Everyday Faith- Sam

Well, G'day everyone.

Welcome again.

Uh, my name is Shabu.

If you're joining us, this is the Canterbury Gardens Community Church podcast.

And it's one of the things that we're sort of fumbling our way through and we have come to another episode.

If you're, uh, first time coming to this podcast for whatever reason, we're a church in the outer east of Melbourne.

Um, and I serve as one of the pastors there and our prayer is to ensure that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not just a one time news, but it's the very engine room that shapes all areas of our lives, including what we're going to be talking about today.

So over the next little while, we're going to do a little mini series called Everyday Faith, which is to talk with people who call Canterbury home and how they integrate their faith in their everyday life and everyday season of life.

And so.

This, well, for us, it's this afternoon, but, uh, who I'm talking to today is, uh, Sam.

Now, Sam, am I allowed to say your last name or do you want to keep it like.

No, no, it's okay.

It's okay.

So, uh, you know, the reason why I asked that question is I don't actually know how to say your last name.

Ringwalt.

Ringwalt.

Okay.

And I know you were asked this already.

It doesn't have any kind of.

cultural background?

No, no German origin on my father's side.

Um, Scottish on my mother's side, but, uh, no particular long lineage.

I'm pretty sure my grandpa made it up.

Okay.

Um, so I haven't been able to trace it back beyond him anyway.

Yep.

Yeah.

I feel like my parents made my name up too.

I've asked them and they have no idea what it means.

So I feel you.

So, uh, how long have you and your family been attending Canterbury Gardens?

Uh, so I guess it's about six months now since we first joined.

Yep.

Uh, tell us a bit about your family.

Who are they?

Uh, if you want to mention names, your kids might not want to.

That's okay.

Um, my wife, Brenda, uh, and we've been married 21 years just last week or the week before.

Oh, cool.

Did you do anything?

Uh, not particularly.

Oh, we had a nice, nice lunch out.

We, we have some grand plans, uh, for perhaps next year, but we need to find, So we've got three of those, uh, we've got eldest daughter, who's 14 and then two boys, 12 and nine.

Okay.

Cool.

Well, um, it's been a real privilege to get to know you guys, uh, at Canterbury in this short little while.

And one of the things that really stood out to me very briefly when I first caught up with you guys at a cafe in Park Orchards, was it?

No, not.

Warrenwood.

Warrenwood.

Thank you.

Uh, tell us a little bit about your story.

So where did you grow up?

Did you grow up in Melbourne?

Somewhere else?

No, I grew up in Adelaide.

So, um, for the first 21, 22 years of my life, I was over there.

Can tell by your accent.

That's right.

I speak the Queens English.

Queens English, that's right.

Uh, yeah, so I grew up in Adelaide.

All my family are there, but moved across to Melbourne to attend.

I went to a Bible college over here, actually, Bible college, Victoria, um, and met my to be wife, uh, here at a local church, uh, while I was studying and, and so now I'm from Melbourne.

Okay.

There you go.

Uh, did you grow up in a Christian family?

Yeah.

So I grew up in a Christian family.

Um, in fact, I'm sure I was born on a Monday.

I'm pretty sure I would have been at church probably twice the next Sunday.

I'm sure.

Um, so my dad was a pastor.

And, uh, Um, when I was young, so we had a small Baptist church, um, near West Lakes in Adelaide and, uh, run that for a number of years.

Um, and then my dad had to retire due to some health complications.

And so we ended up moving across sort of merging with another church and most of the congregation moved across to there.

Okay.

I grew up in a Christian household, um, came to faith personally when I was about four.

Um, got baptized shortly thereafter, uh, stopping a rowing regatta no less, um, because we used to go down and, and as a church, we'd do our baptisms in the West lakes where they'd have a lot of rowing races and things.

And we happened to be timed out with a rowing regatta.

So they sort of sat around in their canoes and kayaks watching this church do their baptismal service on the banks of the lake.

That's great.

So yeah, so, uh, and then continued in my faith, fortunately throughout the years, um, yeah, until today.

Okay, so you, you skipped a little bit forward talking about your arriving at Bible College of Victoria at the time, which is now MST, um, Was that why, like, what was it a bit of a journey before that?

Were you working before that?

Were you studying?

What, what led you to that moment?

Um, my dad, after he had a full time pastoral ministry, was doing various, um, works.

It was very handy.

I mean, he, he was a, he was a fitter and turner by trade, but did everything.

So he built houses and extensions and worked in schools and handyman roles and so on.

So I grew up, um, most weekends and evenings doing various jobs with him.

Yeah.

Um, and then at school.

Um, I did okay.

And so I went into, uh, I wasn't sure what to do as I was leaving school, but, um, at the time started pursuing computer systems engineering.

Okay.

