Global Advance Projects

I, uh, it's such a privilege to be here.

I'm getting the vibes of this church.

It's full of backseat bogans.

Because you seem to be, um, full at the back and empty at the front.

Yeah.

But, uh, that's cool.

That's, that's probably where I would be sitting if I was

the, the person here mostly.

You can sit on one.

Should I?

Mm. Oh.

But, uh, yeah, it is really such a honor to be here for the first time.

Um, as I was preparing, I was kind of just asking God, you know, "Give me

some perspective of what you see in this church and the body of Christ."

And, um- I'm always reminded of things of, of the past, and tonight I have my

mother here, um, who's at the front.

And, uh, I don't get to come back to Australia much at all, and so I

don't see any of my family really.

But one thing that my mom used to say, 'cause we started on mission

field together, and I was young, I was, like, 14 years old when I first

went out, um, in Thailand as a student with my sister and my mom, actually.

And then we went back again when I was a little bit older, at 20, and

we would meet with other Christians.

I don't know any of you that are in missions or you're, um, out there

kind of, you know, sharing the gospel.

There, the gospel, there is always a question that arises

amongst other Christians: "What church do you come from?"

And, uh, my mom hated that question.

She just hated it.

And I think it's because of those time in the, like, late '90s and early 2000s, the

one thing that I think the churches in Perth did well was kind of like we jumped

around, and they were like the major churches that were bringing a lot of the

influences from the revivals that were happening around, and we would bring them.

And so you jumped, and you were like Wednesday night at this

church, and Saturday and Fridays and Sundays, and you kind of called

yourself a member of all of them.

And so you would meet these missionaries as we're out there, and they would ask,

"What church do you come from?" And my mother's response was always, "Oh,

yeah, what church do you come from?"

And they would say, "I'm from such and such. I'm from Red Door." She goes,

"That's a good one. I'm from there, too." And they were always so offended.

They couldn't handle, "No, no, what church do you come from?" Yes, yours.

I'm the body of Christ.

Come on.

I'm from your church.

Come on.

And so it was one of those things that I was reminded of, of coming here.

I don't… I, I thank God for giving me this image and perspective,

'cause I don't actually feel like I'm coming to a foreign church.

But I feel like I'm coming home, because it's the body of Christ.

And this church has been supporting the mission that I've been doing for

such a long time, and as you'll see later, there are members of your church

that will come up here that you might not have realized they are connected

with this mission, but they are.

And because of that, I, I had this, this mind, this thought that

God kind of gave me this dream as I was, I was planning for this.

And it was as if we're this kingdom, right?

This, this, this heaven on Earth in a sense.

This is our church.

This is our kingdom.

And I'm sent out to the front lines.

I'm sent out as a, a, as a warrior, as someone that's going

out to fight in the battlefields.

And you, you collect the stories, and you collect the spoils of the war, and

you collect what you've won, and you bring it back to the house, and you

share it, and you, you give that gift.

And that's the one thing that I want from everybody here this

evening is any story that I share, it's not mine, but it's ours.

And, and I don't say that lightly.

I say that in truth.

I hope that after today, you go out and you share wild stories of what's

happening in Thailand and Myanmar and the rest of the world as if it is your own.

Mm. Because if you've called this house your home, then we

have been in the battle together.

You might not have gone to the battlefield, but I will encourage

you to come to the battlefield-

in the, in the years to come.

And, and I encourage missions teams.

I love it.

I love missions teams, short-term, long-term, whatever.

Um, you know, email me later about that.

But- The, the point is, let this not be my story that I'm coming from a

faraway land and a foreign place into a house that I don't know anyone.

But let this be the story that I'm coming home, and I'm talking to my

brothers and sisters, and I'm sharing from the battlefields that we have

all been a part of in prayer and in giving and, and so I want that to

be the gift of yours this evening.

That you would have that mindset as I share what I share now, that this is

you, that you've been a part of this.

And every person in which we have affected their lives, and we've shared either

the gospel or ministered or helped to break chains and bondage, you've been

a part of every one of those chains.

And I know that you guys have been on a journey with us through what we

called the Red Sea Moment, and I'll talk about that a little bit later

for those that don't know about it.

But just an incredible time of ministry, so I'm so thankful for God in that.

And there's three main things that I want to share about tonight.

I shared this morning at Lake Gwelup Church in Karrinyup.

I got through about a third of what I wanted to share because there was a

really long p- passage in the, in the Bible that I was wanting to read from.

Tonight, I'm not gonna read out the chapters.

But I will encourage you to go home… I'm gonna read from the Book of Acts,

and I really think that Acts is just such an incred- I mean, if you get bored

with the Bible, just ask God, "God, just let me have your goggles for a

minute," and then read the Book of Acts.

It is a thriller.

