Stories from the Field - Alice Springs, AU // Daniel & Katy Spakman

hey everybody uh it is me will hart here with iris global and i am so excited to introduce to you some of our base leaders as you know we have locations all around the globe and today i get the amazing opportunity to introduce you to our iris alice springs base in australia and we have two of our just spectacular base leaders we've had some time together in in australia at our family gatherings but i want to introduce to you guys uh daniel and katie spacman the the leaders of our iris alice spring base how are you guys hey will hey whale good thank you thanks so much for having us oh we love it we we got to connect at our last family gathering when when the world wasn't shut down and uh yeah i just remembered how fierce of a dodgeball player your husband was and how sneaky he was and it captured the flag um but just we love you guys and god is doing so much in alice springs so just fill everybody in on okay where is alice springs because people don't normally hear that name when they think of australia where are you guys located tell us what you do yeah we're in central australia so if you look at the map of australia we're almost exactly right in the middle um we have a small town here it's probably towards 30 000 people and i was just um hearing the news from pember yesterday that that's about how many people that iris are feeding at the moment in mozambique which is just a little up in the ocean so to like compare that to our population of just we're 30 000 all together about just over half of that population are indigenous and the rest of us are either non-indigenous australians or internationals that are here for you know there's a lot of healthcare health and welfare it's a yeah that's sort of the condition of the town um so we're central and we're working with the indigenous tribes probably about between five and ten main language groups here but of course as you spread out across um australia that gets into the hundreds so yeah i'm about a thousand miles from any decent city so it's quite quite a fair way away from any um you know a big city so quite remote but but a beautiful spot yeah it's been service center for all the little communities the remote areas they might only have like 200 people living in them and if they need to get access to a hospital or as a young woman ready to give birth or they'll come in to town and access the services here so we're a real cross-section of a lot of tribes and different people groups lots of internationals it's a hub amazing and so so tell us how did you guys end up there because as we were talking before you you guys are from tasmania how did you guys end up what did god do in your lives to bring you out to alice springs sure the short story uh we'll try and keep it short the uh we um went to uh bethel for two years so that's how we first really got connected in with iris i mean we had a bit of um connection previously to that but uh when we're at bethel we got connected with iris and when we were there we felt that's when god really called us um uh to alice springs we both independently had alice springs come up on our hearts as a place to land when we got back out of our training at bethel and um and uh katie had had a heart for uh aboriginal and and peop and you know i just always had a heart just for missions and after a bit of wyoming exposure in my earlier years and um and we uh yeah that's where we we just felt god lead us and we landed here after our two years at in reading and um the rest is history you know like uh but you know we we can't see ourselves anywhere else we feel really um like we just want to be where god wants us to be you know and that's that's alice springs at the moment and we'll be here as long as he wants us here so it's almost been seven and a half years now so wow yeah wow yeah tell us about your base tell us about your location what does it look like do you have missionaries give give everybody just like a brief overview on what that the alice springs uh what does it look like yeah sure i think one of the good things other than you know covered last year one of the good things is that we're quite accessible for a lot of australians and so we do have a lot of visitors through um that come and visit us um at the moment we've got people from new zealand visiting people from england and people from south africa who were in australia so that we always have a lot of visitors too so hospitality is like a big part of it um we are we're running an iris church that also has a um australian oversight as well which is a really beautiful um marriage i guess um we run a bus ministry because a lot of the people that come to our church live in aboriginal camps um so we do everything we go and pick them up and and bring them um we do a weekly community meal like an outreach that um that feeds a lot of people who you know are hungry not not for reasons like you know that you'd find in africa but we do have a lot of government structures that um that are there to help people get food and access to health and all that kind of thing but we have high levels of addiction so it can be really frustrating when you're in the camps and you see children you know who are hungry who are neglected but you know it's not because there's no money or there's no food around it's just because of the circumstances around how those things are handled so um yeah it's it's a real it's hard for us you don't want to just kind of if if we're supplying all the food for these people and they're still getting government payments we're essentially freeing up money for alcohol and other things so it's a balance you want to be the hands feet of jesus you want to meet needs especially for the kids you know when they're hungry or needy like this that really pulls at your heart um but also not enabling um the people so yeah it's a bit of a balance sometimes yeah it's it's it's funny you know like a lot of mission stuff everybody thinks oh this is you know you just go and you help and you give and but when you actually get in and see the complexity of it those situations are such a challenge so you have you have like you mentioned the bus program you're feeding um you're doing your do other other programs that you guys are running yeah at the moment we're doing so a community meal