Which is, what does that mean?

Is that like coding?

You make the microchips and the, and the boards.

Um, so I did first year university engineering degree, um, and promptly decided probably midway through that year that I did not actually want to be a professional nerd.

Um, and so it was time to find something else.

So I approached my church, so I went to Edwardstown Baptist church in Adelaide, a large Baptist church there.

And I approached them and said, look, I want to be an intern essentially.

Okay.

When I come in.

Work for you.

Um, and so we sort of created this internship program.

I was the first, first one through.

Um, and so I started doing a little bit of study part-time at one of the bible colleges in Adelaide.

Mm-hmm Sort of a subject of term or a couple subjects, uh, and then working for my church full-time voluntarily.

Mm-hmm For the rest of the time, and then doing odd other jobs to pain away that You did a lot of things I imagine.

Yeah.

The rest of the time.

Yep.

Yep.

So that was great.

Um, I got to work in every.

ministry, so from sort of the pre kinder kids group to the seniors group on a Tuesday morning, whenever it was, teaching them how to play table tennis.

Was there one that really you loved and others you liked?

I loved the oldies actually.

Oh really?

Yeah, they were great fun.

Um, but I worked across all of them, so youth staff and we had, um, some exciting programs that we did in some local high schools and some other stuff that I was involved with as well.

And then we did a, we had a missions component to that internship as well, which I think was really valuable.

So I went off to Indonesia for a month and helped out some missionaries there by just living, um, in the homes of some of their contacts.

English teachers.

So we're helping them practice their English by having an English person living in their house.

Yeah.

So I think four of us went across and did that for about a month.

Um, and then over that course at that time, I was also doing.

course called Perspectives, um, which is a great missions focused sort of course.

I'm not sure if it's still operating, but anyway, um, and that sort of really started to hone in my focus on getting involved full time in missions work.

Um, and I was still trying to find my place, still trying to find where could I use the practical skills that my dad had taught me, you know, as well as my love of working with people and, um, you know, doing other.

Stuff as well.

And so I finally landed on, you know, and I thought God was leading towards doing Bible translation.

Um, but I like to do lots of things.

So I was gonna, I was gonna do bible translation and be a missionary pilot and fix my own plane.

Wow.

That's like, it's like a super, super star, a super guy for, well, I figured I could, I could, I could fly into a remote village, keep my plane operating and you know, translate the Bible for you.

Wow, man.

Um, so.

So I contacted, uh, Bible College Victoria, which is now known as Melbourne School of Theology, as you mentioned, they had a program that they worked with MAF, um, here, training pilots and training engineers, as well as offering Bible College.

And so I enrolled there, um, thinking, okay, I'll just do a triple course.

I'll get my pilot's license, my engineering certificates and my.

And my, um, theology degree, so I can do all of that.

And they said, great, you, you've been accepted.

Please pay us.

I think it was 12, 000 to pay for your first block of flying to get you up to your private pilot's license, which I didn't have, you know, my family certainly didn't have.

And so I said, okay, no worries.

I'll go back to work and I'll, um, save up and I'll save up and then I'll see you when I've got the money.

Yep.

So, um, set about working, landed in some pretty.

Interesting, um, jobs.

Okay.

What kind of jobs?

What?

Uh, I mean, I worked for a temp agency for a while, so I did various IT and computer jobs.

I'd played around on computers since the 286s came out.

Okay.

Um, so I was quite familiar with, with computing systems.

So I did a lot of temp jobs in government departments and hospitals and various places doing data entry and all sorts of different things.

Ended up working a temp job for, uh, in the IT department for a small airline.

Um, and then got, found a job within that airline, quite enjoyed the environment there.

So I ended up working in operations for that airline.

Yep.

They were doing regional passenger flights around Australia.

So it worked for them.

And then they had a sister airline, um, which did all of the surveillance flights around Australia.

So https: otter.

ai And they were setting up a new National Operations Center in Adelaide to look after the four bases that were spread across the top of Australia.

Yep.

And so they advertised for this national operations manager role.

So of course, like every 19 year old, I thought, yeah, I'm infinitely qualified to do that.

Sure.

So I, I threw my, uh, threw my name in, um, put in my application.

And because of what I'd just been doing with the other side of the airline and the new, and we'd brought in some new software that I was across, ended up in that role.

Oh, wow.

In that role.

Wow.

So much the envy of the other operation staff were like, Oh, we really thought about applying for that.

I'm like, well, did you know that you should, so, yeah.

So I ended up in that role.

So that was quite fun.

Um, So I was overseeing at 16 aircraft and, um, 130 flight crew around Australia.

Um, so I went up and worked to manage the Darwin base for a little while, and then managed the Cairns base for a little while to relieve the general managers there whilst sort of running this thing nationally.

