Daniel and I (Katy) were raised in Hobart Tasmania and we both felt called to the mission field in our teen years. We got married as young adults and soon moved to Melbourne where our two sons were born and where I finished my degree in Social Work at Latrobe University. It was at the University in 2007, that I first had a glimpse into the sad reality of Australian history when a man from Stolen Generation taught on trauma and attachment disorders in children, using case studies from the stolen generation. I decided in a moment ‘this is what I want to do with my life- work towards the healing of these beautiful people’.
Just after graduating from my Social Work course, I started to work in the areas of Indigenous family violence and mental health and both Daniel and I helped on a team planting a new church in our area. As well as bringing in an Aboriginal teenage mother and her baby to live with us, Daniel and I got very hungry for God again around that time and remembered our callings to the mission field as young people. It was in this season of our lives we were first introduced to Rolland and Heidi Baker at a conference in Sydney.
For two years 2011-2013 Daniel, myself and our boys lived in California and studied ministry at Bethel church. In that two years many short term missions trips opened up for our family, including Pemba Mozambique where I went with a team, in 2012.
In 2013 Daniel and I finished our 2 year school of ministry and were both seeking God about ‘where next?’ when God made it clear to us that it was time to move home to Australia. After many years of growing up in privilege on the south east coast, this time we were to live in the remote centre of the country in ministry to Aboriginal people.
For three years our families ministered largely from our rented home on acreage and in the town camps before being handed a church ‘Living Hope church’ in town, to lead in late 2016, which to this day is still going and reaching many people from many remote communities every year.
We had known Iris and the Bakers for almost 7 years by then and in 2017 made our way to Pemba Mozambique to live for 3 months as a family and to study at the Harvest school of missions. Upon arriving back to Alice Springs, our ministry became a pioneer base of Iris Global and is known as ‘Iris Alice Springs’ where many missionaries and teams have flown in and out ever since.
