Jennie Feldmeier the bush chaplain for one of the most remote regions in the world
And now to another episode from my special series, Streets of Your Town - The Outback Project. Bringing the sounds and stories of Australia’s outback to you from my epic 2600km round trip from Brisbane to Winton and back, in Mildred my cantankerous kombi.
The vast distances of the outback are daunting and hard to comprehend for many city people. Jennie Feldmeier’s patch dubbed the Cunnamulla-Burke and Wills Remote area, is about the size of Victoria.
But that’s part of the joy and challenge of the job for Chappie Jen as she’s known to locals in Queensland’s remote south-west.
“I’m what they call a bush chaplain with Frontier Services, which is Australia’s oldest bush charity, started by the legendary John Flynn,” Jennie says.
“It’s actually amazing how many people don’t know about who John Flynn is. John Flynn started what he called the Australian Inland Mission 114 years ago.
“And then from there it was about looking after and supporting people in rural, remote, isolated places with primarily spiritual care but practical care as well. When he saw the need, that people were dying in the bush through lack of medical services, he started what was known as the the Aerial Medical Service back then. So now it’s the Flying Doctors.”
Flying Doctor Aidan Fenoglio and his love for working for the RFDS
The Royal Flying Doctor Service in Queensland operates 24 hours a day, every day of the year, doing aeromedical retrievals across the vast expanse of the state, and caring for more than 330,000 Australians each year.
She’s only been in the job a few years, but with massive flooding hitting her region soon after starting, Jennie had to hit the ground running, and has made a huge impression on the people of her region.
Which is no small task given the size of the area she covers.
“I probably drive about 50,000 kilometres a year to get out to all the communities and see people and just support them wherever I can,” she says.
“I spend six months on the road just living in my van, coming and going.
“Nance, it’s 10 hours drive from east to west and eight hours from north to south. So I spend a lot of time in my car on the road, but it’s so worth it. The people I meet and who I get to support, I wouldn’t be doing anything else.”
Jennie was recommended to me as a great story for my Outback Project by a few Streets of Your Towners (thankyou Georgie Somerset, Rob Callow and Annabelle Brayley looking at you!) but what struck me most about the stories I heard about her was the common thread of what a great community champion she is.
“I love being able to support communities in whatever way that is,” Jennie says.
“That strength doesn’t come from me. I’m just there to facilitate things where I can and let them grow together and then the communities gain strength and then they can be successful and look after each other. Because like I said, I’m one person in a massive area. If I can leave places in a better state than when I got there, then I’ve done something right. So I just try and help wherever I can.”
While she’s now based in Charleville, Jennie has lived and served in many places, from Coen in far north Queensland to Malawi in Africa.
Only a year after settling in her new Charleville base, Jennie jumped into her orange SES outfit to get food out to the remote communities of Jundah, Adavale and Thargomindah, to help after the biggest flood in living memory.
“Houses that had been there for 150 years were taken off their stumps,” Jennie says.
“The Charleville Airport was just like MASH. It was just so many helicopters going up and down and planes coming in and out. It was crazy.
“There was 200 people who were taken, couldn’t get back to their homes living in the council chambers, and so just helping cook food for them and just seeing how we could support them and flying in and out every day until I could finally drive in.
“I’ve got a team in September, we’re taking another team back to Adavale. I mean, Adavale’s only got 24 homes, it’s easy enough to do, but every single one of them went underwater.”
She thinks that bush chaplaincy is “the best job in the world”.
“I don’t know why everybody doesn’t want to be a Bush Chaplain because you just get to meet the most amazing people and travel,” she says.
“I’m travelling and going and spending time in most people’s bucket lists.
“I’ve got a love for horses and being in the bush and then it was sleeping in my swag.
“Now I’ve got a lovely caravan, which is so much nicer than the swag, but I still have a swag so I still sometimes sleep in that depending on where I go.
“My children grew up, my amazing husband sadly passed away and I kind of ended up going, “Well, what can I do now? Where can I make a difference?” And that’s what led me now into the position that I am.”
When I suggest that Jennie doesn’t seem to be daunted by the big problems, she comes back to the underlying reason she does this work. And also the chance to make a bit of outback history.
“That comes back down to my faith and I have a trust that God’s got me wherever he is and is looking after me and he takes me to these places and so why wouldn’t he look after me while I’m there?,” she says.
“Frontier Services is underpinned by the Uniting Church and in my area there are no Uniting Churches. So sometimes I’ll take services in just different buildings or in parks or whatever, but then I also go to all of the churches because that’s what I’m primarily there to support all of the churches.
“We’re not confined by buildings and walls and we can take church anywhere and like last year it was actually with the Governor of Queensland, Dr Jeanette Young. We had church for the first time in the Birdsville Pub.
“It was blowing a gale. It was so miserable. And so I went up to the pub and said, “Can we have the service in your dining room?” And they said, “Well, yeah, but the Governor’s here.” And I said, `Don’t worry, she’s coming to the service.’
“I met the Governor’s husband a few months ago and he actually had done some research and he said he cannot find another church service in the pub at the Birdsville. So he was very excited that we made history.”
But more than anything, Jennie hopes that people come to see the bush areas she loves in Queensland’s far south-west, now flourishing after the rain.
“We’ve had a couple of amazing seasons and the wildlife. I tell you what, get out there. Anyone who’s listening to this, get out there because the waterways are full, the fishing is insane,” she says.
“The bird life is just incredible and they need the tourists because they had a big knock last year, people didn’t come out because of the flood damage done to towns but they bounced back pretty quickly. Now this year because of the fuel, people aren’t coming. But the southwest of Queensland has plenty of fuel.
“Just come out. There’s so many great things to see out there in the shires.
“I’m here for quite a few more years if ever I get to leave. I love what I do and I think even when I stopped doing it, I think I will still really stay in these communities because they are just so beautiful.”
Thank you my ever supportive Streets of Your Towners for keeping me and Mildred the Cantankerous Kombi on the road and getting these stories that will now be kept in the State Library of Queensland collection for generations to come. As one of the librarians so kindly told me when I asked her why they bought the rights, she said that I had captured stories of Queenslanders that in a hundred years no-one would remember—what it was like to be a refugee, to be a struggling actor, or to trek into the Woodford Folk Festival. You can see how to access the State Library collection at the bottom of this previous newsletter!
So thank you all for making this possible!
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Love yas!
Nance