Brenda was born in the small settlement of Tyldrum in northern New South Wales, the oldest of five children. Once a month, the family worshipped at a nearby church which was shared by all denominations. On the other Sundays a service was held in her Welsh grandparents’ home, her grandfather both preaching and playing the small organ. When she was older the family worshipped at Murwillumbah Methodist Church. During her time at Armadale Teachers’ College, Brenda joined a preaching team led by the Methodist minister. She began her teaching career at a primary school in Batlow and then Glen Innes, NSW.

When Brenda heard a minister from Northern Australia talking about his work and then called for more missionaries, she felt very strongly that God was calling her. While training at George Brown Methodist College in Sydney, she completed the lay preachers’ course. She offered herself for work in the Pacific Islands as a teacher and was sent to Vunarima, on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea. Two ministers at George Brown College tried to teach her the Tolai language but, when she arrived in PNG and was met by a very large man, the only words she could recall were those for “little boy”!

There are 800 languages in PNG but at Vunarima the Methodist Church used Tolai for its worship and work and it was in that language, in 1958, Brenda passed her written and oral examinations to become an accredited lay preacher. She visited villages, often with a nurse, planning her service on the way. Typically, the worship space had a clay floor and rush mats over the windows. Various animals roamed freely. The nurse would do health checks on the babies at the back of the room while Brenda preached at the front. The singing, unaccompanied, was of hymns translated by a colleague of Brenda’s. Brenda, with a team of indigenous senior ministers, revised the Old Testament of the Tolai Bible. Miraculously, their work survived a tsunami, following an earthquake.

The teachers’ college was moved from New Ireland to Gaulim on New Britain. New Zealander Ken Skinner, an Order of St Stephen volunteer, was in charge of the build. Brenda set up a demonstration school for the college. Ken and Brenda were married in Rabaul in 1967.

By 1970 the mission station was being handed over to local people. Brenda and Ken came to live in New Zealand. They attended Mt Albert Methodist Church where they were both active in Sunday School and youth work. In the late 1970s they moved to Glen Eden Methodist, where they continue to be involved with the young people and Brenda, often with Ken’s help, continues to serve as a lay preacher.