24 Queen Street
THE HISTORY

David and Helen Esdaile, with their children Julie, Susan, Stephen and Debi arrived in Darwin from Goulburn in May 1984. From the time the Esdailes arrived in Darwin they had a dual focus working to establish a ministry base in Bali and representing YWAM in Darwin. For the next three years David and Helen pioneered a small YWAM base in their home while travelling frequently to Bali to negotiate with officials in the Department of Immigration and Religion, the Australian Consulate and the leaders in the Protestant Church of Bali.

The Esdaile home became a magnet for young people looking for ways to serve God. Small teams from Darwin joined DTS teams from Australian and overseas bases for outreach in the NT or in Bali, and it was not unusual to have twenty people staying in the house on route to or returning from Indonesia. When it became evident that David and Helen were not going to get visas for long-term residence in Indonesia, they left YWAM at the end of 1987. A more permanent YWAM base was established in Darwin in early 1989 and YWAM Indonesia opened a base in Kuta, Bali in 1989.

Once again the Goulburn base sent out pioneering leaders, Joe and Sue Sheehy and their family, Michael, Robin, (and later siblings to arrive David, and Anna). As directors of a DTS in Goulburn they arrived with an outreach team in Darwin in May/June  1989 with a focus to reopen a YWAM base in Darwin, Their first accommodation was a four-bedroom house in Gothenburg Crescent. One morning everyone was encouraged to seek the Lord and to go out in twos and pray around the city. Two DTS students came back very excited saying they had been prayer walking around Stuart Park, and passing a derelict building, they felt the Lord had told them that he wanted to give it to them as a base! This is our current property, 24 Queen Street, Stuart Park.

At this stage the building had been empty for some time, it was part of a disputed deceased estate. The house had been a cheap hostel rebuilt quickly following Cyclone Tracy in 1975. As they prayed, the Lord shoed them the solicitors to contact, phoning them they offering to clean the place up since its overgrown condition was inviting further vandalism, but they politely declined. They prayed some more and a few weeks later got a phone call offering to let them occupy the building rent free, till the estate was settled! Shortly after this the DTS was completed, those staying on in Darwin were commissioned and everyone moved onto the property.

During this formative period the team sought the Lord for future direction and identified and owned a corporate calling to “Serve the church and to motivate to mission.”

Identifying Darwin as their Jerusalem, the NT (particularly the aboriginal communities) as our Judea, Indonesia as their Samaria and an area of countries spring-boarding our from Darwin through Myanmar to Afghanistan and beyond as their “uttermost parts of the world”. That focus towards the indigenous people as well as the nations of South East Asia is still evident in our ministry today.