At Chayah, as we have begun ministering to some of the poor and marginalised in our city, I have begun to see glimpses of what John Hayes is describing here.

One Friday night my friend Andrew and I sat and ate with a few aboriginal people who were drinking together in Musgrave Park (a park in Brisbane with particular significance to the aboriginal people, and which also has a bit of a reputation for crime after dark). After explaining who we were and our intentions, we were welcomed to join them (they were especially thankful when Andrew made it back with the pizza)!

Everybody has a story. And as I asked one lady about hers she started to open up, pouring out of her heart some of the pain that life had brought upon her as a part of the "stolen generation". She told me a few things about her life in one of the homes set up for these children; about how they were regularly punished severely, and how they were forced to attend church services on Sunday mornings – an ironic attempt by those in charge to try to "Christianise" the children. She also told me of the rape she was subjected to when a little older she was sent to work on a farmstead.

I felt deeply for her as she told me her story. However although I felt compassion for her, I knew I could not personally relate to or comprehend the magnitude of suffering and injustice this woman had been subjected to. But I knew someone who did. I believe the Spirit prompted me to tell her something of the Jesus who loves and cares for her; the Jesus who truly knows what it is like to suffer injustice at the hands of others; the Jesus who has entered into our world to bear our suffering – the suffering that should rightly be ours, so that ultimately we will not bear it; and that for those who are in Him a wonderful future of peace and joy with Him are assured.

She listened intently to what I was saying and then asked me to pray for her. As I prayed she cried just a little and expressed her thanks for what Jesus had done, and then when I had finished broke out into a hymn of praise. Surely in this park that night light had broken forth out of all proportion to the substance of anything Andrew and I had done. We had simply given few dollars for pizza, and a couple of hours to listen to and share the hope we have in the gospel with some hurting people we came across.

But through something so simple Jesus was being encountered. There was light breaking forth in the dark of that park, and I think I was learning something of what Isaiah meant in saying that when you care for the poor "the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard."