2011 - Theses - Flinders University

Reproduced from ‘Challenging the Almighty’, UAM, 1994 p24First known as the Australian Aborigines Mission and later the United Aborigines Mission,the organisation attracted an assortment of mostly young and single men and women whooffered themselves for missionary work. The non-denominational collection of business men,spinsters and fundamentalist Christians self consciously knew themselves to be amongst thefew white Australians who cared about the plight of Aboriginal people. 72 It was true thatsome had already been turned down for the more glamorous mission fields of China or India,on the frontiers of Empire; for others, their vision encompassed only the inland horizons oftheir island home.Jim came relatively well prepared for the task. I found his name embossed on the HonourBoard of Reverend Barnett’s Missionary and Bible College, Sydney in 1927, its early yearsof operation when everything from the milking cow to the buildings themselves depended on51