But the whole time still looking at this goal of, So I've got a whole list of, um, missions aviation.

So it's sort of, I thought it was all dovetailing quite nicely.

And I was working in aviation and I was learning all these stuff about flights, planes and proving and so on.

Um, and so, but what I also did, I like to be fairly proactive.

So I started contacting missions aviation agencies.

Okay.

So.

I reached out to MAF Australia, MAF UK, JARS, SIL, I mean, there's, there's probably a dozen different, um, missions, aviation agencies.

And very consistently, much to my disappointment, they all, they all came back and said, no, we don't have a role that looks like that.

That doesn't exist.

If you're there as a pilot, it's so expensive for us to maintain you on the field with your licenses and so on, that you're there as a pilot.

If you're there as an engineer.

Then you're an engineer.

So you're going to be one or the other.

And if you want to do Bible translation, then go do that.

Like it's nothing to do with what we're doing.

We're just, we fly in the Bible translators, but we're not the Bible translators.

Yep.

So I started realizing that that needed to be a little bit more refined and started prioritizing what was really important.

Yep.

Where, where was God in this?

Like, were you questioning things at any point or were you just like.

You know, this is a bit of a one step at a time, God just leading you slowly.

Yeah.

Look, my, um, I always listen quite closely to where God is telling me to go, but I also adopt the mentality that it's easier to turn a moving vehicle than a stationary one.

And so when God gives me a signpost and I start moving and I just every day say, direct me elsewhere if you need to.

Um, and so this was him starting to.

to direct me elsewhere.

I think the, I think it took that program.

It took that ambition, I guess, to make me come to Victoria rather than stay in Adelaide.

Um, because there were some really good Bible colleges I could have gone to there just to do theology or Bible translation.

Um, and so I, I considered that to be a signpost that I should still move away from home and come over here.

Um, but then that started refining what that might look like.

So I, withdrew from aviation.

I withdrew from engineering and just stayed on with theology.

Um, looking still towards Bible translation.

Yep.

And, uh, so the price got a bit cheaper, but I managed to save up enough to get myself a car that could drive me reliably back and forward from Adelaide to Melbourne.

Wow.

And, uh, and then moved over here, start of 2002.

Okay.

And so that, is that meant you left your job that you were doing?

Were there any friends who were like, why are you leaving this career?

I think nearly all of them.

Yeah.

You're in such a good career.

You're getting paid really well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, like you're in this.

It's really a job of, you know, great responsibility, you know, whilst you're still so young.

Yeah.

I mean, I did it for a couple of years.

Yeah.

Um, you know, why are you, why are you leaving this thing?

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, God was still calling definitely to, to come over.

So I had a great sense of peace about that and still, still made the move over.

So.

Yeah.

So you come into Bible college at BCV at the time.

And so that was at Lillydale or was that Edmonton?

Yeah, Lillydale.

Lillydale.

So I was a live on, live on student.

Okay.

Live on student.

Yep.

Uh, and you're studying theology mainly, the main subjects, um, and, uh, you're finding it in Mougrigarate.

You enjoying it?

You, you growing through it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I loved it.

Um, I mean, if I back.

If I backtrack a little, um, the church I was in when I was a teen went through some pretty rough patch where the pastor had sort of.

Partially walked away from his faith, but still continued to be in the pastoral seat and when challenged, um, you know, erupted and, you know, it was not, not a pleasant situation for, for my family, particularly because my dad was one of the ones that was questioning.

You know mm-hmm What are you actually doing?

Are you being a pastor or are you doing something else?

Um, and so that sort of prompted me to, to leave, like, I mean, basically as soon as I had my, my peas, my license in Australia, we did our provisional license, which I could get at about 16 and a half so I could start driving myself around.

Yep.

So I bought myself a$400 car and, and Wow.

Freedom.

Um, an old Kingswood, not the, not the safest car for a pea platter, but nice and solid.

Yeah.

Um, so I stepped out really on my own and, and, you know, I was very, I'm very grateful to God that he continued to draw me closer to him during that period.

Um, cause I saw a lot of my friends, you know, take an alternate pathway, um, away from God, unfortunately.

And so I stepped out and said, well, I'm going to go and find my own church.

Yeah.

Um, you know, lay down my own roots here, you know, leave the family behind sort of thing and go out on my own.

That would have been scary, challenging?

Oh, I mean, I, I mean, it was, had to be, yeah, I mean, it was, it was what I felt was necessary.

Um, there was also not a lot of young people my age at the church either.

And so, you know, I was craving some community as well.

So that's what ended up ultimately through a couple of steps ended up at Edwards town.

Um, and a lot of young people came in to the church.

To that church at that about the same time.

Okay, cool.

