time with the people instead of doing the bus run or
running around like a headless chooks trying to see everyone.
Now going from around 120 to five may sound a bit tough, but at least those who
have been coming want to be here. They interact with others who turn up, which
was not happening before. And having church outside in a circle with a small
group has been more appropriate with less hang-ups, those who came would
interact in the service where as inside no one interacted with the service.
We do go inside as six months a year when we have the Yirara students -
the Lutheran Aboriginal boarding school.
About 3/4 of the students come to church here (between 60 - 80). When they are
here, the service is catered for them and not for everyone else that used to be
there. Because there are very few adults behind them they interact with the
service a lot more as there is less shame.
Now at the beginning of October, a family from out at Amoonguna that used to
come when picked up, suddenly started to drive themselves to church. But not
just themselves, but they would go into town and pick up others who also used to
come - until the car was well and truly full. This has continued to happen
except for when the car broke down for 2 weeks. But they fixed it and continue
to come to church which is of great encouragement to us.
On Sunday the 13th November our numbers swelled to 13 (plus Yirara), five from
Amoonguna and the rest from either hospital or from out bush, whereas the
previous week we had only one person turn up (non Yirara week), you just never
know.
When we came here in May 2009, the church was made up of many different tribal
groups, who really didn’t interact well with each other if they interacted at
all. Now the church (minus Yirara) is made up of Alyawarr people and they are
all related and fellowship well together.
So where to now? While the people won’t interact with people who are not part of
their family and to some extent even people part of their tribe, then we will
continue working with people in family groups as well as a one on one based
ministry. Maybe one day the people will be mature enough in Christ to have a
united church, but until then, we will continue doing an outreach ministry.
Also, there is less shame in small groups rather than a large impersonal
congregation.
Now in having a small group at church means there are none or only a couple of
kids as opposed to the big mob we were having before. Naomi and Anna used to
(and now Anna and her friends) go out during the week and spend time with the
kids and do Bible school out there with them so they don’t miss out.
The difficult part of this new ministry is when we go and visit those who used
to come to church - they are never home, they are always in town somewhere or
out bush (but still can’t seem to make their own way to church - go figure).
Sometimes when we walk around town we will have success and spot them or they
will spot us and call out to us and we’ll sit down with them, but the things of
God are rarely spoken of unless they want you to pray for them as nearly all
Aboriginal people do. There is just no desire for it.
So now instead of running a Sunday ‘day care centre’ and waiting for our time to
be up and move to greener pastures, we are now looking forward to the future
here! There is so much that can now be done here. Outreach can now be done as
there is no bus run to hinder the growth of the work here. Pray for us as we now
take the Word of God to the people in a more culturally appropriate way instead
of doing things white fella way.