Phil Mainey is a farmer by birth, a carpenter by trade, and a pastor and chaplain by calling. He spends most of his waking hours working in the construction industry, and not nearly enough doing the things he loves - photography, farming, and spending time with family and close friends. Unlike his beach-loving, not-horse-riding wife, he yearns for a horse and the wide open spaces of the hills behind his family property and the creeks and the river that run through it.
Phil has always been a ‘utility player’-someone who will go where needed and support others wherever he can. He was a volunteer chaplain with the NSW State Emergency Service (SES) for 13 years.
During his time in the Territory, he was a houseparent, a school chaplain, a maintenance manager, a manager for clients and support workers in a drug and alcohol rehab, and a trade trainer in a school-base training organisation, where he taught young men carpentry and basic welding skills. He was just a bit busy!
Stefanie Mainey, better known as Stef (with an 'f'), loves nothing better than gathering family and friends together to lavish them with love and encouragement.
This girl from the coast and Phil, the boy from the bush, married in 1988, and have been on a whirlwind adventure ever since!
Stef passionately believes in the power of community and in seeing people empowered and released into their God-given gifts. She also loves reading, swimming at the beautiful beaches near home, creating beautiful spaces for others to find peace and relaxation in, and playing with her seven growing grandchildren whom she adores.
In 2019, Stef fulfilled her lifelong dream of completing her education degree (0-12 years) and taught for two years in the Territory before they returned home at the end of 2021 to the beautiful north coast of New South Wales, where they still love to live.
She has just written and self-published her first book and hopes to continue to bring encouragement and joy to others through her writing.
After initial training with Youth With A Mission, (YWAM) in New Zealand in 2005, Phil and Stef trained and took teams of friends and family to countries such as India, Africa and Cambodia between 2006 and 2014, to help open people's eyes to the great need in the wider world.
But it was in 2015 that Stef and Phil unexpectedly found themselves in the Northern Territory of Australia on a seven-year adventure of a lifetime they never expected to have. During these tumultuous, challenging and yet rewarding years, they first lived and ministered as houseparents at a boarding college in a more remote area of the Territory, where they became 'mother and father' to 28 young Indigenous women over the course of two years. They stayed at the college for almost three years till it closed in 2017, and then other adventures drew them to the 'big' city of Darwin for a further four years.