And it was really a Catalyst I think for many of us for our faith to grow we were meeting, you know, we had a guys 6 a.

m Prayer meeting like one of my mates houses every week and you know, we're doing various things like that Which was really quite formational in my faith journey.

Yeah And so that was great.

So then, then stepping over here, yeah, continue to delve into that.

And, um, the college, um, did a really good job of even handedly presenting multiple, um, viewpoints on various theological, uh, uh, items.

Yes.

And so, which I really enjoyed because it gave me the chance to have the time to dig into it for myself.

And yeah.

Um, and study the Bible and, you know, take time out to, to read and reflect and figure out where I stood on various items, which you don't spend much time thinking about day to day.

No.

And also being exposed to, there are other views and other good views that are Christ centered and people who hold to those views as well.

They're not, they're actually brothers and sisters in Christ.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I'd grown up in relatively.

Um, conservative Christian circles, which had a fairly legalistic outlook on, on any other denomination.

Um, and so that was, that was great to start.

I mean, I'd already started that exercise and sort of stepping out of that into a.

Um, a little bit more open, um, congregation, but then, you know, going into Bible college where I was becoming friends with people from a number of different denominations and backgrounds and family stories and so on, um, was really great and exploring what worship meant in different contexts.

And, you know, the richness of what that looks like across a variety of different denominations and what we can learn from each other, um, was really, helpful actually.

That's great.

And so, um, you said that you met to your wife, Brendan, at Bible college?

No.

So Brenda was at the local Baptist church down the road from the Bible college.

So I met her at the church.

On the first Sunday that I rolled into there.

Okay.

Um, uh, so I, I knew relatively quickly that she was, you know, worth, uh, spending a lot of time on.

That's good.

Um, it took her a little bit longer than I did.

Okay.

She, she got there.

She eventually, that's good.

Um, excuse me.

So yeah, I started attending there and then I was working part time to continue to pay for.

Um, college, um, you know, they were, they were deducting money each month from my bank account.

So, um, I had to keep finding ways to, well, God kept, kept it topped up anyway, but landing me in various roles over here, including a role with an air conditioning company.

Okay.

Um, so, so you're thinking about going into Bible translation, you're heading towards that road.

And like you talked about signposts, was there a signpost at some point that went not Bible translation?

Or was it a?

Well, probably my first year marks for Greek might've been a pretty good signpost, but I know the Greek lecturer, well he's not there anymore, but yeah, he was a great lecturer.

It was no, no fault on Greg's part, he was one of my favorite lecturers, but, um, certainly my, uh, time management on reviewing the 20 new words we had to learn every two days or something was not great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that might've been a signpost.

It wasn't one I particularly observed at the end of first year.

Sure.

So, you know, continued to have a renewed crack at that.

Yep.

But yeah, never quite conquered the Greek.

So, um.

Which is important as you consider Bible translation.

That's right.

And that's important.

Yeah.

Um, and then, so you started doing part time work, obviously, and studying with this air conditioning company.

Yep.

And was there a moment after you graduated or was it just about, you're about to graduate and you're like, this might be the direction that God's.

Yeah.

So it was actually fairly early.

So, um, I dated Brenda for about a year and then, uh, we got engaged and then we got married sort of at the end of my second year over here.

Um, and, uh, my father in law.

Um, is quite a renowned inventor in this air conditioning space.

Okay.

So, um, he had leveraged one of his contacts to help get me a job.

Um, but that I think he may have had some ulterior motive in terms of trading me out for the, for the family business.

Um, yeah, so I was working in air conditioning, uh, it time, it timed at the end of that period.

So end of my second year, uh, he was just about ready to start launching this new.

product that he invented, this new compressor, which is like the engine of a big commercial air conditioning system.

Um, he was about to start launching that though in North America at the time, um, because they'd moved the company across to Canada from Melbourne.

And, and so they, the company had been looking for a while for some suitable employees that could help take this product to market, to have this product on the road.

So my wife was just finishing her degree.

She had studied business marketing.

And, uh, they were looking for this couple.

And so they said, would you guys come over and would you consider taking on this role?

And so, yeah, we felt like that was good timing.

Um, you know, certainly felt like God was in that.

Um, and so end of second year, um, we got married and a week later we moved overseas.

We moved to Montreal.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

It was that quick.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um, and then as you were getting involved in this new career, really, um, was your study of God's word and theology, was that, Oh, okay, that's in the background now, or how is it shaping or was it now all of a sudden this challenge of integrating and what does that look like?

Yeah.

It's interesting.

I mean, God uses his signpost and I, I changed direction, but you know, sometimes it takes my mind a bit longer to catch up to perhaps where he may be now leading.

Yes.

Um, and so I still continued my studies.

I mean, this was 2003, four.

So distance education was not really a thing yet.

Um, in fact, 2004 was the first year that I rolled that BCV rolled out a distance learning program.

