In 2004 Jackie and I accepted the invitation of David Mulready, an old friend and recently appointed Bishop of North West Australia,
for me to become the rector/BCA missioner of the Parish of the Murchison based in Mt Magnet. It’s located 340 kms inland from
Geraldton at the crossroads of the north-south and east-west highways. Our ministry focused on Mt Magnet, Meekatharra 200
kms north, Yalgoo 115 kms west, and we also visited Cue 80 kms north, and Sandstone 155 kms east.

During our four years there the most important lesson I learned was the value our Lord places on each and every individual – something I knew theologically, but which I came to understand and experience practically – the lengths Jesus goes to meet the needs of each person – time and distance are immaterial! One instance among several, highlights this:

Saturday 20 May 2006: the lady serving at the Meeka roadhouse, Elsie* a Pacific Islander, noticed the crosses on my collar, and  asked when church was on.

1 July and 8 July: a new lady, Lea*, who worked at the roadhouse, came to church.

10 July: Paul Dew, the NSW BCA boss, called in to stay overnight enroute to Perth. That very night we got a call advising us of a need back east – we were able to get Jackie on a flight from Perth the next day and Paul was there to take her down! God’s perfect and loving timing!

12 July: when home alone, I’d noticed Joe’s road-train in town and rang him to come round for dinner. He told me that a couple of weeks previously he had pulled in late at night to the Shell Roadhouse in Meeka to fuel up. The lady serving had poured out her story: against advice of family and friends, she’d hooked up with a guy who was leaving his wife, and they’d come to Meekatharra – he’d dumped her and she was now on her own! 

Her father was a church minister, and she was looking for God. She showed Joe the book she was reading: ‘A Purpose Driven Life’.
“I’ve got a copy in my truck” said Joe – he got his copy and spent half an hour or so talking with her about the Lord.

15 July: I headed to Meeka, praying the Lord would overrule about me seeing this lady. 10 am came – nobody!? 10.05, one lady turned up with her kids, but by 10.10, as no one else had come I suggested she go home and I would come round. I began closing up but at 10.15 Lea turned up – could she have a chat? It turned out she got married in Tonga, moved to Brisbane where the marriage soon fell apart. She hooked up with a fellow and they came to Meeka, where he dumped her. She now realised her mistake and wanted to come back to God. We talked, and read the scriptures pointing to God’s love, mercy and forgiveness. She wept, we prayed,
and she recommitted her life to Jesus. In the following weeks she was a transformed person.

She had come to church because her sister Elsie, who had come to Meeka to be with her while she sorted herself out, had told her when it was on! I had made a 400 km round trip for one soul – a soul whose steps the Lord had orchestrated in amazing and unlikely ways to bring her ‘home’.

Ministry in the bush, in many BCA supported parishes, is so often about meeting the spiritual needs of small congregations – congregations that can grow and shrink almost literally overnight as people’s contracts see them arrive, or see them go, or their commitments simply change. We are not there to ‘build churches’, but to have the privilege of tending the souls of each person the Lord brings across our paths – to be God’s servants to ‘pass them on’ spiritually stronger and healthier than they were when they  arrived – SOUL DOCTORS!