It is not a, a slow, steady, you know, easy listening or

easy watching kind of thing.

If this was the chosen film in action… I mean, Acts is incredibly thrilling.

If you've read it and you haven't been thrilled, I encourage

you to go back and read it.

We're gonna read about- through Acts from chapter 27 about Paul when he was

called to go to, um, Rome to see Caesar.

And what I want to touch on is the journey that he was given starts back

before chapter 27, and it's where, um, he was… He, he, he's a Gentile.

Here's the thing.

In, in, in terms of Luke… Shall I go back?

Sorry.

Luke, um… The Book of Acts was written by Luke, who was a Gentile.

When they canonized the Bible and they decided what would go in, it's

incredible to think that they would take a, a Gentile's words and put

it and mix it amongst the others, and he wrote Luke and he wrote Acts.

And I think that's incredibly poignant to, to have a Gentile write such incredible

things that we go in and we read, and I just think I'm so encouraged by that

because it's an outsider, out of the box, out of the fit, out of some- somewhere

left field that you wouldn't normally perceive as the right person for the

job, and yet God used him to write this message for us, and we can read

it today and be just so excited by it.

But if you go back, Paul- Who was totally transformed and radicalized to share

the things of the gospel So much so that those that he thought were his friends,

or those people that he served with for a long time, decided that he needed to be

put to death, because what he was sharing was not in line with what they believed.

He was too radical, it was too crazy.

We need to hunt him down and put him to death.

And so God spoke to him, and God said, "I'm going to send you to Rome to

speak to Caesar." This is his mission.

This is his mandate.

This is where God's sending him.

And yet you would think if God said go, and I'm going to go to

Rome and Caesar, the journey might be a little bit straightforward.

But of course, this is a thriller.

This is Acts, right?

It's anything but straightforward.

And so he gets put on a boat as a prisoner to go off, and he knows, "Okay,

in God, I'm gonna get to Rome." And he goes off, and if we read through…

Again, I'm not gonna read all of it, but we're gonna start in chapter 27.

And if you start somewhere around like verse eight, they start

along this coastline, and they're believing that they can head out.

And it says in verse nine, "Much time had been lost and sailing had already

become dangerous, because by now it was after the fast." I- in, in just

the beginning notes of this journey, of a passage that God had ordained for

him to go on, it becomes difficult.

And as you read on and he sails down, the hurricane comes.

Now, isn't God in control of the seas, and isn't God in control of the storms?

Yet isn't it funny that when he was on a direction to where God told him to go,

there was a hurricane that came so harshly that everyone thought that they were going

to die, and it says it goes from what was d- difficult to what was dangerous.

And yet he is living out the thing that God asked him to

do, and yet it was dangerous.

So much of the ministry and the stories I want to tell you and talk

to you about tonight, there is danger in being the frontline warriors.

There is danger in going out.

But there is something that is found when you are so centered with

the promises of God, knowing that you're gonna get to that end goal.

The imagery or what you live out may be different.

So there's the earthly kind of perspective of what we have of

what ministry should look like.

Then there's the heavenly perspective.

And I ask God every day of the ministry and the work that I do, "God, give me your

heavenly perspective," because sometimes when I am being beaten by the hurricanes,

I start to think, "Am I actually on the journey that you gave to me?"

And then I, of course, in the beginning of the ministry, those of you that have

followed GAP, started with child education protection and welfare to children,

and then we moved so heavily in just these last few years into one of the

biggest human trafficking events in the hi- it is the biggest human trafficking

event in the history of, of our earth.

And people will always ask me, "How, how did you do that leap?" And I would

often be asked by people that have been supporters of my ministry is, "Have you

given up ministry?" I'm, I'm sorry, what?

"Have you given up? What about the children?" The children are there.

The children are taken care of.

We have a team of people, and it's not that far leap between one to the

other if you have the mind of Christ, if you have the mindset that the

picture is so much bigger than the, the job or the duty, the mission.

So my mission is my yes to God.

And then like we continue on with Paul, his is the yes to God, yet the journey

is gonna look a little bit different.

So he goes on and it becomes a hurricane, and as we keep reading through, they

start to offload things from the boat.

They start to throw it overboard.

Why?

Everyone is assured it's the end of their life.

Everybody's assured that this storm and these, this ship's falling apart,

and we're not gonna be able to save it.

It's the end of the time.

It's the end of our life.

So he goes on, verse 22, "But now I urge you to keep your courage." Paul is busy

ministering to those who consider him a prisoner, those who might consider

ending his life would be a better option than having him on the ship,

and yet he has, although he knows his job is to get to Rome and speak to

Caesar, he hasn't stopped doing what it was that God called him to, which was

minister to the person in front of him.

