ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
“I’ve even been over to the mosque and prayed for rain there as well,” he said.
“I’ll do bloody anything.”
Johan Pendergast says he’s been running sheep and cattle on his 40-odd thousand hectare block an hour north of Betoota for 40-odd years – he says times are tough right now.
He’s never been a man of God.
In fact, he’s spent most of his life swimming through a polluted, filthy river of sin that he himself calls life.
Which is why many were shocked that he – and many other broken down cockys from around this district have turned to Jesus and his Dad for help.
“What else are we supposed to do? Wait for that sleeveless hay runner man to drop off a bail or two? Then what?” said the 65-year-old sunburnt Virgo.
“From where I’m standing, the only bloke who can save us now is a long-haired dribbler that lived over two-thousand years ago. What a time to be alive,”
“And as I told you earlier, I even went over to the mosque and said hello to everyone there. They made me take my shoes off and everything, which I did because I need the rain. We stood up and lay down for an hour or two and we sang some songs that I didn’t really understand the words to. But if Cat Stevens says the mosque has all the answers, then I thought I might as well go knock on the door.”
Another popular local grazier took the time to speak to our reporter today outside Betoota Heights Baptist Chruch, where he’d just finished belting out a rousing rendition of “Abide In Me” that was performed in part by the local primary school orchestra.
Darcy Montford, who had to give up growing canola here in Betoota some years ago, said that like Pendergast he’s been forced to turn to the Jesus to help him repay his debts.
“Don’t know about you mate but I’m not in the business of direct drilling canola into the side of a sand hill. There’s no money in it these days,” he said.
“That and I’ve got lambs sucking the sweat off my hands to get a bit of salt. So you can see why I’ve been going to church. Times are grim,”
“But I’ll tell you something for free. Every desperado in town is going to church these days. Everybody except the bank manager.”
More to come.
