Oz Outreach
September 16^th, 2008

<This is being written at the moment.>

Unexpected Time in Cairns

We arrived in Cairns via Sydney, expecting to pick up a 4 wheel drive vehicle and head over to the Northern Territory. However before we arrived the Holy Spirit showed us that we would be staying in Cairns longer than expected - and then we got a reply from the brother who was setting up the arrangements. He had been spending four or five days in Cairns prior to our arrival - and had overlooked doing the things that he had told us he was going to do.

We rang and visited all the places we could find out about that provide rental vehicles into the Northern Territory from Northern Queensland - and two of them said we had just missed out on vehicles. One firm even told us that some Government educational officials had arranged one to go to the very same area we were going to!.

It was a big disappointment, but the Holy Spirit had warned us. So believing that God wanted us to stay and not leave earlier, we set ourselves to seek God for Him to make the most of our being in the Cairns area until our flight out to New Zealand.

General witnessing is what we believed we were to do. Each day we sat before the Lord Jesus in prayer waiting to know what the first steps of His day were to be, and any special instructions He had for us to carry out.

Sometimes all He indicated was to do something like walk down the fore shore, and He would make things happen from doing that. One time it was clear to have lunch in the main shopping mall - Cairns Central, and do our grocery shopping in one of the two Supermarkets there.

Unreached People Group - White Middle Class 'Down Under'

We had some Bunderberg Gingerbeer, and drank them while sitting outside the Supermarket. Suddenly I believed that the Lord said to make more room on the bench seat. I moved over, and just then an elderly lady came from out of view and sat beside me.

Slowly I was able to start sharing with this lady. She came from Sydney originally and had recently sold up to move into a residential care facility, in Cairns where her daughter lives. (Sydney is a long way from Cairns. When you fly from Auckland to Cairns via Sydney - that is almost exactly only half way!).

We'll call this lady Molly. And she had a traditional church background. I started shearing with her gently and slowly. Her heart was open to the things of the Lord and it seemed that no one had really ever spoken to her before. (This scares me with so many older New Zealand and Australia people even of all ages — middle class white people 'Down Under', are potentially one of the most inobvious unreached people groups in the world.).

I had Been Healed Instantly

As I talked with Molly, believed to share with her about a wonderful thing that the Lord had done for me in the early eighties. I had put a metal kettle on the gas stove to boil water for a pot of tea and then gone out to put some washing on the line. I was living in a Christian outreach community in a seedy part of Wellington New Zealand at the time. Unknown to me while I was out the back, a friend had come in and made themselves a drink and replaced the kettle on the stove without refilling it!.

The first thing that I heard was a gentle hissing noise as I wrapped my hand around the kettle's handle. I had to detach my hand from the handle and left skin behind. The pain was unbelievable. I went and sat on my bed and holding my curled fist up in the air said to the Lord,

“ Jesus you know that I was planning to do some vegetable gardening this afternoon - I don't know what I was thinking! It just came naturally out of my mouth.”

While my hand was still up in the air the pain stopped. I then thought more clearly -

“its so bad my nerves have gone into some type of spasm.”

Bringing my hand down and opening it up—the skin was beautiful like a baby's!

When I showed some friends the skin on the handle of the kettle and what my hand looked like after the Lord Jesus healed me - we were all quite awe struck. And I also did the vege gardening!

Sharing this way in which the Lord Jesus had wonderfully touched my life, with Molly, I explained to her how God had built my faith in Him to especially trust Him when I believed His Holy Spirit was touching my life.

During our time together she lifted her right hand and it was clenched and badly mishappen from arthritis. Molly explained that it had been operated on a few years ago, and that the operation had failed. I continued speaking to build her faith in the Lord Jesus up, and it really seemed that she was hearing something beautiful to her heart. I hoped that she might reach out to Jesus right there and there.

As I finished sharing with her, the Holy Spirit showed that it was time for us to go, and as we left, her daughter came out of the Supermarket to pick her up. God's timing is always amazing! I do hope that Molly has reached out personally to the Lord Jesus for His wonderful healing touch in her life.

The Magi Came form the East

When we had arrived in Cairns we took a shuttle van to where we had prebooked for the YHA. The van takes people to all sorts of hostels and hotels, and there were a number of men with long A2 width sized tubes. As the van readied to leave the airport, one of the men who had been talking to Michael leaned over and asked if he was here for the micro-biology conference?.

Turned out that all the A2 tubes contained 'posters' which summarised the people's conference presentations. Michael was able to take the opening to talk with this man, Amal, about the Lord Jesus. He was originally from Bombay, but now based at Princeton University in New Jersey. Amal took a card and a few days later on we got an email saying he would like to see us again. We put it to prayer, and a few days later, having seen where he got off the shuttle van, believed to track him down. We came into the arrival area of the place he was staying in, and a very helpful front desk man told us where to find his room, then called out to us that he was actually over by the internet area.

Amal was very pleased to see us and was just about to finish his internet session. We went back to his room and shared with him about the Lord some more. It was obvious that he had not heard much of the gospel before, and as we shared on even the ancient Indian writings that point to the Messiah, our conversation lead to how everything the Magi knew of God's ways had led them to come from the East to worship at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ — as an eighteen month old baby.

Garry last seen in Roatan Honduras

A couple of weeks before going to Cairns, we had received an email from Garry who we had visited while in Central America in 2007. Garry had been on a Christian outreach base on the island of Roatan off from Honduras. He had been based there for about fourteen years with little effective rest time off. We had all three prayed in Honduras about getting together in either Australia or New Zealand. Now he wrote that he was staying with a family in Cairns for a while! We were amazed at how the Lord had worked the timings, as Garry had made his plans with out knowing the we were headed there as well!

Garry sent us his local cell phone number, and we prayed after arriving, as to when to contact him. One day we were in the Cairns Central shopping mall, and believed to txt him. Then we believed to head off towards the waterfront. Half way there we got a txt back from Garry saying that he had come into Cairns town centre that day, and was down on the waterfront.

We took this as a great encouragement in the Lord setting up the encounter. It was great to meet then, and a week later, and share on the Lord's work and the themes that the Lord was indicating by the Holy Spirit were important for upcoming things in missions.

Garry was looking really great. He had been doing volunteer work and now was in paid employment for a season as a chippy. We look forward to keeping in touch, and sharing over the Lord's plans together.