“Thank you, Derek Prince Ministries and their supporters, for your prayer and gifts. Your support helps us to reach what is often thought of as ‘the unreachable’ people in the remote Indigenous communities of our great nation, Australia.”
These heartfelt words come from Peter and Katie Dunstan after they returned from their 9,600-kilometer ministry trip in May 2023 to places such as Alice Springs in Northern Territory, Kununurra, Wyndham and Warmun in Western Australia, and Townsville, Cairns and Yarrabah in the State of Far North Queensland.
Peter is a Pastor and teacher. Katie is a First Nation Indigenous Christian leader, pastor, prophetic preacher, and revivalist. Both are partnering with DPM Australia. Their heart is to bring the Gospel to ‘reach the unreached and teach the untaught’. For this reason, they frequently take mission trips to the Aboriginal communities in Australia to minister and share Derek's resources.
One of the places they visited in May was Warmun, a remote Aboriginal community 250 km west of Wyndham in Western Australia. “Teaching is the great priority among many Indigenous communities. Derek Prince booklets are gratefully received and devoured”, Peter advised. “We were blessed to see local Indigenous leadership begin to emerge and take their place.” As they travelled, preached and ministered, many Aboriginal people received the Lord and were healed or delivered.
One of the other places they visited was the Aboriginal community south of Cairns, called Yarrabah. Yarrabah is the traditional country of the Gunggandji and Mandingalbay Yidinji people. In their traditional belief, they were guided by Buleru, ancestral spirits who gave them their cultural lore/law, belief system and creation stories.
“In Yarrabah, we conducted a Healing Wounded Heart Seminar among community leaders”, Peter shared. A local leading Minister has since reported that as the power of God fell in the meeting, “long-standing factions and conflict between two different family groups were healed, and generational restoration has begun. The next day, I was asked to also speak on healing at an open-air rally in the park in the middle of the community. This healing service was attended by many community people, with some driving their cars into the park area to hear the word of God being shared. In other locations, there were over 200 Indigenous people who gathered to listen and respond to the Gospel.”
God uniquely works through His Word and Spirit. As Peter was preaching, Katie received many words of knowledge from the Lord.
In his teaching about this specific gift of the Spirit, Derek Prince defined a word of knowledge as ‘a tiny portion of God's total knowledge, supernaturally imparted by the Holy Spirit’. He further explained:
“It does not come by natural reasoning or education or training or so many years at the seminary or the university or any of these things. Instead, it comes directly by the Holy Spirit, operated only under God's control. I cannot have a word of knowledge merely by the exercise of my will. I can't say, now I'm going to do it, here it is. I need it, I may be open to God, but whether I receive it or not ultimately is in God's hands.”
Derek Prince continued:
“It's often manifested in healing services. When a preacher can tell a person the exact nature and location of his pain or his sickness without any natural means of knowledge, immediately it produces conviction and very often faith. Well, if God knows what it is, then God can heal it! So many times this gift of word of knowledge is used as a tool to bring into operation faith for healing.”
This was also true in the experience of Peter and Katie as they were ministering in Yarrabah. “Many people were healed and delivered and testified to the healing power of Jesus that night. The most common healing that evening was people’s hearing being restored”, they told. The traditional Elder who officially welcomed Peter and Katie to Yarrabah, heard the word of God being preached and that night he found salvation and gave his heart to the Lord, received prayer and was delivered.
Indigenous communities pass on knowledge, tradition, ceremony and culture from one generation to the next through language, performance, protection of significant sites, storytelling and the teachings of Elders.
Sharing the Gospel to the Indigenous people requires a lot of love, humility and sensitivity. Throughout their history, the Indigenous people groups have been suppressed, discriminated and abused by colonists from Europe, including Christian missionaries. The impact is still felt today in many ways, as Aboriginal people have a number of severe health and economic deprivations in comparison with the wider Australian community.
As Derek Prince Ministries, therefore, we consider it an honour to take Derek’s teaching to these precious people and to reach ‘the unreached’ with a message about God’s power to heal hearts and restore lives. It couldn’t have been possible without your support. Thank you!