we're doing a weekly bible study with whoever's hungry and burning and um part of that has been a weekly outreach as well for the people who don't know jesus so that's been fun to watch some people getting saved lately um we've got a crisis support program so people who are we noticed when we first moved here that around april the temperature really drops so we're used to quite hot weather but then um in winter it can get down to freezing temperatures and the vulnerable i'd go and visit you know families that had adopted us in and we'd see like some old people there one day the next day literally just be dead like from exposure because a lot of them live outside they sleep outside and in that first few years in the winter we were just like going to kmart i guess that's kind of equivalent to one of your shopping centers and you know buying like cheap coats and just trying to keep people warm um and then recently um there's been some people in queensland who sent us shipping containers full of warm clothing and blankets so every winter i'd ever about this time every winter as the cooler weather just is coming up i just praise god because um there's really great things that we can do just practical just to assist people so that crisis support and then the other thing on our heart that we don't get to enough is the bush support ministry and um so the remote communities the ones that we've been to that are furthest away take all day to get there like 10 to 14 hours um there's a bush bus which is a real experience if you come you should go on it just so what you got to describe what it is what is a bush bus well you kind of get on at six in the morning and um you have all it's just basically you and a lot of indigenous people you who you don't understand and um you know you see all kinds of things like you know i'm in set i'm i'm giggling because it's kind of yeah one of those things but um yeah like lots of people i've i've had one experience where you know a woman gets to the front and she kind of starts preaching you don't really know what she's saying she's completely drunk and she's screaming and then suddenly other people in the back the bus are screaming back at her and you're kind of in the middle of them like um and there's but it's all there's always lots of kids it's always lots of fun um often you have to clean up messes because you're on the bus for so long yeah and sometimes the kids don't feel comfortable to tell the bus driver to stop so then you're dealing with other things um but yeah you just i just wear perfume i love it i love it i've been on so many buses in africa with like goats screaming and uh yeah uh chickens sitting next to you um oh yeah china you know all it's it's amazing i love it because we it's we're get to be with the people and uh so so you guys go to these rural villages or these rural um towns and what do you guys do remote communities yeah um so we go house to house we've the more recent thing that we've done in the last what 12 months is we've accessed some of those um solar powered audio bibles yes we've been able to download um their languages well there's only one main one pitanjaro that's yeah that's available um so and we've we've loaded up you know we've asked permission from different worship artists in our area to load their stuff onto there and um we're handing out those um just going house to house and praying we're also often responding to crisis like um sometimes pastors will call us out because they want to do big outreaches and they just want us to join in and help and we just cook sausages or do whatever they want us to do um other times um there might be a funeral on and so you know we we've we've spent a bit of time with the person that's passed away in the hospital because they come to town and sometimes their families know that we're the people that has been sitting with them when they've been dying and so they want us to take the funeral or they want us to be present so um yeah that's another big ministry that we do in the bush the funerals wow so when you guys got started seven years ago and you and you went from you know bethel and got this vision is this something you ever imagined you would be doing is this something like how would you have explained this to yourself seven years ago could you would you have like is it more than what you expected is it less is it is it crazier probably you're definitely more i think um you know like you could you land in a place and i think yeah a lot of missionaries would probably say the same like you you have a bit of a picture that you know we had no desire or uh intent to lead a church for example you know that we're really just wanting to be you know missionaries you know supporting churches and and so you know i think a lot of uh missionaries will find that they come to a place and then there's a need that comes up and um in this case there was a church you know a small church that the leaders were moving you know to another town and they asked us if we'd take on the church and uh you know like we've been through a process uh god you know was gracious with us and and and got us to a place where we'd actually consider it whereas maybe two years earlier we may have never just said no from the beginning but um it's just interesting that the journey god takes you on and and so you know before and now we're you know running a church and and then it comes with that and you know and then you see yeah all these things you don't know and you're not you know you're not you're not sure what things are going to look like and then but i guess as you know as missionaries you just maybe you lay your life down and where there's the need and where god whatever god breathes on you know you want to be involved and and god has been um you know like there's definitely been struggles you know as any place you know like and you see the the people and the and the need and all that it it moves you a lot and and breaks you a lot and but but god you know like when you're in his whip you know i think that's the biggest thing we've learned when you're in his will like there's a better place and you know despite the challenges and the and the amount of time you put in and energy and seeing people you know go around in circles and you know being disheartened god brings amazing testimonies just when you need it or