Yep.

Along with some other.

theological schools in Australia.

And so I was part of the guinea pig cohort of, you know, here's a, here's a subject that you can choose from.

And because I had done two years on campus and they rolled out the subjects from year one first, you know, there was always very few choices that I had.

It's like, here's, here's our six subjects that we've released.

I'm like, well, I've done five.

So I guess I'm doing Ephesians this semester and then I'm going to do whatever.

Um, and so I continued to study, um, the whole time.

Uh, but was working and sort of learning this new world of business and market development and product launches and air conditioning, you know, and that was a real jumping in the deep end, I guess, for both my wife and I, because we, we moved over there, as I said, you know, newly married.

And they said, right, we want you to build a mobile showroom and go drag this around North America.

Wow.

And so we spent the first couple of months in Montreal, literally building a showroom.

And then we spent nearly two years driving from city to city, uh, you know, seeing about 86, 000 people to tell them about this amazing compressor technology.

So answering that many people's questions soon.

Help me learn a lot of answers.

Okay.

Okay.

And wonderful, I guess, one way to get to know your newly married wife and together.

Yeah.

I forget it was probably worth about 10 years.

I reckon that first year we have very different styles of even how to make a PowerPoint presentation, you know, and so we had to work through all of those communication issues and whatever.

Yep.

Um, whilst living 24 seven in a caravan, big caravan, um, going from city to city.

And we're about.

300 nights a year on the road.

Um, and then we'd go back and forth to Canada.

We had visas in Canada, so we'd have to go into the U S for three months and then get out for a week or two and then go, go and do it again.

Um, was there anything that sticks out to you, whether if it's a story or anything where God started connecting a bit more of the dots for you in regards to your faith and working, um, or another signpost as you and Brenda.

Look, we continued.

I.

I mean, I still thought that this was just a delay.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I thought, this is great.

You know, I'll, I'll do this and I'll do, you know, my best, you know, God has put us here.

So let's work really hard at it.

So to supplement some of the lack of subjects that were coming through.

Um, I also started picking up some business subjects as well.

Um, And we, so we ended up in North America for about two and a half years, and then the company was moving from Canada to Florida.

And so we decided that was good timing for us to perhaps return to Australia.

I mean, we were involved in local church ministry and so on there.

Um, but we felt, you know, it's time to go back to Australia.

So we returned to Australia to join, you One of the customers of that business, an early customer of that compressor business, um, and joined them relatively early as I was sort of just starting out and starting to take that product to market.

And so I was able to jump in and use that same skillset and roll that out.

And so, um, just continued to, I mean, God continued to open those doors and continue to prompt us, um, to move, to go various places.

Um, you know, he was, he was relatively clear that we should not go to Florida.

That was time to go home.

So we went home.

Um, and fairly quickly within that role, you know, it became apparent that we really needed to expand into Asia.

Um, and to do that, we really needed to have someone on the ground because I was spending far too much time in planes.

And so, uh, we, we sort of said, well, we'll go and start a new Asian headquarters for the company.

Um, and so my wife and I went and looked around Asia and then settled on Singapore and, um, ended up moving up to Singapore to Establish an office there.

Meanwhile, I'd sort of run out of all the distant subjects cause I still had not really ramped up the, is this doing your masters or bachelor's?

This is just bachelor's still.

Um, so that sort of run out of subjects, but I'd meanwhile I'd completed, you know, a fair amount of business subjects.

So I said, well, why don't we, can I integrate these somehow?

And so they, they allow me to do that.

And so I ended up doing a paper on applying biblical ethics to international business.

Wow.

Um, because I was in Singapore at the time and doing whatever.

So that sort of became an integrating paper that allowed me to finally get a, certificate that's straddling around in a drawer somewhere.

You don't have it on a frame somewhere.

I know.

It's always, I think we were always moving as we, as, as both my wife and I both got our various tertiary qualifications.

So I don't think they've ever been framed.

Sure.

Be rolled up somewhere.

Yeah.

And your experience in Singapore, um, when you chatted with me a while back, you talked about obviously being involved in the local church there, but also seeing this need for saving some of the missions and missionaries.

Um, talk to me about that.

What drove that in your heart, particularly as you minister to, I guess, gospel workers?

Yeah.

So we still, I mean, still had this enduring love and desire to be involved with missions.

And so that had been expressed in a number of ways.

We'd led some, um, short term missions trips for our churches that we'd attended over the years.

And since we had, um, been involved with various things, I had done stuff with.

pioneers and some of the other missions agencies in Australia.

Um, we had friends that had gone out as full time missionaries to Kazakhstan and India and Indonesia, um, uh, had other friends that became sort of the head of missions agencies in Australia and so on.

So we were quite.

We're quite connected.

