Background and Call to Peru

I have a photograph, which I reassure very highly. It is of my father and mother on the occasion of their Golden Wedding. I think it is the best portrait ever taken of them because it captures an expression of the peace and joy that goes with godly living and which characterised them throughout their long life. They were devoted Christians, who to my knowledge never strayed from what they regarded as the right course on which they always maintained an even keel. Nothing seemed to daunt or discourage them. They instructed us well in the Scriptures, commended us to God in our daily, family devotions and set us the finest example of Christian living that parents could possibly offer their children. It was they who set my feet on the straight and narrow path and from my earliest years encouraged me by word and deed to follow in their footsteps. It was their ambition that I should be a missionary and to this end they fostered in me from childhood the determination to prepare for it by applying myself with all my might to whatever task was assigned me. This did not mean that life was by any means dull in our home. On the contrary they made it so interesting for us children that we could not imagine anything better than their companionship and way of living.

Both of them had been early settlers in Queensland, their parents having migrated from England while they were still quite young and having to battle against the elements when that state was still in its infancy. Their tales of the pioneering days always delighted us and my father especially could keep us enthralled with his adventures for as long as he cared to talk about them. How we wished we could have lived in those times too! Father must have sensed this longing, so he did the next best thing for us. He took us out on hikes and camping expeditions and taught us the art of fending for ourselves and making ourselves comfortable anywhere. My earliest recollection of a camping expedition was at the Queensland Coast near Bundaberg. I was scarcely four at the time. Dad borrowed a horse and cart from his mother who had a farm at a place called Barolin, just out of the town. He borrowed a tarpaulin, piled us and the camping equipment on board and headed for the coast where we pitched a camp with the tarpaulin stretched over the cart, covering the shafts and extending out on either side beyond the wheels. My brother, Arthur, and I slept between the shafts, mother and father occupied the space between the wheels and our provisions were stored in the covered space on either side of them. It was all very simple and primitive but we as boys could not imagine anything more delightful. It must have brought back memories to Dad too, for it was not far from this spot that his father met an untimely end endeavouring to save his only daughter from drowning in a water hole at a similar camp. That sad event is still commemorated by the place-name Money’s Creek, by which the place is still known to this day.

Note: Money's Creek lies on the coast on the outskirts of Bundaberg. You can move this map to around, and alter scale to get a perspective of where it lies. Barolin is now represented only by a suburban street in Bundaberg
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