"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"" And that is exactly what I said, "Here am I."

I trained for six years to be a Bush Brother, and immediately got embroiled in the sad side of religion. Remember those old days of High and Low Church? Big issues. Big fights. When in Darwin, one woman told me she wasn’t coming to church - "Too hot and too high!" and stormed out.

Bush Brothers are no longer with us, but in those days it was a way of bringing Christ to the people of the Bush. Single, on little money, bashing the bush in itinerant ministry. Katherine Parish was my beat. Rough, hard and tough but marvelous. Discipline became the key word.

Elly, a triple certificated nurse, was matron of the local hospital. She and I met in Katherine, and after marriage we went to Darwin Parish. Those ten years in the Territory were marvelous, formative years, building on what had gone on beforehand. The good thing about the Territory was that it was very black and white. You knew where you stood. There was no humbug.

A shift became necessary because of medical reasons with one of our children (perfectly OK now), and I became a Chaplain in the Navy. In some ways it was a bit of a rest period, in which Elly recovered after 3 children up north. I went to sea and was able to do a University degree. The Navy was great but in the end I knew that I did not belong. It was foreign country. There was too much humbug.

We were called to the Torres Strait. It happened this way. A call came from Thursday Island. I was told, "Hamish, you have been elected Bishop of Carpentaria." "You must be joking!" was my response. Elly prayed it was all a dream, and who wouldn’t with three primary school children. In the end she could not say, "I cannot come to the banquet...."

We had over nine marvellous, wonderful, years in Carpentaria. Yes it was rough and tough. Yes we had to send our children to boarding school. Yes Elly had to get a job as the clinic sister on the Island, which proved to be a most fulfilling time for her. There is a story here.

Christianity came to the Torres Strait on the 1 July 1871, the "Coming of the Light", as we call it. A hundred years later we realised that God has no grandchildren. Each individual must be converted, must decide whether to follow Jesus or not. No one can do it for you, neither parents, nor education, nor community. So there was deadness about the faith of many people and something had to happen. And it did.

The 4-11 July 1976 the decisive week, and 9 July the decisive day. "Born again", and filled with the Holy Spirit. Both of us became renewed people, with a joy and an enthusiasm for the Gospel. This is why Elly found her work so fulfilling. She would minister and pray, counsel and proclaim Jesus, to the mothers and the babies. It was a great ministry, which she would not have missed for the world.

The same was true for me, and showed itself in a deeper passion for proclaiming the Gospel, for taking seriously what the Archbishop had said over me when consecrated a Bishop, that I was to heal the sick, and in general ministry to people, mostly at the altar rail. It was a very formative period.

In 1983, another phone call came. This time it came from Bunbury, on the opposite side of the country. We knew the call was right, although there was a great reluctance to leave the Torres Strait. We went with the clear mandate, we believed, of helping to bring renewal to this Southwest corner of Australia.

In the course of the last sixteen years we have learnt many things about God and His people, as we have continued to grow in the likeness of Jesus. We have discovered: