Charles Brammall on John Lance Tremlett’s Footprint of Word and Life.
I have spent a little time with Lance and am impressed by his soft warmth, Christlikeness, and Gospel loyalty. His utter conviction of God at work, obvious personal relationship with Him, and linguistic cleverness. About which, as a Literacy/ESL/EngIish teacher, I am a tad envious, of which I repent in dust and ashes.
One of my greatest regrets is being unable to spend any more hours with Lance. I imagine it could be seminal. But never mind- through Jesus’ resurrection we will meet in glory and be as best mates. Shall be dear friends, nay siblings, together with our elder Sibling. I shall ask many questions of the chap.
Lance went to be with his beloved Heavenly Father, God, and Rescuer this week. His Christ, Redeemer and Provider. His utterly fair and impartial Judge Who died in His stead, out of Divine love for him.
At times a life blazes briefly and blindingly across the sky- a supersonic 100 yard dash. Lance’s was not one of these. Other times a life burns, in fact smoulders, quietly, faithfully, until the night itself seems gentler for their glow.
Such was Lance John Tremlett’s time on his YHWH’s earth. The Aussie missionary, translator, and servant for Messiah. For over four years this man bore the gospel. Not in thunder (like Zebedee’s sons James and John, the “Thunder Boys” (Sons of Thunder)- but in tenderness.
(“Sons of thunder”, the apostles James and John’s nickname, was given them by a clearly droll
Jesus in Mk 3:17. The Greek “Boanerges,” probably refers to their fiery and zealous personalities, exemplified in their desire to call fire down from heaven on a Samaritan village that rejected Jesus Lk [9:54]).
Lance bore the Gospel only (or even mainly) in English, but in Kriol, the living literate language of Northern Australia’s dry, beating ticker.
A Holy Humble Calling, from a Humble Holy Start…
It is impossible (and unrealistic, inappropriate) to narrate LANCE’s story, apart from his LORD’s tale.
Before time, Christ selected, elected, protected him. Then somewhere in Lance’s early years, Jesus FOUND him, and
he discovered that God had been there all along.
His conversion was not dramatic, but undoubtedly decisive. He came to rest on the assurance that the Chap from Nazareth had done for him what he could never do for himself.
That assurance of his eternal rescue— quiet, sturdy, luminous— would become the bedrock of his life’s work through and for his Master.
In obedience to Matthew 28:18–20’s Great Commission, Lance and his wife Gwen Livingstone Tremlett travelled north with the Church Missionary Society (CMS) to serve Aboriginal communities in the NT, Top End.
They began not as preachers, but as learners. Listening, teaching literacy, fixing pumps, and “earning” the invitation, right, to speak of God’s grace in the death/resurrection of Jesus bar Joseph. (Not that the joyous privilege of introducing people to Jesus can ever be earned).
Word Living, Word Translated.
1987 began the labour that would define the Tremlett’s lives, when they began making the effort (with others) of translating the Word enscripted into Kriol.
By 1993, they were co-ordinating the entire project, working hand in hand with Aboriginal elders and linguists to bring forth the Kriol Baibul, completed in 2007 – the first full Bible in any Australian Aboriginal language or creole. “Kriole langwej” is the indigenous term for the tongue, which often starts as a pidgin (a simplified language for communication). It then evolves into a full language with a more complex grammar when it is learned by children as their native tongue.
For Lance this was not merely a linguistic achievement but a theological, hermeneutical and homiletic act. He described it as: “A RE-enactment of the Incarnation itself. If the Word became flesh then the Word must also become language.”
Each verb conjugated, each idiom clarified, was his way of confessing that God speaks the heart’s own tongue. In other words, Mr Tremlett “spoke in tongues”😉, Creole tongues.
Christ Jesus was both his method and his motive.
He followed the One who learned Aramaic in Nazareth, “stooped” and condescended to speak Samaritan, and turned fishermen’s slang into theology.
Because to translate the Bible into Kriol was to follow the Word who had first translated heaven into humanity.
His Strong Compass.
Those who knew Lance David all say he detected no separation between trust in Elohim, and travail.
Each day dawned in thanksgiving and supplication, and concluded in gratitudinous prayer. As each difficulty rose its ugly mug LT would say “The Lord has gone before us.”
Lance drew strength from the Christ who Himself grew weary by a well, who found dependence on Him in unexpected places, and who promised, “Look!” (or ‘See!’), I am with you always.”
In the heat, drought, (at times famine), an hardship of the Top End, when progress was slow and isolation deep, this reliant misso held fast to that promise.
Jesus wasn’t his theory— He was his companion.
And from that companionship flowed a compassion that Aboriginal friends recognised as genuine.