Um, and what we'd seen fairly consistently, even amongst some of our own friends who'd gone out is they hit the mission field worn out.

So they were so busy raising the required funds to kickstart their ministry and so on.

Um, deputizing till the, till the day they got on the plane, basically they get on a plane, they'd step off at the other end and now we're in the ministry, you know, and there was no breathing space.

And so.

We were seeing, and I'd been studying part of this as well, um, looking at the declining length of time that, that full time missionaries spend in the field.

Um, and so we had this growing heart and concern for like, how do we, how do we speak into that space?

How do we help these missionaries have a more sustained, you know, ministry?

Um, So how do we re energize them before they land?

And we had this really fascinating conversation with this beautiful lady of God called Grace Dodge, um, who was, um, who never got married, who was a, who was a female missionary in Bangladesh for 47 years, um, who was attending our church here in Melbourne.

And we had this conversation once we were at a prayer meeting at her house after church one Sunday.

And she's like, Oh, I never, I was never worn out.

She's like, you know, I would do all this work.

I'd be really tired.

I'd get on a ship for five weeks and then I'd get off at the other end and I'd be, I'd have so much energy.

And so she had this, you know, mandatory buffer of having to take a ship from, from Melbourne to Bangladesh.

Um, that she always had the energy, you know, like that, that sort of rejuvenated her and refreshed her.

And so as we moved into Singapore, which is a, a flight hub for this region.

I mean, if you're traveling anywhere throughout any of these Southeast Asian countries, you end up coming through Singapore, inevitably.

Um, it's also a location where many missionaries have to go to get their visas or to do renewals or get higher levels of medical care.

We said, well, we're already here, you know, we've got a house.

Um, why don't we put it to good use?

And so we reached out to.

A couple of different missions agencies and said, look, we're here.

If you've got missionaries coming through town, um, we'll just make our place available to them.

They can just move in and stay for a week or a month or whatever.

Um, get recharged.

No, no small groups to meet with, no ministry commitments, just spend time with their family and then, and then fly on.

Um, and so over the 10 years, we're in Singapore and we ended up with, with people living in a house every, every month, um, for 10 years, which was great to hear so many stories and different people doing work all over the world and seeing families come through and supporting them through difficult medical things and other, other things that brought them through Singapore.

Um, Yeah, it was quite, quite, that'd be amazing.

And no kids at that point or stage?

Uh, no, we moved to Singapore pregnant with our first.

Um, so yeah, we were very quickly.

We had a child once we were in Singapore.

Do they, as they obviously are growing up a bit more now, probably in Australia, I'd imagine, were there any memories that they have or they've talked about?

Oh yeah.

My, my eldest one's in particular.

So.

Um, still feel quite strongly connected to Singapore, um, and to some of the people that came through.

Um, and there's some of those missionaries that we continue to support to this day and pray for every, every day as a family, um, that, uh, that came through the doors at one point or another.

Um, but it was in that time where probably for me, God finally started breaking down for me, that divide between.

This artificial divide, I would say between the sacred and the secular.

So this, explain what that is.

Yeah.

So this concept that, you know, there's full time ministry people like yourself, should be, um, who are getting paid to be in ministry.

Um, and then there's everyone else, you know, and everyone else is expected to do their everyday things.

And then.

Get involved with ministry where they can.

So there's an artificial pressure if you like, that to do ministry, that means you have to be a Sunday school teacher.

You have to help out at youth.

You have to sing at church on a Sunday or shake people's hands or something.

And if you're not, then you're really You know, you're not doing enough if you're just sitting in church, you know, consuming and you're not giving back.

And I mean, there's certainly some truism in terms of the need to invest in the community that you're in and make sure that it's a bi directional flow of service.

But the concept that ministry can only exist within the confines of a church property or within a missions field, um, I think that for me was where that finally started breaking down.

And that was.

evidenced, I think partially as we started bringing on our first employees in Singapore.

And we really were committing each of them to God in prayer.

You know, even the first, the very first employee I had who stayed with us, um, the whole time we were there, uh, you know, we were really praying that God would bring him into a personal relationship with him.

Um, and that happened a month before we left Singapore, you know, it was like this bookends of, you know, Um, you know, we, we saw God's hand at work through what we were doing in the workplace and in the relationships we're able to build there, um, in addition to how we were able to serve in the church and, and with these missions agencies and with the other things that we got involved with.

And so with that sort of, I guess you said that moment or that journey, and then coming back into Australia, how has that continued to shape who you are?

Um, you know, you know, what are the challenges for you and your role in the secular and the sacred?

Like, how do you keep on ensuring it's integrated in your mind and heart?

Look, I think it, it gave a degree of, um, freedom from guilt, I guess, in a way, you know, like sometimes, especially when we were moving countries or, you know, settling into a new church because we just moved.

