Heroes of the Faith this week features May Hayman. May is a local hero.
Firstly, a public servant in Canberra and then a nurse at the old Canberra Hospital. May felt the call to go to Papua New Guinea as a missionary nurse with the Anglican Board of Mission in 1937. She was loved by the people. Then, with the outbreak of the Second World War, the Japanese came ever closer to her small village of Gona. The Bishop asked her and 10 others to move for their safety. May felt she could not leave her sick patients and paid the ultimate sacrifice.
A window at St John’s, Reid, has a lovely stained-glass window erected to her memory. It is often said that the Church in PNG grew out of the “blood of the martyrs.” She is a true hero.