people to come and encourage you and yeah you know and it's just been um you know it's a it's it is a roller coaster but you know like there's nowhere else you know we'd want to be then in his will and i think that's um you know i think that's the the beautiful thing about missions isn't that often that you just lay yourself down and let god have his way and um you know and hopefully he continues to have his way you know out here when we first arrived here i didn't really um have a whole lot of expectation i just knew that um god like i'd been reading in the new in the newspapers and different things hearing all the the challenges that the indigenous people go through especially like the the young people's mental health and committing suicide and the the abuse of the kids and um knowing like because of my i did a social work degree and we were trained by an indigenous person um from the stolen generation you can google that that's the complex history of australia but for me i just saw i just felt like god's heart towards the people and and that's never changed like i think you know when when he connects you with the people before you're there you just i guess you're just motivated by that like when you arrive you're just like what we didn't really have expectations you know what i mean i just i we just came and said god like what what does this look like the biggest thing we wanted to be do is not come in and tell the people what to do not to colonize not to you know cause more trouble or remove kids or anything like that we in the context of the history here we just wanted to come in um and serve and ask like learn i guess we've been learning for seven years and we're never gonna stop but like like just you know getting language sitting with the people and the whole i guess that's you know where where the iris dna really suited us the whole thing of low and slow we knew there was something of that dna and putting jesus first and this is our worship to him yeah you know if revival never happens like what you know we hope we'll die trying if it doesn't but but that's not why we're here essentially we're here because we we love jesus and that's that's our worship and so i'm keeping that keeping that the main thing has um it it's like whatever happens the more of the cost that you get to pay to be here the more he's you realize he's worthy of it like if he can stretch us as as far as he can on this earth to love him as much as he as we can that's that's the goal and um and just to bring as many people into that relationship with him as we can along the way so come on i love i love it guys it's so it's so amazing i i want to do you have as you look back over the seven years is there something that like sticks out to you you were saying daniel that you know god god comes along and you hear this you know you have this moment a miracle or a testimony that that keeps you encouraged what's god been doing recently uh that's been really encouraging what are you watching god do right now uh well i think from the more recent i think in the last year there was just uh actually just before covert you know we had we had we've been blessed here we haven't had much covert in australia at all in fact um we haven't had much of a close down in alice springs as well especially being quite remote so but initially we had to close the church down for a couple of months but just before that all happened there was a um we just heard a testimony from a man out in in a community about three hours away and um he you know this this man had a young family and and he'd um you know he was on drugs and dealing drugs and alcohol and addictions and um gambling and all this sort of thing and then we just heard this testimony where one day he had his he was listening to his earphones in his ear and he heard god speak to him in his language through his earphones as he was listening to some music or something in and it was the first time he'd heard um him being called himself being called a son you know since his father passed away so god came to him through his earphones and and spoke to him and immediately like just his heart was touched and moved and and and and to this day it's almost been a year he's still going so strong for god and every time we check in with the local pastor his whole life has changed his family and now got enough food on the table um he just wants to be out preaching and he's and he's out as much as he can he's he's traveling and yeah so just yeah i guess you know i think that's the things that move me the most are those testimonies where someone's heart's been changed you know what we need so much he hears so much sickness there's so much and we want to see more physical healing but the ones that really get me when when people's hearts so the miracle salvation you know i i really moves me the most and um so that that story was just so encouraging not just for me but for that for the pastor that was in that area um he also said he was just starting to feel quite low and discouraged as well and then suddenly you know not he had other testimonies around the same time as well but um these these ones yeah they're just beautiful how god moves um he's the best i agree and i love that you know the the miracles well rollins says it miracles we don't chase the miracles the miracles the healings all that just that stuff just follows us but the greatest miracle the greatest miracle the most important one is coming to him that's why we give our lives katie do you have something that's been sticking out god speaking to you god you've watched god do recently um i was just thinking of a testimony that's been blessing me lately um at the moment we have uh apparently they're saying it's worse than it's ever been i was sitting with a woman the other day who um she's lived here for 40 years but she was saying that the youth crime in our area is the highest it's ever been and um you know it's it's really intense like just people don't want to go out at night and there's just mobs of kids um you know as young as like eight years old and jumping through windows and so i think for us we sometimes it just feels frustrating that you can't get to everyone you want to go you want to be doing more and and so but our team's small and we haven't you know at the moment we're praying for more help that we need people who