At one day, Caesar is going to be the person in front of him, but for

today, it's the men on the ship, some centurions and whoever else are there.

And he says, "Have courage in the eye of the storm, because not one of you

will be lost. Only the ship will be destroyed." I just want to stop there

for a minute and think, how many of you would consider a shipwreck a failure?

Honestly, when we are in ministry, often we get into these shipwrecks and we think,

"What a failure." But what if it's not?

What if the shipwreck isn't the failure?

That it's the purposes and plans of God to see you do things that you might

not have ordinarily had done or chosen.

And so he says, "Nobody's going to die.

Not a life is going to be lost, but the ship is going to be completely destroyed."

Um, uh, they're, they're in the ocean.

I'm sorry, or on the seas.

Um, the ship is going to be destroyed, but no one's going to die.

How is that possible?

You'd start to ask the question, right?

He is so assured.

Last night, an angel of God whose, whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me

and said, "Do not be afraid, Paul."

I mean, let's be honest.

That might not be enough to encourage us.

I mean, if you're in this shipwreck and God comes before you, and he says,

you know, the angel of the Lord comes and says, "Don't worry. Nobody, it's

all gonna be okay," I'm the type of person that would probably question

twice or three times, you know?

But he goes on, he says, "Do not be afraid." You know, "You must stand trial

before Caesar, and God has graciously given the lives of all who, um, of all

who sail with you." The grace of God is sufficient and enough for all of them.

It's incredible that he's there ministering to these men on this

boat, and he's assured by, by the angel, and he's assured by God,

"This is what's gonna happen."

So keep courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will

happen just as he told me.

The… Nevertheless, we must run aground, um, we must run aground on some islands.

I mean, any of you that are shipmates, running aground is not

often the protocol when you're in this kind of situation, okay?

But yet he says, "Don't worry.

Have… Don't have fear, but we do need to run the ship aground in order

for this to happen." And so it goes on to the next part, 27, which is, in

my book, says, "The Shipwreck," which we would think would be the failure.

On the 14th night, when we were still, um, being driven across by the

s- um, in the seas, about midnight, the salius- the sailors sensed

that they were approaching land.

They took soundings, and it goes on to talk about how they knew

that it was getting shallower and shallower and shallower.

The one thing that I missed that's a bit earlier on that I love is where

it says that for days there was no stars, no moon, nothing in the sky.

In those days, that was the way of navigation.

Yes.

It is still today.

I mean, we navigate by the stars.

Consider the fact that they had no clue of where they were anymore, because for days

they had no point of reference any longer.

So you're saying not only are we going to survive, but from wherever we are,

that we have no clue anymore where we've been pushed to, that we're about to run

aground and we're about to be saved.

So they took the soundings.

Fearing that they were gonna be dashed against rock, they dropped

four anchors from the stern and prayed, um, for daylight.

In an attempt to escape from the ship, the sailors let the lifeboat down in

the sea, pretending that they were going to lower some of the anchors.

And then Paul said to the centurion soldiers, um, "Unless these men stay

with the ship, you cannot be saved."

So the soldiers cut the ropes and held the lifeboat and let it fall away.

I mean, again, the life raft.

And he's saying, "Just cut it loose.

If you stay with me on the ship, you'll live." "And if you enter

the lifeboat, you won't." I mean, it's so upside down, right?

Just before dawn, Paul urged them all to eat, for after the last 14 days

they had been basically starving.

Again, he's urging them to look after themselves.

He's urging them to take, you know, the nourishment that they need.

And then after that, he goes on to say, "But the food after we've eaten,"

he takes the bread and he breaks it.

He does this communion with them, right?

So he communes with them on the ship, breaks the bread, eats it,

and at the end he says, "Okay, now everything else overboard."

All sustenance, grains, get rid of it all.

I mean, the faith that someone has to have, but then to have enough faith

and enough personality to get everybody around you to agree in such a storm.

I mean, I don't know if that, if I have it.

But, um-

Verse 35: After he said this, he took some bread and he gave thanks.

So then they threw it overboard.

In verse 38: When they had eaten so much they wanted, to lighten

the ship by throwing the grain.

When daylight came, they did not recognize the land, but saw that there was a

bay of sandy beach in front of them.

And it goes on to say that the soldiers said, "Those who

can should swim aboard first.

The rest of you take parts of the ship that is breaking." But before

that, the soldiers said, "Look, the prisoners are going to run

away, so we should kill them all.

We should off them all." Even Paul, who was a prisoner on

the ship, should be killed.

But the leader of the centurion said, "No." And everybody, 276

people, left the shipwrecked and ended up on the beaches of Malta.

276 people were saved, 'cause that's the God that we serve, that would

see every single person, and that, that was the calling they had.

They moved to Malta.

This is the incredible part of the story.

