Send a Kiss to Central Australia

Has God ever told you to do something so strange you doubted your own mind?

Some years ago I was researching material for a novel set west of Alice Springs. Although I’d lived in Alice for several months a decade ago, I wanted to refresh my memory of the area.

Enter Google Earth.

As I was panning around, I zoomed in on an area just north of those ‘painted caterpillars’ which form the MacDonnell Ranges. Suddenly I felt an immensely strong compulsion to pray God’s will would be done at one unnamed hill near the junction of two remote outback roads.

It was a stupendously strong feeling, the like of which I’ve never encountered before or since. To pray for a smudge of a flyspeck in the middle of nowhere? Sure, I knew God is interested even in the fall of a sparrow but why would He be interested in a hill without a name in a place where almost no one goes?

Although I obeyed the Holy Spirit’s prompting, the feeling didn’t go away. Over the next week, I kept being drawn back again and again to Google Earth to pray for that anonymous bump on the map somewhere between Haasts Bluff and Kunparrka. I just couldn’t shake the bizarre impulse to keep praying.


Finally, when the strangeness was over, I asked God, ‘What on earth was all that about? I’m quite happy to wait until I get to Heaven to find out, but I’d really and truly love to know what’s going on while I’m still on this earth.’

Fast forward five years. To about a month ago. I noticed a post on Facebook referring to some criticism of an aboriginal community wanting to build an illuminated Cross on a mountain near Haasts Bluff. The surprising thing about this censure is that most of it came from fellow-Christians.

I didn’t connect the dots at first. But when I checked on Google Earth for the exact location of this proposed Cross, I was stunned. I recognised it immediately: it was that smudge of a flyspeck in the middle of nowhere that I’d prayed for. And now I could give it a name: Memory Mountain.

The story of the indigenous people who want to place an illuminated cross on this mountain is fascinating. You can read about it at http://walkawhile.org.au/

But I’m hoping you’ll do more than just read. Because the location is so remote, the costs are huge. Much more than they expected. They’ve also been given a time limit to raise the funds by the Central Lands Council by November this year. So they’re asking for help—and, as I looked at what they call those called to help them, I couldn’t help but think of what I’d written in God’s Panoply. They’re asking people to be armour-bearers.

And because I know that armour-bearing is about mutual lifting, I’m asking you to help too. Because I also know that, in Hebrew, putting on armour and kissing are the same word, I hope you will consider sending a ‘armour-bearing kiss’ to the people in this remote area. What is a ‘kiss’ in these circumstances? Well, any ‘armour-bearing kiss’ has to be a number like $7.77 or $77.77. So please click over there now and send a kiss. http://walkawhile.org.au/causes/enlist-now/

And please let others know too!


12 Comments

  1. Beautiful story, Annie. I’m puckering my lips.

    • Thanks, Rosie! The wonderful thing about this community is that, since 1982, they’ve had a ‘sing-along’ to Jesus almost every night.

  2. this really is lovely Annie xx

    • It’s such a remote area – and the lovely thing about it is that Memory Mountain is almost on the Tropic of Capricorn. Making it an even more special place.

  3. Annie, I’ve been out to Haasts Bluff and seen Memory Mountain. I know the country around the McDonnell Ranges quite well and spent some time there last year. The cross would be a significant landmark for the indigenous people of that region and a statement of faith.

    • Wow, Elaine! I wanted to get up that way but never made it. I went a couple of times to Gosses Bluff which was quite eerie from a distance and have always wanted to go back. Do you have any photos of the area?

  4. Rita Stella Galieh

    That is fascinating Annie. What a fabulous witness set amongst God’s glorious landscape.

  5. I agree, Rita. It is such an amazing thing. It was so disappointing to see the criticism – however, but for that, I guess I wouldn’t know anything about it. So that too is God’s wonderful providence!

  6. Charles Fivaz

    Thanks for sharing this, Anne. I’m pitching in. What a great sign for Christian unity, for reconciliation, and for claiming Australia for Christ!

  7. Thanks, Charles. It reminds me in many symbolic ways of your own parable Heartland. Perhaps there’s a certain prophetic resonance to it.

  8. Alison COLLINS

    so awesome…

    • Just the way I feel, Alison. I hope you noticed these people have been singing most nights to the Lord as a community. Isn’t that a wonderful idea?

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