Every January, Aunty Jean Phillips, invites Australians to pray as we approach January 26 — a day of mourning for our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters. Since 2017 these services have been held in every state and territory with the support of Brooke Prentis and the Common Grace movement. This year in light of the challenge of COVID-19 one national moment has emerged — a time to pray in unison as we tune in together to #ChangeTheHeart of our nation.
Aunty Jean has been educating Australian Christians for decades on the true history of these lands now called Australia. Aunty Jean has said to many Australian Christians, “Your history is our history, our history is your history.”
When Australian Christians come to the realisation of the true history of Australia — the over 65,000 years of custodianship and stewardship by over 300 nations of Aboriginal peoples, and the true history since colonisation — hearts and minds are unsettled and the question arises "What do I do".
As Aunty Jean will tell you “the cross has all the answers” and “prayer is just so important”. These services have been a rallying way that non-Indigenous peoples can come to learn and acknowledge the true history of our nation, to lament the injustices and present-day disadvantages facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters and to pray, for “a nation built on truth, justice, love and hope”.