It doesn't end there, of course, right?

So they meet with the villager, and the villager's very kind and

nice, and they all gather together and they go and get some firewood.

Paul goes and gets the kindling and the firewood, and he throws it on the fire.

With the warmth of the fire, what jumps out?

A viper bites him on the hand.

They're shocked, right?

When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each

other, "This man must be a murderer, for he escaped from the sea, but

justice has not allowed him to live."

That's what the people said about him.

He must have been a murderer because he survived, but the justice, the

god that they serve, whomever, cannot possibly let him continue

'cause he must have been a bad man, so the viper came out and bit him.

But Paul shook off the snake off, um, of the fire, and suffered no illness.

So then the people, expecting him to swell up and suddenly fall dead,

but after waiting a long time, they saw, hmm, nothing happened.

That's unusual.

They changed their mind and said he must be God.

What do people say about us, right?

In a moment of time, you can have people that would speak against you.

Oh, you must be an awful person.

Why?

Because you're a shipwreck.

I mean, how many of us could say that?

We, we, we, our lives look like a shipwreck, and people around it would

judge us and say, "Well, you must have been a bad person because, well,

justice is playing out right now, and, you know, karma's here, so, it,

it, the shipwreck didn't take you, but there's gonna be another way."

And it's incredible, they so quickly, the judgment of people turned all of a sudden

and said, "You must be gods." How much should we not listen to the mouths and the

words of others that are around us, right?

But stay true to what we know that God has called us.

He had to go to Caesar when the snake bit him.

I mean, uh, when the snake bit me, I would probably use a few

expletives and words that shouldn't, were not found in the Bible.

But honestly, I don't know if I would've had the courage to get bitten and think,

"It's okay, I have to go see Caesar." It's not possible, my time's not up yet.

And so it, he goes on, and of course, they see this miracle of his survival,

and he goes to the chief's house of the island, and they entertain them,

and they have all the hospitable, hospitality of the, the village.

And then he says, "My father's sick and suffering in bed." This

is verse eight of chapter 28.

His father was sick in bed, suffering from a fever and dysentery.

Paul went in to see him, and after praying, placed his hands on him, and

he was healed That is the God we serve.

Mm. I'm on my way to Rome to see Caesar, but let me just make a quick shipwreck,

just a quick pit stop, and let me show and testify the goodness of God,

and let me bring salvation to a land.

And they went on.

After he had finished, they stayed there for the winter, and they prepared a

ship, and they sent them on their way.

Where?

To Rome.

So he could, if you finish the Book of Acts, end up being in front of Caesar,

just as God had called him to be.

It wasn't that the shipwreck was a mistake.

It is an Romans 8:28 kind of thing.

Romans 8:28

For all things, for His glory, to those who love Him, no matter what.

And so some of us have to be a little bit more… I mean,

change your perspective in life.

If God's called you to somewhere, God's called you to the people of

Thailand, God called you to the nations, understand that the shipwreck might

not actually be the demise of the plans that God has for you, but might

be the Malta of your life, where I…

And I don't want to miss my Malta.

Mm. Right?

I don't want you to miss your Malta.

Today on f- even today, February 10th, I think it is or something, Malta still

celebrates the day that Paul landed on the shores of Malta because he brought

salvation to a nation that never had it.

I mean, how incredible is that?

Why?

Because God planned it.

God orchestrated it.

God ordained it.

For have this man, this prisoner, this one that everybody wanted to kill,

this one that they said must have been this terrible person, the, the one

that suffered all these things, the one that needed to go to speak to Caesar,

stopped in at Malta and changed that country, that island, for- forever.

The generations, even today, they're celebrating this.

That's the worldly… That's the, the gospel pers- prospect.

That's the heavenly picture of what ministry should look like.

And we make mistakes by kind of putting our earthly images on

things, of what we expect it to look like, what it should look like.

What people say, "You work with child's ministry. It should look like children's

ministry. What are you doing working in terms of this human trafficking?"

How did that leap take shape?

Well, it took shape because- I learned to say yes to the things of God.

And while I share the story again with my mother, because I was there

at the beginning, she taught me that every church was the body of

Christ, and so it was my church.

And she taught me to live a life of saying yes, where most people would say no.

So when we were in school, and my sister, who is also here tonight,

was learning Thai in school, they had this dream of thinking, let's take

our little Thai class, our after-hours school class, and let's go to Thailand.

And of course, the school said no.

But my mother is a yes person and decided that we'll, we'll spearhead this.

We'll push it ahead.

I'll get on the team.

I'll be one of the… She was working in the school at the time.

I'll be one of the people that say yes.

And it changes the course of history for so many people.

Out of our missions teams that went there, there are s- quite a few,

four or five faithful people now full-time ministry in Thailand because

of the yes that this became, right?