have a heart for children and for youth and and so this is like a really big area that's been on my heart and um there was we were in a meeting a number of weeks ago but this little boy um he he just came he was so young maybe nine or ten years old and he was just broken at the altar just i could just see him the tears streaming down and i just checked in with him what was happening um and he said my brother has been getting me to break into um to places with him like you know there's groups family groups they'll be you know breaking windows jumping in and grabbing keys and stealing cars and doing stuff and he said i just feel so rubbish when i do it it's rubbish i just want to not do that anymore and as i pray today he there was just that sense he knew that he couldn't fix himself he like that need for a savior the grace of that empowerment from heaven he just was stuck and he that that sense of like i can't do anything without god like that that humility before the lord was just so beautiful and just to stand with him in that moment as he repented and gave his life back to the lord and i and then he started hearing these um he started hearing things i said what what happened as we were praying and he said i was i was hearing things i was hearing music um from heaven and i asked him what he heard he said i heard trumpets and so just you know just awesome like yeah engaging with the kids when when the lord brings that to be able to happen it's awesome i love it come on okay really really quick because we're about done with time here to uh your own family kids uh tell us about just yourselves really quick you said you've been married how long uh 20 years last november come on congratulations kids how many kids two sons um we've got an older boy who's nearly 18. can you believe he's turning 18 in may so he'll be an adult we'll be parents of an adult [Laughter] and then we've got our baby our baby who's taller than me way taller than me is um he's 15 turning 16 in august awesome yeah elijah and jesse they're some of our heroes we love them come on okay what does a date night look like for you guys restaurant movie come on few and far between but don't take that as a good example listen don't ask my i wouldn't ask my wife that question so [Laughter] yeah uh mix sometimes dinner sometimes uh just a drink um sometimes just cup of tea in the night when you know in our lounge room um yeah we just uh whatever whatever is available whenever it's available we're very romantic my race my most romantic moments are cup of teas okay so uh just and last thing how many missionaries do you guys currently have oh goodness well we've just had a couple of people leave have you calculated recently we've got a lot of volunteers yeah yeah at the moment we probably have about 20 people helping us all together yeah fantastic but yeah as far as missionaries that have come here specifically to partner with um with that ministry there hasn't been there uh there's been a few that have left recently but we're traveling up to three years three formerly but then yeah through the church and and other means we've got lots of volunteers which is very being very helpful and a big blessing but there's people talking about coming so we're um we're trusting that god or being the right people come on yeah well listen if people want to get in contact with you guys what's the best way to do that do you have social media uh website any like just tell if people are watching this they want to get in contact how can they do that iris alice springs on facebook is a good way we answer messages on there and we're just about to launch our own website virus alice springs.org i think it is um uh but we also are on iris global website as well uh so yeah you can find us through those ways awesome um it's the main way ways at the moment yeah you guys on instagram people want to go and see photos and no uh do you know what i've we haven't i i've wasted enough time on other social media things but i this year i've just got an instagram account like in the last two months so if people want to follow is that for the ministry is that for you or it doesn't even matter if people want to follow that how do they find that what is the last one oh i didn't even know that i think someone else someone someone down the track did that i don't know about our instagram iris alice springster definitely um a personal one katie spakman awesome we need to probably get with it and get an irs you don't know how many bases i i chat with they're like we don't even have time i love that see this is what i love about our team this is why this is why i love sharing uh your stories in your life because honestly the goal is not all of those things the goal is our time serving loving that's where the focus is and you'd be amazed at how many bases and base leaders say the exact same thing their their their minds and their hearts are not on getting word out it's it's actually doing the work of and i i just i love you guys i i just i'm so grateful for this time that we just got to hang out and i just want to encourage anybody that's watching this um you know reach out there's a ton of ways you just you just heard about but even on our iris global website you can find you can find information and if you want to connect and even if you even if you want to sew there's places that you can do that there on our iris website so guys daniel katie thank you so much for just taking this time out i know it's early in the morning where you're at so thank you so much for just pulling away and shooting this and uh i'm gonna leave the last words of you is there anything you want to say to anybody that's watching this last words you get it nothing's impossible with him with god and without him we can do nothing and yeah our goal in life is to love him as much as we can come on come on listen we'll leave it at that guys listen thank you so much for joining us for those of you who watch this thank you uh if you liked it hit subscribe so anytime we put one of these out you can just get another amazing testimony bless you guys thank you so much for joining us today and we will catch you later

Channel: Iris Global

Views: 1,262

Rating: 4.939394 out of 5

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Id: bonADuu8m-w

Length: 27min 0sec (1620 seconds)

Published: Thu May 27 2021