by Geoff Robson

Twelve months ago, Karen Hallard says she was ‘living life on the dark side’. A mother of two, in a de facto relationship with the father of her two sons, she had been involved in a shooting incident and was going through severe depression.

“I couldn’t find myself as a person, and I felt like I wanted to die,” she says. “I just couldn’t go on.”

But Karen’s life – and that of her family – has been turned around by God, through the unique ‘Zoo Ministry’ at Glenquarie Anglican Church in Sydney’s south-western suburbs.

Karen’s son, Nathan, was a regular at Zoo, a ministry mainly aimed at the many primary-aged children in the area who come from disadvantaged or broken homes. But seeing the changes in her son’s life as he learnt from the Bible, Karen accepted an invitation to go to church in July last year. Having grown up going to Sunday school, she says going back to church and hearing the gospel explained again ‘was like waking up’.

“I felt like I was blind and there was a veil across my eyes, then I was seeing for the very first time,” she says. “I surrendered my life to Christ.”

Karen’s is one of many lives that have been changed through Zoo since it launched in 2000. The founders and leaders of the ministry, Kevin and Cris Moore, say their initial aim was to reach primary-aged children. But with so many needy people in the area, the ministry quickly began to have a wider impact.

“There were a lot of [high school] youth turning up saying, ‘can we stay? We’re in Year 6, really we are’,” Cris says. “In reality many of them were in Year 9 or 10.” Separate ministries for high schoolers, called ‘Zouth’, and adults, called ‘Zoom’, were soon started.

While Zoo met in the local community centre for six months, Glenquarie Anglican Church had been praying about how to reach the difficult parts of its community.

“Some of our youth leaders at the time were involved, and they told us about Zoo and that it had very limited accomm-odation,” said the Rev Hugh Isaacs, rector of Glenquarie. “We decided to offer the use of our building, and they agreed.

“They are creating a church for people who would probably never be at home in a conventional church. There are amazing stories of some of the kids who have become Christians. There is so much darkness to come from and so much light to come into.”

Every Friday night during school term, between 50 and 80 young people meet at Glenquarie, together with around 30 leaders from a number of denominations – including members of Anglican churches from nearby Moorebank, Liverpool, and Ingleburn, but also as far afield as Figtree in Wollongong.

A typical night for primary-aged kids involves sharing food, songs of praise to God, a story, then craft or games, and supper. The adults and youth ministries run an in-depth Bible study session in place of stories and games.

“Our primary purpose with these kids is to sow seeds in their lives,” Kevin says. “We may not see the results of that, because we do have a high turnover of kids in a housing commission area like this. But we see it as a very important thing to sow that seed, so we really hammer them with the gospel and the principles of growing in Christ, and we give away quite a few Bibles.”

Kevin says the high ratio of leaders allows for both good discipline, and extra attention for the many needy kids.

While there are still behavioural issues and a strict discipline code is enforced, Cris says that through the example of the leaders, and as many kids have made commitments to Christ, things have come a long way.

“When we first started there were more swear words than normal words, and if anyone touched another person there would be punching and spitting.”

Food parcels and clothing are also made available for children and families in need, and the team hopes to start a ‘Saturday school’ next year to help kids learn to read.

Karen Hallard has seen the ministry at work first-hand. She says her son Nathan, now 11, was ‘off the rails’ before he came to Zoo. “Now he looks forward to church and he looks forward to Zoo,” she says.

But her own life has also been transformed. One of the biggest changes has been her partner leaving when she asked him to get married. While she says this has been very hard, she knows she made the right decision. “I knew I couldn’t live in the wrong way – in a way that wasn’t pleasing to God,” she says. “God has brought me through it all, with the support of Zoo.”