And so that was something that I have to… I don't want to miss my Malta,

so of course I want to have my yes.

And that yes sometimes leads me to shipwrecks.

But I learned to have the perspective of Christ in that moment

and realized that the shipwreck could be my Malta or is my Malta.

And it's an incredible way of living.

Just jumping through where my notes are

Why is it easy for me to jump from one to the other?

Was because my mission is my yes to Christ, right?

It was somewhere back in my teenage years and, and somewhere maybe even

earlier than that, that I decided to say yes, I would serve God and go

anywhere, wherever he would send me.

But that's a decision that I wake up and really have to make daily within my life

because there's always challenges that say maybe reset, maybe stop for a minute,

maybe change direction, change course.

And so you wake up and you think, "No, it's something that I want

to say yes to," because it's not me and my ministry, it's his.

Mm. And I just wanna be a vessel for what that looks like or what that can be.

God gave me a word very early on when I headed out, and he said, "All things

to all men." That's the scriptures of, of being all things to all men.

And for me, what that meant is that God was gonna take me to the

lowliest of people, and I could feel at home with them, and I could sit

in the dirt, and I could be with the addicts, and I can be with those,

uh, what would be considered hopeless and, and desolate and have nothing.

But I can also sit in rooms of kings and queens, and I can feel completely

comfortable, and I can be enough in those areas of what I need to be.

My personality, for anyone that's kind of knows about personality

types or your Enneagram, I'm a type three kind of personality.

Most people say that's the chameleon, right?

You can change.

And I think, well, that's fitting to what I had thought myself to be, is someone

that can be all things to all men, so I'm this kind of chameleon within it.

And God can use me in so many different places.

But often, what I get accused of is not being authentic.

Because how can you be your authentic self if you're always changing who you are?

I s- I don't know.

God made me this way.

So I can, I can be authoritarian when I need to, and I can be a follower,

and I can be a worker, and I don't mind being all of those things, whatever

it is that I need in that moment.

But my yes led me to the mission field, and we thought

we were heading to Thailand.

We thought that was where our missions was gonna be, right?

And so we headed out, and one day, my mom was on, um- It was like a public bus,

kind of like this minivan public bus.

And she was sitting next to a man, and they, you know, generalities between

the two of them, "Hi, how are you?"

The rest of it.

And, um, he says, "You know, what do you do?" And she says, "We're in education,

children programs, those kind of things, sharing the gospel." And he says, "Oh,

I have a school I'd like you- take you to." She says, "I have a team here.

We could go and do a children's day program, education, whatever, do a team."

Great idea.

So we come back to the team, and this is a YWAM group that does ministry

with us, and the YWAM team says, "Yeah, we would love to go and ministry with

them. The only problem is that we can't cross into Myanmar." No problem.

We're not in Myanmar.

We're in Thailand.

And so the team split up.

There was enough of them.

They needed to go in two different directions.

So part of the team came together, and we headed.

We got in the car, and we drove following this man that we didn't know, that my

mother just met on a bus but said yes.

And so we headed to what was a river, and we lived in an area of Thailand

that borders Myanmar by a river.

And I looked at my mom, and I said, "Um, I think that's the river to Myanmar."

She goes, "No, we're not going to Myanmar today." We looked at the man that we

didn't know, and we said, "Are we going to Myanmar today?" And he says, "Yes."

So we looked back at the team, and the team was like, "We, we can't go.

We can't have this policy."

The incredible thing about it was that every underage person on

that team stayed back in the first group, and only those who were

over 18 were standing at the river.

And the team leader was there, and the team leader said, "You know what? We're

all adults, and we actually can decide for ourselves what we want to do."

And all of them said, "Yes." They… We went into Thailand.

That was really one of the very beginning moments of what God did in that region.

And our yes led us to education, healthcare.

But our ye- yes also led us down some difficult paths because, of course,

the area where we started to work in was the area, the, the, the, the

military zone area from the bad guys.

I don't know how else to put it.

They were the murderers.

They were the ones that were committing crimes against,

atrocities against humanity.

They're the ones that the world would talk about going through villages and

just decimating, killing everybody.

These were the people that God took us to.

And God clearly spoke to us and said, "You know, I…

My heart hungers for them as much as it does for you." I mean, that's a shock

to most of us when you think, "I am a good, solid Christian, a missionary

dedicating my life to God, and you're telling me that God's heart hungers

for that murderer as much as he does for me, the good guy?" Yes, he does.

And so we started to work with these bad, evil men.

But, of course, in our hometown in Mae Sot, we were no longer

allowed to go to church.

I was part of the worship team.

Get off the worship team.

We're not allowed to see you in coffee shops.

We're not allowed to see you in ca- uh, in restaurants.

We don't go to parties anymore.

