“Creeaak, creeaak...bang!” After walking up the old rickety steps and nearly taking the wooden door off its hinges, we ventured into the vestry of Julia Creek’s St Barnabas Anglican Church, unsure of what we’d discover inside. Immediately we were confronted with a thick layer of dirt and dust blanketing everything in sight, cobweb-draped pews, and carpets scattered with animal droppings and insect remains. It was a sad sight, but also unsurprising as the dusty church register informed us that the last service held in the building was back in 2019!

With no active congregation and in such poor condition, the future of this little old church building seemed very uncertain. Yet despite the obvious challenges ahead, we spent the 1.5-hour drive home to Cloncurry feeling excited about the possibilities. All we needed now were some dedicated volunteers.

Amazingly, it didn’t take too long for the ball to get rolling. Following a compelling on-site video of our daughters requesting helpers “to clean this very old church because it’s so dirty”, we had a few interested parties. A BCA Nomad couple and some volunteers from our partner church in Townsville joined forces in Julia Creek a few months later and kick-started the restoration process.

After an intensive week of deep cleaning, rubbish removal, repairing, polishing and painting, the building was transformed! Along with the prayers and donations of BCA churches and individuals, getting this church ready to reopen for business has been a true partnership effort.

Our reopening service was soon publicised across town. For a community of 500 people with only a fortnightly Catholic service available, this was a significant milestone. Even the local ABC radio station was interested and interviewed Simon in the lead-up!

On the Sunday afternoon of 27 August, we had 11 adults and five kids gather to worship and hear the Gospel at our reopening service. After four years of vacancy, it was a joyful sight indeed to see people once again worshipping Christ in this old church building, with not even a cobweb in sight!

Please join us in thanking God for enabling the reopening of Julia Creek’s St Barnabas Anglican Church and pray for the new congregation as they meet once a month.