2011 - Theses - Flinders University

White Lives in a Black Community: The lives of Jim Page and Rebecca Forbes in the Adnyamathanha communityTracy SpencerVolume One Creative Writing Component: Excerpted Chapters from Volume Three Appendix OneSection C: Contact ZoneRefer to Book 2 Exegetical Essay FourLife Writing Chapter NineJimDruid Vale Station, Flinders Ranges, 2002It seemed missionaries were making tracks all over the country, mile by slow mile on pushbike, foot, camel and dray. Clearing a space on the door that served as my desk top in theclosed in back verandah of our old homestead at Druid Vale Station, I studied a map of thevarious routes intrepid Australian Aborigines missionaries took in their endeavours to reach‘untouched Aborigines.’‘What was it that persuaded that band of dedicated Christian Endeavourers to evangelisepeople at La Perouse? What was it that drove the intrepid E.J. Telfer to push his cyclethose many thousands of kilometres in New South Wales, South Australia and WesternAustralia to reach the people with the Gospel? ... What was it that compelled Will and IrisWade and their fellow missionaries to brave the unmapped territory of central Australia bycamel train to reach the scattered groups of people for Christ? ... It was most surely thevision, for ‘where there is no vision, the people perish’. They, and all who followed them,had the vision of what God could do in the hearts and lives of the Aboriginal people acrossAustralia.’ 71James Page was one of these, and I turned the pages of this United Aborigines Missionhistory in anticipation of seeing the man for the first time. There he was: barely discernible inan over-exposed photograph, almost smiling, slim, a hand on his hip and the other pointing tosomething off camera. The crease of a small frown makes a shadow on the bridge of his nose,and a small reflection catches the plain glass of his spectacles.50