You're uninvited and excommunicated from the community.

Because why?

Everyone was looking after the good guys.

Everyone was looking after and ministering and doing their missions work within

the area of the, the part of Myanmar where they were being persecuted.

But God loves the persecuted and the persecutor And so he sent

missionaries to the persecutor.

And yet we lost everyone, and yet we had to continue with

our yes, and we moved forwards.

And why I say the leap wasn't that far, I mean, we went in, we did

schools, we continued a relationship.

And one day, you know, 15 years later, I get a f- a, a, a message

from someone trapped in what we now know as a scam center.

Her name was Lillian, Kenyan lady.

She wrote on Facebook to a, a Facebook, um, group within our area,

"I'm in trouble and I need help."

And from there, we were able to pick up the phone and call who?

The military.

The guys, the bad guys that we had spent 15 years building a relationship with.

And we were able to pick up the phone and say, "Have you ever heard of Africans

being in your neighborhood?" And they were like, "Oh, that's interesting," pretending

like they didn't know what was going on.

And, um, they say, "Well, send me the passports of these, these Africans,

these Kenyan people." So I sent them seven passports, and the next day I got a

phone call that said, "Where do you want them?" And I was taken aback because I

had no clue what we were stepping into.

But you know what?

It wasn't that far from child protection welfare in an area working

with the military, being in this kind of prime position that when

this call came, I could pick up the phone, probably the only person in

the region, and talk to a commander of the bad guys and ask him for a favor.

And people always ask me, "Why d- why, why do you do that?" And a Chinese

man told me this, 'cause I worked with the Chinese criminal enterprise.

He said, "You know what? Bad people do good things. They just

don't stop doing bad things." Wow.

And so I use that.

Now, every day when I pick up a phone and I call and I say, "Do you mind

delivering me these 20 people that have been trapped and exploited?"

And people say, "How do you do it?" I say, "Well, I just ask the Chinese man,

and he does good things sometimes, and he just won't stop doing the bad ones." Yeah.

I pray that they will one day.

Yes.

But that's not, that's not the part of the story yet that I'm, I'm living out, right?

But it was so simple a task just to say yes, and God ordained the

ministry to move from one to the other.

It wasn't mine.

And so it wasn't that I took my focus on anything.

We still do child welfare and protection.

We still do education.

We still … But God brings about enough because his grace is sufficient.

It's enough because he gives us enough energy and enough of a team,

enough of church of the body of Christ that say, "We'll get behind

you," to go to the next step.

And that seven people that we rescued in 2024 was about

250 altogether in that year.

And then fast-forward to 2025, which is when I think we really, um, became

united or at least knew each other more.

In 2025, we rescued over 6,500, almost 6,800 people in a year.

I mean, that was, that was a moment that we weren't ready for.

But there were some shipwrecks during that time, and you would think, "Well,

God's called us. He's told us to do this. How could it be possible?" But there

were, because of course we're minis- we're, we're, we're in ministry while

we're rescuing these people because they come from such hopelessness.

Many of them, I mean, most of the African nations that we represent are Christian

nations, these people knowing, growing up knowing God, yet they were caught

in this world of human trafficking and these worlds of scam centers.

And we have maybe 24 to 72 hours to restore humanity to them, to restore

what was broken, to give a … It's impossible in that time except for the

gift that God gives us, except for the words that he gives us, except for the

prayers that we're able to pray that would start to at least begin the journey

of their healing, begin the journey.

And it's incredible for them to know that it was the body of Christ that responded

Part of the journey is that when this, this, I wanna talk about the Red Sea

moment occurred, what happened was the world had been crying out, "Rescue these

people, rescue these people." And again, I'm not sure how many of you understand

what happened, but basically from 72 countries around the world, people were

trafficked and it's the largest human trafficking event in history, all brought

to one place in Myanmar, trapped in these incredible cities that were built

for the sole purpose of scamming the Western world out of their money using

cryptocurrency and relationship scams, completely sophisticated programming.

And th- so that we're hundreds of thousands of people trapped in our

region, unable to get out, and very few of us willing to pick up the

phone, willing to, to try to respond, willing… Most people were afraid.

But when the time came, governments, countries calling out for the people to

be rescued, when they came and 10,000 people were rescued, um, this is not

a political statement, this is just a factual point in time, it lined up with

when the new current president took, um, office in the US, and of course, all US

aid funding was cut The world went silent.

There was all of a sudden no money anywhere for anyone, and there were

10,000 people waiting to be rescued.

No food, no water, no medical care.

More than that, no way home.

No tickets, no flights, no nothing.

And so in that moment, we said, "You know what? God wants this story."

Mm. He's jealous for these people.

The world says when they see the injustice of, of what's happening to

somebody, the world goes, "Well, what's the government gonna do about it?"

