Our team and part of our hearts are in the Kimberley. Here are some snapshots BAS has sent us. They are the faces there on site. We’re thankful to be involved from a place of prayer support, but also miss being “part of the action”. And just look at that scenery!
Sports are a big point of connection with the Aboriginal youth. This month BAS is doing pioneering work in a new community, so they are building relationships in a variety of ways.
The rainy season has just arrived in the north. God is refreshing the ground.
God is moving in the Kimberley region, and is opening doors for YWAM Perth to reach out and serve. Our Healthcare ministry and BAS are working on community health education to connect the Aboriginal people to their (quite good) government-supplied healthcare. There is a (historically valid) mistrust of whites, and a vast cultural disconnect between the way Western health services are offered and how Aboriginal communities will actually utilize them. Our team has been going out into more remote communities as well as building relationships within the town of Derby itself, aiming to build a consistent and trustworthy presence in the region.
I am in conversation to help in the development the new Aboriginal-focused health education resources (YWAM’s “Simple Healthcare Seminars”, as they are called, are already being run worldwide, but they want to develop a specifically Aboriginal-focused track). These will in the future be taken into communities to build trust of our healthcare teams and other medical professionals, build relationship as we grow in love for each other, and introduce the ways of God to them as we simultaneously fight the growing problems of diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia, as well as the current scourges of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and loads of mental health and family breakdown issues.
Pray for the Kimberley region, and for forward progress in our avenues of service up there.