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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.