And I know even here in Australia, you have such an issue with the

government at the moment, and so much injustice in the world, and injustice

in the communities in your cities.

The world says, "What is the government gonna do about it?" Yeah.

But the word of God says it is the church's job to respond to that injustice.

And so what we were incredibly, um, humbled of being a part

of is the world was silent.

No one was willing to do anything, and yet God poured out with just a few

posts or, or messages that we sent out.

God poured out more than a quarter of a million US dollars in this moment

of time to see the seas part, to see the waters of Myanmar part, and 10,000

people crossing and getting to go home.

And we got to send over 6,500 of them home to be restored in their homes,

to be restored in their countries.

I mean, that was an incredible moment that we all shared in.

You share in that, 6,500.

Why?

Because we said yes.

Why?

Because we got behind the people, and the church stood up, and the church arose, and

the church said, "This is God's story."

Mm. This is for him to be glorified.

And the incredible thing is I went on, and many of you might have seen

me on different TV stations whatever.

I've been on The Project, and BBC News, and, and documentary series all over.

And this last year, I mean, I'm, w- I'm kind of proud about it.

We just won an Emmy for, um, the Trafficked…

Uh, it's by, uh, Mariana Van Zeller.

It's part of Trafficked, um, which I'm not promoting.

But anyways.

The incredible thing is we weren't, we weren't ready for anything,

and I'm such a backstage person, but won the Emmy this year for it.

And so it's like, but everybody asks me in these interviews, "Why did you do it?"

Or, "How did you do it?" And we have to be honest.

The church answered.

We have to be honest.

We didn't accept any government funding.

There was no grants.

I mean, how many people said, "You should apply for grants"?

And we said, "No, thank you," because God doesn't want to share this story.

He didn't want to share in the glory that was his to be shared with

governments, because he wanted to be the one responsible for bringing

justice where there was injustice.

You know?

And then that's the incredible story that we get.

Why?

Because we get to say our yeses.

And, um- Again, I continue to say my yes in these moments.

We continue with education, we continue with putting kids in university, we

continue with, um, what we're doing in terms of the ministry and what we're

doing in, in terms of human trafficking.

The incredible thing is I went, like I said, all things to all men, from being

able to be with those in Myanmar and the, um, the, the poorest of communities,

and then I think to myself, "Am I called to be with governments?" And

there was always something inside of me that was, like, stirring up saying,

you know, "You'll be called for this."

And, uh, I was always encouraged by my family and by my schools

and stuff, you know, "You're going to be someone or do something." I

mean, what does that even look like?

What does that even sound like?

The incredible thing that I'm just so humbled at is that not only do I get to

represent the Kingdom of Heaven in these things, I get to be a representative

of 25 countries around the world.

I'm the signatory on their behalf in Thailand and Myanmar.

I am the embassy's representative.

25 different nations, mostly all African, some other Asian nations, because why?

Their governments did not respond and didn't come to get them.

But I held my hand up and said, "I'll do it." In a moment of shipwreck,

and I'll tell you that story now

I had had some health issues leading on for quite some time.

A few years ago, I was diagnosed with a tumor in my spine, which

essentially is inoperable.

And so the doctor said, "Go home and live, live your best

life." And I was, I was gutted.

I was not happy about it.

I thought this is the end.

You know, I wanted to see my daughter's fifth birthday.

That's what I wanted to get the end to.

I wanted to have my son get married, my eldest son, and I just wanted,

um, there was a few things I wanted to tick the box before January came,

and that was kind of the end of life part of my story, the shipwreck.

And my wife remembers, um, me sitting in our home one day and just

crying out to God and saying, "God, if this, if I'm supposed to live

through this," because they just said, "Go and live your best life."

It has to be for something more.

It has to be for something greater.

And my wife was, like, quite ticked off by that, quite put back.

She's like, "Are we not enough for you? Are your children not enough?

Are the ministry that you're doing not enough?" I don't know why God stirred

within me, there has to be something more, and that was one week before

the first rescue ever took place.

But during this time when the 10,000 were about to be rescued, when we

are going to become responsible for sending these people home, I ended

up waking up one morning and unable to move my legs from the waist down.

I was unable to walk, unable to go to the toilet.

TMI, we're a family.

I'm unable to go to the toilet and I'm unable to walk.

I go, I'm rushed into the hospital and they say, "Immediate surgery now.

We don't know if we're ever going to be able to restore what damage has been done.

Your, your s- bones have collapsed, everything's crushed, um,

partially because of the tumor and whatever else is going on.

We will try and obviously stop what's happening, but

everything might be permanent."

I'm post-op, still not able to move, two days post-op, and my phone rings.

I don't normally answer the phone.

