Called to care
A moment at the altar proved a turning point for Vicki, saving her marriage, her life – and now those of others around her.
“My passion is to see the doors of the church open and people come in…We just pray that God will open hearts and their eyes and that they'd see what we do is not through our own efforts, but that God’s placed us here to help them and work with them and to have a connection with them.” says Vicki Keenan. On Father’s Day, over nine years ago, the now Salvation Army Envoy Vicki Keenan was sitting in church with two of her children, to humour her husband, Vic. Vic and Vicki first started going out together when Vicki was a sixteen year-old single mum, and after many years of marriage, two more children, many moves, Vic had become a Christian, but Vicki remained unconvinced.
Until that day in church. Halfway through that church service, Vic who was working in real estate, was called out with a client. He left a seemingly disinterested wife, who had actually been contemplating leaving the marriage, but when he walked back into the church less than an hour later, he found his wife had gone forward to an ‘altar call’ with their children and had given her life to Jesus.
Vicki says of that day: “I really felt that God was calling me.”
For the next five years, the family stayed connected to that church. Vicki (who was then a nurse’s assistant) entered university to become a registered nurse. She then worked as a community nurse in Indigenous health for a number of years.
Vicki says when Vic first felt called into full-time ministry she could not have imagined ever leaving her nursing career. However, after attending Narellan Corps in NSW, she says: “We just fell in love with it, because we could see their hand out into the community.”
After studying and working as assistant officers at Narellan, they were posted to Moree as corps officers around seven months ago.
As well as a corps, the Moree Salvation Army includes a large community centre, Moneycare, the NILS loans scheme, a Family Store, a Mainly Music group, an Aboriginal playgroup for young mums, a school lunch program, a community garden and more. As a nurse and now as a minister, Vicki says: “I have a real passion for Indigenous mums and bubs”.
Vicki says she is working and praying about making even deeper connection with the locals and says: “As an Aboriginal woman myself, I know it’s hard being an Aboriginal mum, especially in a community where there are still racial tensions.”
Vicki says the role in Moree is “a hard one”, with a huge demand for welfare and the large centre to run. The service is located in a low socio-economic area, with a large public housing component and nearby Aboriginal mission and health centre. While the road in ministry has often been challenging, Vicki says God has blessed her beyond measure. Her passion remains to share “the light of God”, with corps members and those whose lives cross with theirs, and to help bring reconciliation between different sectors of the community.
She says she is incredibly grateful for God’s ongoing blessing and says: “He saved my marriage, He saved my life (after miraculously discovering and being successfully treated for cervical cancer early in its progression) and our children and our grandchildren are walking with the Lord.
“I (probably) wouldn’t be here today had God not spoken to me, if God had not called me."
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