Um, you know, it takes time to get plugged in and connected and, and going, um, and so the pressure to immediately, you know, have to do everything, um, which is what my wife and I had always done.

Um, some of that pressure was removed and it changes your perspective significantly on what you're doing day to day.

So if you view your day to day role, whether you're an electrician, primary teacher, you know, toilet cleaner, you know, gym sweeper, whatever the role is.

if that is your ministry, you know, and you go into it with that lens, it dramatically changes your outlook.

It changes the nature of the conversations.

It changes how you invest your time in those conversations that you have.

You're not simply passing the nine to five to put money in the bank to pay your tithe on Sunday.

Um, you know, that is where God has you.

And that, and, and the reality is that's where we are most of the time.

And so, I guess there's a mindset.

mindset shift that allows you to view church more as like a, for me, more like a recharge point, you know, plug in, get energized again, and then go out and really do the service each, each, each day where God has me.

Is there, is there, um, certain principles or biblical passages or things that like, if someone's listening to this and they themselves are trying to figure that out.

So I think for example, some of the people in our church.

Uh, who may be running a business, uh, those who are thinking of going into uni studying.

I think sometimes the mindset still can be, uh, and that could be potentially of how we disciple people in our church and that, like you said, the secular sacred, you know, you're not really doing God's work to your, um, you know, in the youth ministry or, you know, something like that.

Like, yeah.

Yeah.

What are the things that shape you?

I mean, I think if you, if you can.

Lift those lenses that are in front of so many of our eyes.

And really it's a bit of a thing that I think has become more dominant in the church over the last 100, 150 years, I would guess.

Um, I think if you look at the examples in the Bible, whether it's Paul or anyone, I mean, a lot of them were doing it within the marketplace, within their day to day, within their, within their roles.

Yes, some were commissioned and going out and doing extra stuff, but most of the examples you see, I mean, you don't see that the jailer immediately became not a jailer.

You don't see the centurion, you know, throwing away his commission.

Um, you see people coming to faith, you know, within the roles that they are in and presumably exerting, you know, significant influence on those environments that they were already in.

And so I think God doesn't always call you out of.

what you've been placed in, you know, the skills that were given, it says God stitches us together while we're still in a mother's womb.

You know, he, he gives us our, the capabilities to use our hands or our minds or our bodies to do, um, the work we're good at.

And it gives us passions and interests and so on, um, which end up steering us into different career trajectories and other things.

But those are from God, you know, and I think if we start to divorce, well, these are not my spiritual gifts, you know, I'm a really good plumber, Um, but you know, I'm an okay Sunday school teacher.

Well, you know, you can be a really good plumber for God, you know, what are those conversations with the homeowner that you're having, you know, how do you carry yourself?

How do you, how do you deal with your suppliers?

You know, how do you, what emotions are on your face when things go wrong, you know, when the pipe bursts, when things break, um, when, when you're having a bad day, you know, what does that witness and how can we use our words?

You know, like, I think it's not just about.

How we live our lives.

It's far more than that.

It says the Bible is the word of God is sharper than a two edged sword.

So you have to open the word of God.

I mean, you have to speak truth and you have to be willing.

And I think in transitioning into that, my whole life is ministry mindset, if you like, or work as ministry mindset, then hopefully people can start removing some of those self filters.

You know, and one of the most common filters is what did you, what did you get up to on the weekend?

You know, and people say, Oh, I went to the footy and I watched TV and I did some gardening.

What did you do?

Oh yeah, about the same.

I did gardening, you know, no mention that I was at church and I did this and I did that, you know, and, and that self filtering is a real.

It's super damaging.

You know, like you don't know what that person needs to hear.

You don't know whether they need to know that you're someone of faith.

You don't need, you don't know if they need to hear that someone has confidence in that, and that's something that they want to explore, or even just planting that seed so they know if they're a need in the future, or actually, you know, this guy I spoke to, you know, he's, he's got faith, like, let's go on, let's go and talk to him about this question that I might have, you know, and, and if we can, At the very least, at the very minimum, if people hearing this can stop self editing, that would be amazing.

That's super helpful.

Is there, is there moments where being a person of faith in the marketplace has cost you?

Um, Or maybe that's not the right question to ask.

No, look, I certainly was told it would, you know, by business people and whatever.

I mean, we were growing.

Um, and there are some prevailing business trends, particularly in countries like China and Vietnam, you know, that, that there's almost an expectation about, um, you participating in drinking and other things.

And you know, there's a lot of.

advice from the, from the experts, um, who'd built businesses in Asia that, you know, you just have to do it.

You know, you can't not do it.

And so I made a decision quite early on.

In fact, um, even before I got married, we, we sort of decided that we would choose to not drink, you know, because it might help someone one day, you know, we didn't want to be a stumbling block.

