CHAPTER 23

Study tours

The students at Tarus were responsive to my teaching, and I felt that we had established a good relationship with one another. I was very happy teaching there. As we had visited SoE over Easter, I suggested to Chris BanoEt that I take the students for a study tour there. It would be a great stimulation for them, and they would benefit from studying the 'Spirit Movement' first hand. If later in their ministry they would come across this phenomenon in their congregations, they would be prepared to minister to all people in a more helpful way. Chris agreed, but there had never been a study tour before, and he wanted it to succeed. We had to plan it thoroughly, and we all learnt from it. As the Theological school had originally started in SoE, the students could also research into the history of their own school.

On a Saturday in June 1970 Albinus Nitti, one of the part time lecturers, and I set out for SoE with eight students (three had already gone ahead by truck) from year five. We used the Synod's long-based Landrover, which had seen better days. It was given to the Synod by our church to be used by Col Crowe during his time in Timor. The object of the tour was to evaluate a wide range of ministries in a country town, where the charismatic movement had had a decisive influence on the whole community in SoE. We stayed at the Losmen Bahagia, all together in a large room, sleeping like herrings on the floor. During the days we visited a variety of community organisations, including some important people in the town, like the Catholic priest, the Police, schools, hospitals, and leaders and elders of the church.

The police told us that since the charismatic movement had come to SoE about two years earlier, crime had come down to almost nothing. People spent a lot of their spare time in the church, in prayer groups, and in teams. These were a small group of church people sent out to other congregations in the vicinity, to spread the 'Spirit Movement'. Through our interviews we heard lots of stories which they described as miracles.

One woman told us of how she had revived a person who had died the night before. One of our students asked: "How did you know that he had died?"

"I could not hear him breathing. He was just lying there stiff and cold." "Did a doctor or a nurse examine him?"

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