I am not the first or the last to fall in love with the nature of Central Australia.

Coming here after three months from the Clinical Pastoral Education Course and one month for a holiday, Santa Teresa Parish is where I hope to stay for a long time.

Surrounded by the hills and dust, the church is located in the centre of the community which has over five hundred people.

I remember the first night I came, I had a good sleep because of the quiet and peaceful atmosphere. Furthermore, I had a feeling of being settled. As well as the mass in the church, we also have family mass. Saying mass in their houses, whenever I hold the cup in my hand and say: Blessed are you, God of all creation…”, I can see the God of the universal.

There is a welding and timber mob in the community whom I join every weekday. The place is called ‘The Men’s Shed’ (a place for men only); it helps me to keep myself in routine. Working with the native co-workers, I feel I am one of them. Not only with the relationships but I also learn their culture and to adapt to their thinking. It is a way to develop myself physically and mentally. Even though Fr Jim Knight gave us an ‘Indigenous culture training program’ for new missionaries last year, I still have a lot of things to discover.

People here love their land, their animals and their creatures. Today, in the men’s shed, a man saw a scorpion. It nearly bit him, he didn’t kill it, just wiped it away. He told me that if he killed that scorpion, a new baby will be born somewhere. And if he harms it in the leg or in the eye, the new born baby will be a handicapped or a blind child. That is the way of his thinking, this man believes the connection between what happens to that scorpion and what would happen to a new baby somewhere. He believes all creatures are connected to one another.

Being present, doing my best to be with my sisters and brothers here is my calling. Every day I encounter is a gift from God which I recognise and believe.

Vincent Mai, Santa Teresa, 2016