Yep.

if someone else needed to be sitting at a table with someone else who would not drink so that they could not drink, you know, because they might have an issue with it or whatever, then we would be those people.

Um, which has saved us both a lot of money and, and a lot of drama.

Um, but as we moved into China, for example, and, you know, every business was concluded with a huge dinner and, you know, and alcohol flows incredibly freely, I mean, the amount of pressure on me to then just comply was enormous.

Um, you know, and the taunts of, uh, you're just a, you know, goody guy, or, you know, you've got, you've got some faith or whatever, you know, um, or you're not going to close this deal or how can people trust you if you don't, you know, um, do this with them.

Um, we saw the reverse of that.

So we saw, um, that my continued integrity in maintaining that position the whole time I was there.

Over many years.

It took them probably about two or three years before I'd give up trying, you know, but eventually a few years in, they'd be like, ah, just get that guy a Coca Cola.

You know, he's not gonna, he's not gonna have anything.

Um, and I think that that ended up helping me like grow the business.

I mean, God's hand was definitely in it.

Yeah.

Um, but I think maintaining your integrity, um, is hugely instrumental to, to, success, um, whatever that might look like, you know, and I think it's important that we remember that success is not always, doesn't always have to be financial.

You know, it could just be the lives impacted around us.

That's a good, you should say that again.

That's, that's like a soundbite right there.

Uh, so I think that one of the key things you mentioned is integrity and you know, it's when it's shaped by the gospel, shaped by who Jesus is and what he's done.

Um, and those decisions that you're making based on your convictions and so on, and others might not, but the point is the integrity, uh, that you represent Christ well, both in word and deed.

Um, yeah, that's super helpful.

Um, uh, Sam, do you have any, uh, other advice for people as you know, I can keep going here, but you know, No, no.

I think, I think we've probably taken people's ear for long enough, but look, I think the main thing is to, um, really reconsider where God has you now.

And, you know, look at what that was.

I mean, I continued to think that I was going to be this missionary.

I mean, for probably 10 years after studying here, I kept asking God, God, I said yes to the grass hut.

Why am I, why am I sitting in this really lovely apartment in Singapore, this nice house in Singapore?

Um, you know, I was willing.

I said, yes, I was like Samuel Nabawi, you know, like here I am.

Um, and.

It really took time, probably too long, I think, for me to really realize that God was using everything that he'd equipped me with.

You know, I was able to Be involved with my church there.

We were working with young adults.

We were working with missions group.

We were enabling Bible translation.

Um, in fact, throughout church, we saw five different Bible translations, um, commissioned.

Um, and so, Um, you know, God had this real amplifying impact on taking the various skills he'd equipped me with across my life, um, and using it all.

Um, and I could never have imagined that that would take me to where I sit today, which is running another startup, you know, developing new air conditioning technologies.

But again, God has got his hand in that, you know, and we have had this, It's an enormous privilege now, having made this mindset shift probably a decade ago now of being able to see God in all of those details and seeing his faithfulness day after day, month after month, week after week, um, way around, and, uh, and seeing, and then living this life with gratitude, you know, and I think as long as we continue to reflect on what God has done for us.

every day, um, then that's the best way to acknowledge his sovereignty and to allow him to really rule daily in your life.

That's good.

Thanks for that.

Um, would you like to finish off by praying for us?

Yeah, I'm more than happy to.

That'd be great.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Lord, we thank you for how you weave your story into each one of our lives.

Um, Lord, thank you for the way that you guided, um, my wife and I, and Lord, thank you for those that you do call into, um, full time ministry like Shabu and the other pastors on staff here at Canterbury Gardens.

Uh, but Lord, we pray that everyone would be able to re evaluate, uh, where you have them afresh.

Lord, that they would look with fresh eyes on the ministry that you've called them into, whether that's nursing, school teaching, cleaning, um, Electrical work, whatever it might be Lord, uh, Lord, I pray that they would be able to see that as ministry and that as their mission field and Lord, that they would have boldness to speak your name, um, into those environments every day, um, Lord give us boldness to stand strongly in faith, Lord, give us confidence to proudly proclaim our faith and our allegiance to you as the Lord.

Amen.

And Lord, help us to continue to delve deeply into your word and spend time in prayer to, to, to hear from you, um, so that we can, um, see the opportunities that you want us to pursue and we can follow your call wherever that may take us.

So Lord, I pray for this, um, community here, uh, that you would just keep them focused on you.

Um, and Lord, we thank you.

Jesus name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, friends, uh, that's it for us and, uh, we'll probably see you, uh, Luguling next year.

Well, I won't see you.

Probably you'll hear me anyway.

I'll catch up with you guys later.

Thanks, Sam.

Thanks.