Over time, they not only trusted him; but adored him, as he listened before he spoke, and served before he taught.
The Misso as the Man.
Lance was not a man of noise or notoriety. He was quiet, laconically humorous, and patient to the point of stubbornness.
He loved words, language, and diction. Syntax, pronunciation, and Scripture. Grammar, and the slow satisfaction of accuracy. Think Mel Gibson and Sean Penn in the magnificently shot “The Professor and the Madman”. Or Pip Williams’ “Dictionary of Lost Words”, a novel of covering some of the same events as the above.
Lance and Gwen shared a deep partnership— intellectual, spiritual, and domestic— their marriage itself a small parable of Christ’s steadfast love for His Church.
Lance had strengths that make saints of ordinary people: endurance, humility, and unshakable faith.
If he had a weakness apart from being wretched sinner (as are we all), it was the same one that marks most of the godly— a reluctance to speak of himself.
He left few words about his own heart, preferring the text he helped others to read.
Honours and the Harvest.
In 2007 the couple were appointed Members of the Order of Australia (AM) for “service to the Indigenous community in the Northern Territory through the translation of the Kriol Bible, and administrative roles within local communities.”
But Lance’s most genuine honour was never inscribed on a medal. It resounds whenever a congregation in Ngukurr or Katherine or the Roper Valley reads aloud:
“God bin kamda long graun laik man — na wi bin lukimim.”
(The Word became flesh and lived among us.)
This verse alone— John 1:14 in Kriol— is his memorial, his monument, and his message.
A Theology Lived, Preached, Lived and Preached…
Lance’s theology was profoundly incarnational and beautifully simple:
• Christ precedes us in every place.
• The gospel must be heard in the heart’s own language, and
• Love must walk slowly enough to be understood.
He saw introducing folk to Jesus not as conquest but as communion – bringing Christ to others, and sometimes recognising Christ already at work among them in ways.
In this he mirrored the humility of the Word alive in Philippians 2: the Servant who empties Himself for the joy set before Him.
Memory, Legacy.
Records of Lance’s death are quiet- as though heaven itself respects his preference for understatement.
But the truest measure of a fellow’s life is not the sound it makes as it ends, but the echoes it leaves behind. The echo of elder Lance in this life, on this world.
And this was God’s season for Lance. And this one rolls gently, quickly, grittily, across the red dust and gum trees of the North.
Voices reading the Word of Jesus in their own tongue (real Glossolalia), prayers rising in Kriol cadence, and hymns that name Jesus as “Maran la wi”— “our Lord.”
Among Aboriginal Christians, his passing was felt not as a loss of a foreign teacher, but as the farewell of a cousin-brother
He and Gwen had entered their world with open hands, and left it with open hearts.
Christ, His Beginning and His End.
In the end, the secret of Lance’s endurance was no secret.
He trusted Jesus the Christ— for his forgiveness, his calling, and his future.
He worked in weakness but lived in grace.
And now, I am positive, he has heard the voice he so long translated:
“Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Master.”
The Kriol Bible remains— the Word made audible, the Word still walking the land— and through it, the gentle missionary who once walked beside it continues to speak.
References
• SydneyAnglicans.net: “Prophets with Oz Honours”; “Kriol Baibul Achieves Milestone.”
• Christian Today Australia: “Sydney Anglicans Applaud the Kriol Bible Translation Project.”
• Anglican News (2007): “God Speaks Kriol.”
• Government Gazette S02 (2007): Australia Day Honours.
• NT Archives & CMS Records; Sandefur, The Kriol Bible Translation Project (2004).
CMS’s announcement of Lance’s death:
“Dear friends,
We give thanks for the life and mission service of Lance Tremlett who went to be with Christ on 14 October 2025.
Lance’s ministry Lance, and his wife Gwen served faithfully in Northern Australia as CMS missionaries for over 40 years. Throughout this time they served however was needed, including carpentry, teaching, ministry and local government. Ultimately God led them to Kriol literacy and Bible translation in 1987.
By God’s grace, Lance and Gwen served in translation for two decades and were part of the team who produced the first full Bible in any Aboriginal language. This was nationally recognised in 2007 when Lance and Gwen were both made members of the Order of Australia.
We are deeply grateful for Lance’s 40 years of service to CMS and to Aboriginal communities. We praise God that he is now with his heavenly Father. Please join us in praying for Gwen and their sons as they grieve and ask that they would know God’s comfort in this time.
Funeral details: Date: Saturday 25 October Time: 2pm QLD time, 3pm AEDT Location: St Peter’s Anglican Church Maroochydore
Image: Gwen and Lance Tremlett Iage Credit: via Sydney Anglicans