CHURCH PLANTING IN AUSTRALIA

Last month, 3 October, a good friend, Abel Morgan, passed away. Abel was an aboriginal Christian who the Lord brought into our lives seven years ago. It was Abel who invited us to begin a fellowship in Gilgandra. Abel will be greatly missed by those of us who knew him. A Christian brother wrote a testimony of knowing Abel since 1959. We believe Abel’s testimony is worth sharing and will be a blessing.

The Story of Abel Morgan

"It was in 1959 that I first met Abel Morgan. He had been recently converted when he moved to my home town of Nowa Nowa , Vic., to live.

Abel had a hard childhood. His father was very cruel to his mother, and the marriage broke up when Abel was very young. Abel wandered from one parent to the other. He began to drink strong drink at a very early age, and had not reached his teens when he was first apprehended by the law. He did about twelve years in jail, and in jail he contemplated suicide. He thought of hanging himself with his belt.

Once his mates dared him to steal an eighteen gallon keg of beer from off the back of a truck. He and a couple of mates took up the challenge. They rolled the keg down the footpath and through the yard of the Catholic Church. His accomplices said, " We can’t go on Abel ! " "Why?" "Because we are Catholics."

Abel told them that, Catholics or not, they would be "pinched" if they didn’t get a move on. So they went into the Church and blessed themselves, and continued on. However the officers of the law were hot on their heels. They chased Abel, in his bare feet, across a ploughed paddock. Abel took a size fourteen shoe. No size fourteens could be found in the town, so Abel had to appear before the magistrate in bare feet.

One time Abel and two other men moved to Wilcannia, on the run from the law. They eventually left Wilcannia in three different directions. An elderly lady told me that she remembered him drunk on the bank of the Darling River. The next time Abel visited Wilcannia he had become a Christian. In the 1970’s Abel and I were doing visitation, spreading the gospel in Wilcannia, when a man said to him," I know you, mate. We were in Bathurst together [ Bathurst jail ]" . Abel explained to the man that he had now become a Christian, and he explained the gospel to him.

Eventually Abel moved to Robinvale. When Abel moved to Robinvale , the Welfare Department in Melbourne sent a telegram to the local Robinvale welfare officer telling him not to let Abel on the reserve because he was bad news. Some years ago I met this welfare officer, a Christian man, and he verified that this information was true.

One day a friend of Abel’s invited him to the evening service at the Methodist Church. Abel protested that he did not have any decent clothes to wear. "Come as you are," his friend replied.

Abel attended the service, and the message spoke to his heart. When he went home he couldn’t get the message out of his mind.

In the early hours of the morning, possibly about 3.00 a.m., Abel made his way to the parsonage and knocked on the door. The Minister, Rev Bill Gillard, a man of compassion, came to the door in his pyjamas. There in the minister’s lounge room, in the early hours of the morning, Abel received the Lord Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour. It was genuine. His conversion stood the test of time. This man, whom one of our missionaries considered "a hopeless case" was transformed by the power of the gospel.

Abel was keen to share his new found faith by all possible means. Once he was staying with a couple named Bruce and Norma Smith at Hillside, just west of Bairnsdale. Every year large numbers of Aboriginal people would come to the area to pick beans. Abel and Ossie Cruse would reach out to them with the gospel. One night they rented the Lindenow hall, and about one hundred people attended the gospel meeting.

When Abel was first converted, he could hardly read and write. He could only write three words, cat, mat and rat. He used the King James Bible to teach himself to read and write. At Hillside he would sit on the Smith’s veranda and prepare messages. Then he would read them to Bruce Smith for his appraisal. It was Abel who introduced Bruce Smith to many Aboriginal families in Bairsdale and Lake Tyers. The people all respected Abel. They had seen the great change in him.

Abel’s methods were not always orthodox. One time his uncle was killed in a brawl. At the funeral Abel was not happy with the way the service was going. At the graveside he interrupted the minister, and said, "Excuse me, Reverend, but would you mind if I said a few words?" The minister agreed to let him say a few words, and he said," If my uncle has gone where I think he has gone, he would want me to warn you unless you end up there too. Then he proceeded to warn them to flee from the wrath to come.

Once, when he preached in the Bairnsdale Methodist Church, his topic was, "By faith Abel", and he testified to the grace of God in his life. In the early 60’s I was to preach one Sunday in the Grandview Grove Methodist Church in the elite Melbourne suburb of Toorak. Abel was living in Melbourne at the time, so I invited him to come and give the children’s talk. Well, his children’s’ talk went for 45 minutes. When he concluded I just pronounced the benediction. The Church secretary was Ralph Davis, the manager of Mayne Nickless, and one of Melbourne’s leading evangelical figures. Mr. Davis said to me after the service, "Geoff, you’d better come back next Sunday and preach the sermon." [I think the Church was without a minister at the time].

Abel was tireless in his letter box drops of gospel tracts. One day we were doing house to house visitation in Nowa Nowa. At one house we visited a drinking session was in progress, with songs like "Roll out the barrel." Abel said, "Let’s sing the old rugged cross." In a few minutes he changed the gathering into a gospel meeting, and preached the gospel.

In the early 60’s Abel entered Otira, the Methodist Home Mission College in Melbourne. Soon Abel was quite concerned about the theological stance of Otira. I was a student at Melbourne Bible Institute at the time. I can well remember Abel ringing me up and asking, "Do they believe the book of Genesis there." I assured him that our lecturers did so. "They don’t believe it here," he replied. So I sent him over some lecture notes. At that time Abel was running a weekly open air meeting in Collins Street in the inner city.

Upon his graduation from Otira, Abel was sent as a home missionary to Orbost. After a few weeks he baptized a Salvation Army woman in the Snowy River, much to the dismay of some of the Methodist authorities. He was sent back to Otira for further studies. This time he did not last the distance at Otira.

In due course he enrolled at the Aborigines Inland Mission Bible College at Singleton, where he graduated.

I well remember travelling to Singleton from Melbourne once with Abel, visiting some A.I.M. centres on the way. As we passed the Pentridge penitentiary in Melbourne, he said, "I’ve done some time in there." Then as we drove through Shepparton , he said," I’ve done some time here." And the same for Deniliquin, Griffith, Cowra and Bathurst.

Some years later, when, as a pastor, he went to a police station for something, the Sergeant said, " We have a man with the same name as you on our books." Yes, it was Abel’s record, and a fairly long one, and Abel commented that he had done quite a few things that were not written there. However he was glad to declare that he had come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour, and now had a clean sheet in heaven.

After graduating from Singleton, Abel saw service with the Aborigines Inland Mission at places like Condobolin and Walgett. He married Phyllis Naden from Gilgandra. The night of the wedding he made the most of the opportunity to share the gospel, and a gospel meeting was held.

Recently Phyllis and Abel moved up the north coast of N.S.W. Abel was a true friend. He was a very honest and transparent man. What you saw was what you got with Abel. There was no pretence in him. He was a man of real integrity. No doubt he has heard the Lord say, "Well, done, thou good and faithful servant."

We trust this testimony of Abel Morgan was a blessing to your heart and will encourage you to pray for those you may believe are "a hopeless case".