We gathered together to hear about a new suburb we concentrating our efforts on in the month of April. The entire base, currently here in Perth of about 100 .
Mirrabooka is a suburb of Perth. There are about 7,000 people residing there; bout the size of my home town. I guess there are many refugees there from war-striken African countries like Sudan and many from Middle Eastern countries like Afganistan, Iran, and Iraq, and many other nations. Because Australia is not 'known' as country that has joined or started many wars, and has a culturally known layed-back attitude about religon, I have been informed that it is considered a 'neutral zone' for many refugees and thus Mirrabooka is a large region of people from all over the world and a vast amount of them have 'been though a lot.' Another people group residing there that have 'been through alot' culturally and historically- Australian Aboriginals. Many of which call the streets their homes and parks their beds. I would be very very happy to formally meet an Aboriginal that has not had to break away from drug abuse, alcoholism, or a broken home. 
Quite a few individuals from the base have done ministry there, and shared those stories with us on the bus showed on the way to the suburb center. Whoa!- the stories ranged from playing ball in the street with kids to being caught in the middle of gang-like violence.Reflections of our worship and prayer time in the park/ Square:
* Aboriginal kids chasing and tackling each other, in and out of the crowd, and around our legs as we worship in a group. It comforted me to know that they felt so at ease around us, as strangers, that we were safe enough to play around.
*Behind me about 20 aboriginals carried on yelling slurred words of English and gibberish because they all were in a drunken haze or something related. It looked as if they lived in that corner of the park. The men shirtless with distinctive aboriginal accents, and the few women beside them… empty beer bottles clustered about them as they were standing and sitting beside a herd of empty abandoned shopping carts.
*A couple of police, that just happened to be there, on horses appeared to have just broken up a fight among them. They later on thanked us for helping us train their horses to work with crowds because we had brought soo many people with us. Weird huh?
*Looming around us were some Africans with turbans, watching from a distance along a walk way, stone-faced and cross-armed. I don’t want to assume that they are Muslim. If they were Nigerian refugees and they were Muslim. . .There are many people being killed in a long-standing war with Christians and Muslims. (Ask me about this If you need more info to pray its not what you may assume.) I don’t think it was a coincidence that the police were there when we rocked up. It made me feel more assured that God was protecting us tangibly.
*And then as we were led to pray over specific issues. Each of us were to ask God for forgiveness on behalf of our (home) nations wrongs represented or other things that we may represent. As couple of us drew together in a group of 3 we could hear people crying out all over… Americans asking for forgiveness on behalf of the intentional and unintentional injustices and pains from the wars in Iraq, and Afghanistan. Europeans for sending missionaries to countries to promote religiousness and cultural judgment rather than God and unity. I over heard people asking for forgiveness for the ways that Christians have miss-represented Gods character, and specifically because of the religious wars in Africa.
*I glanced over and saw a guy from our team (not sure where from originally). Spinning a little aboriginal boy behind our crowd. Both were giggling and laughing. I have never seen joy like that between two strangers before in my life. How quickly that man represented a father to me that took joy in his adopted child.
The cut out area is PERTH and all the suburbs.
Some of the Statistics referenced in this post are from 2006 Census Mirrabooka
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Featured Christian Artist: Arien Van Stralen. This grown boy likes to climb random objects and generally sticks out in a crowd because he is just so unique. After getting past the outward uniqueness, there is a artist just waiting for an oppertunity to illustrate, sketch, and spew out obnoctous amounts of creativity spanning from the serious to hilarious! (wow that rhymed)
