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Your Church in Action 

 For God, nothing is ever off the radar 

April 15, 2019

Dennis Tranter is the chaplain at Tamworth prison, but it's been a winding path getting there.

Long and winding road: Tamworth's prison chaplain Dennis Tranter.

"I used to be a heavy drinker," Mr Tranter admits.

"Our local Bible Basher took me out for coffee. I responded by pouring a cup of coffee on his Bible.

But he never gave up on me. In the end I said, 'Leave me alone and I'll go to church with you.'

I intended to only go once. But these guys were different.They had a coffee shop.

I'd spend half of Sunday at the pub and then I'd go back and terrorise those guys in the coffee shop.

But nothing would offend them.

Their constant acceptance turned me towards God.

I thought, 'If I can't offend these blokes no matter how hard I try, then I reckon I can't offend God.'

That realisation did the trick.

And it's a truth that translates to the blokes in prison.

They're ordinary blokes, but they're busted and they've got no way of knowing how to fix it.

They need to hear that no matter what you've done, God still accepts you.

I'm also there for the staff.

They might be rocked by a death in custody or a hard time at home.

Any person, anywhere needs someone to talk to, and the chaplain's there.

The managers are supportive and encouraging.

They see there's a need for a chaplain.

One guy became a Christian and his cellmate saw the change that it made to him and then he started reading the Bible.

That's the thing about working for God.

There's never anything that's off the radar."

This article appeared in the Tamworth paper and The Northern Daily Leader

Our Future

As many of you would know, we are no longer with APWM. This is a decision made by the committees looking at how and where we work.

As we are not working with GRN, we need to be under a mission to be under APWM's umbrella.  We did put in a proposal to APWM last year, and we were told early this year that it was not accepted.

We need to be working under an accepted mission organization to continue as missionaries with APWM.

While we understand this is a policy that has been long standing and is necessary to ensure workers are not 'loose cannons' and working to a standard, it has been hard for us to know where to go from here.

As we have a number of children in our care at the moment, we are unable to go on deputation with another mission organization. Dennis' part time work also hinders this.

We have to make some huge decisions for our future. We cannot live on Dennis' wages alone.

Our first thought was for Glenys to give up her work and get a full time job to help supplement the income.

If we did this, then there would be no one to help with the teaching that we do with remote Christians and the work we do with the teaching materials would stop.

Please pray with us and our future. We feel strongly that we need to continue developing bible studies suitable for remote Christians who mainly learn orally, but do not know if we can manage on a part time wage alone.

While the children we have with us make joining another mission hard, we still see them as a mission field and are privileged to see them gaining an understanding of God and their relationship with him.

Updates

Dennis is enjoying his work at Tamworth. It is interesting how God works. At the end of last year, Dennis was really sad at leaving Dungog Clarence Town and did no know where or how he would serve God next.

He has the caravan on some land 5 minutes out of Tamworth. There is no power or water, so he relies on the solar panels and some topping up with a generator.

After working at Tamworth  a few weeks, he has found he really enjoys the job. He works with the inmates and the guards who need some one to talk to.

Please pray for the people Dennis comes in contact with. He meets so many broken people.

Just an update on his hours. Dennis travels to Tamworth Monday evening after cooking the evening meal. He stays there for either 2 or 3 days depending on the week and then returns home.

This job is only part time with a lot of miles traveling each week. The time home is spent working on assignments for his chaplaincy training or helping Glenys with the kids and giving her extra time to work on the teaching materials for Indigenous Christians. 

Dennis at Tamworth

Well, today is the start of the new life.
Dennis has officially left us today to go to Tamworth.
While he  does not start at the jail until Tuesday, he left us with the van in tow this morning.

As you may know, Dennis is no longer preaching at Dungog Clarence Town, but he has been asked to do supply at different churches.

He was asked to preach at Singleton Presbyterian Church today.

As Singleton (Singo) is on the way to Tamworth, he decided to take the van to church and keep traveling on after the service.

Tomorrow he has to be at Glenn Inness by around 8.30, so it made sense for him to go to Tamworth and then on to Glenn Inness in the morning.

Glenn Inness Correctional Centre

Then.. Tuesday start at the prison.

Please pray for him as he learns more about his job.  He has spent the last few weeks commuting to Sydney. This last week he went to Silverwater Jail, had some inductions, met other chaplains, and met with others helping him get ready for this work.

As you may imagine, security is important, so he had to learn the protocol, get the final security tags and other important things.

He also has to go to the Bible College in Sydney once a month for this year to do a chaplaincy course.

Christ College

Dennis hates to be away from home, so it is hard for him and he worries how Glenys will handle everything while he is away.

Dennis will be home Thursday evening after he finishes at the prison. He will leave the van at Tamworth. A Christian  from Tamworth  is letting him leave the van on his property.

Then on Monday evening, he will turn around an commute back to Tamworth to work again.

Please pray for the people he will meet. We are asking God to give Dennis the wisdom to deal with all he meets, and for God to work in the hearts of the inmates and the workers there.

New Work, new posts

As you will see, as you look at the following posts on this site, there are a lot of changes in our lives at the moment.

We are committing ourselves to regularly update these pages.

Please add your email address to the site so you will be notified when there are new updates.

Could those of you in churches that have faithful prayer supporters without computers update them for us.

We are finding that to send out large numbers of newsletters costs us over $100 each time we send them out.

Together we can work to inform the people in our churches about our work.

It takes so much discipline to sit and regularly write when so much is going on. It would be great if the people in your congregation are informed and are actively involved in the work we are seeking to do for God.