“For me, growing up on Boigu Island was like living in heaven on earth”, says indigenous evangelist, Laurel Pabai.
Located in the northernmost tip of Queensland’s Torres Strait Islands and just six kilometres from Papua New Guinea, Boigu Island is where Laurel was born and raised, among idyllic natural beauty, within the love and strength of her indigenous culture and community.
Laurel Pabai’s story features in a TV special on the nine stations this Easter wekend, part of a series called Helping Hands. The show invites us to join Laurel as she returns home for the first time in 20 years. We journey with her through emotional reunions with family, see her reconnect to indigenous tradition and culture, and see how she shares the Easter story with family and friends.
““Time flies! You know, I get busy with my evangelism work. You’re not realising that there are family that are getting old because in your head you are thinking they are still young! It’s exciting. It’s a great time to come back and really get reconnected back into the culture … To us, culture is a way of life.”
Inside Laurel’s yarning circle we meet island elder, Uncle Fred Pabai:“The yarning circle of the First Nations Peoples of Australia is (for) storytelling and the passing of culture to the younger generations,” he says “making sure that our culture is alive … It’s the survival kit to the community to maintain and to be able to come together as one and unite.”
We experience the results of Bible League’s project of producing the Plain English Version of the Bible designed for Indigenous Australian’s whose mother tongue is an Aboriginal language.
“It’s written in English,” says Laurel, “and it is easy to understand because it’s written in the English that we speak.”
Laurel and Uncle Fred read the Easter story in English and talk about the Easter story in their native language.
The story of Queensland grazier 76-year-old Alison Gray, forms a second part of the Heping Hands special. She lives on 7,000 acres of rugged, mountainous country one and a quarter hours by car inland from Bundaberg.
“I look after the cattle, horses and property while my husband works away. I’ve been here twenty-six, going on twenty-seven years,” Gray tells Helping Hands.
“I like the isolation, but I also am a social person. I have the radio on most of the time – on my phone. I just have it in the background, and it helps, it encourages me – lifts my spirits up.”
And her favourite is Vision Media’s breakfast radio show, Rise & Shine. As a Christian in a remote location, Gray is typical of those who find Vision Media a lifeline encouraging connection and community.
The Helping Hands TV series is produced in partnership with the ministries and organisations featured on it. The Other Cheek takes that to mean financial sponsorship and other assistance.
That does not detract from worthwhile stories – the PEV Bible, for example, should be better known.
The Helping hands Easter special will run
- on 9GEM on Saturday 19 April at 10:00am
- on Channel 9 on Sunday 20 April at 5:30am
- On Channel GOOD on Monday 21 April at 7:00pm
- And will be available to stream after its aired on 9NOW and GOOD
- Vision Christian Media app from Saturday morning