But at that time, I was like, "Well, I'm flat on my back, and why not take

a few phone calls?" So I take the phone call and this guy says, "My

name is the Supreme General Songwit of the Ministry of Defense of Thailand."

It's like, "Um, tell me that again." So, um, you know, try to Google what

is the Minister of Defense of Thai- well, he's the national leader for the

national security of the whole country, and this random guy gets my… well,

he's not random, he's the leader.

He gets the random guy's phone number, mine, and he was told that this guy might

be responsible for the Red Sea moment.

His team, this guy might be responsible for what you're seeing unfold, and

he thought, "This is incredible.

I've got to talk to this guy.

How is it possible that one person has, has led this?" And so he calls me and

said, "I need your help, and I need you to meet me in Bangkok." And I said,

"Yes." I mean, flat on my back, but I obviously couldn't, but I always say yes.

So I called Amy, who's on the beach in Thailand, sunbathing.

And I said, "You need to drive to Bangkok." And she goes, "I've only

got swimwear and beachwear." And I said, "You'll have to drop into

a shop because you're about to go meet the Minister of Defense and

find out what it is that Thailand's Defense Minister needs from us."

And so she did.

And again, while I was not even sure if I was ever gonna walk again, I'm

not really sure if I was ever gonna use the bathroom again, I'm not really sure

what was going to happen, we said yes.

And it was incredible to watch that shipwreck turn into 6,500

people and counting, because we're now in 2026 and it continues.

And I go back, fly back to Thailand on the 1st of, um, August, and I think by

the 4th of August we're repatriating another group of people back home.

It's incredible that I can even… I, I mean, just have an ounce of what

it is that God's doing in this world.

I mean, I'm just, I'm so encouraged by a simple yes that can lead to

just the most outstanding life.

But to most, honestly, to most people, and definitely the ladies

in the room can testify, and to my family, when these major catastrophes

started to happen in my life, they were like, "Are you sure, Judah?

What's really going on?" And how many people… "Do you need

to go back to Australia?" And I'm always like, "No, never."

But, um-

I'm definitely Thai.

I'm not, I'm not Australian.

I'm definitely Thai.

And if you asked my daughter, who's in the front row, where, where she comes

from, what her nationality is, she would definitely tell you she's Thai,

because that's all she's ever known.

Um, but she's come for the first time to Australia.

And, um, it's her first time she's ever used her Aussie passport,

and they don't stamp them anymore.

Oh.

So it's still empty, so nobody knows that she came in.

But, um, you know, it was, it was so cool and, and so

I love the fact that I can be the church to everyone.

I love the fact that the apostles, the prophets, the preachers, the

teachers, I mean, just whatever you need me to do, Lord, I'll say yes.

And I'll do it until I'm taken home.

You know, that's my, that's my prayer.

I'll do whatever it is until I'm taken home.

Well, that meant a whole lot different to me than what it does now a few weeks ago.

I should say a few weeks ago, that, that phrase that I had, I'll do

anything until you take me home, means a lot different now because a couple

of weeks ago, my wife's father, my father-in-law, was taken home, and it

was by a catastrophic accident on a road where he didn't survive the accident.

And in this moment of time, we're uprooted, sent home, and

I just remember feeling like Am I so out of touch with reality?

Am I so hardened by the things that I see?

Am I so hardened by the military?

Am I so hardened by what I do for the defense?

Am I so hardened by what I see in terms of persecution of people?

And I mean, they're… I, I… Inside these camps, and I mean, they're

killing people, and I'm having to deal with the remains and, and I

mean, horrific torture by the time they come out, the brutal beatings.

And I'm often taking people to hospital with surgeries, and, um, I mean, just

incredible, incredible things watching.

And I think I am emotionless when it came to my father passing, and

I thought… My father-in-law.

I thought, "God, am I so out of touch?" But what I really felt when

I prayed about it, when I sought after him, he goes, "You know what?

I've given you a peace that passes all understanding." It wasn't that you

don't feel, because of course I do.

I have all the feels, and I cried like people cried, but

I didn't feel as connected.

I said, "You know, one thing I need to do is, was be strong for my family, be

strong for my mother-in-law." And I was the one that was a little bit removed,

so it was easier for me to, to step into that place where you need to make

decisions or, or do things for the family.

But more than that, I felt like God just showed me this greater

picture that, that I'm a part of.

And, and one thing, and I shared it with, um, Luke this evening, I

kept on having this song in my head.

I don't know if you know it, but it's like, um, Show Me Your Face.

I think Bethel originally did it.

Show me your face, Lord.

Show me your face.

If anyone knows that song.

So I kept on getting that where I'm like, "Moses, Moses, Moses," and I

kind of get this picture of Moses standing on the mountain, right?

And he lived this incredible life, and he delivered all the Israelites,

and he got to this point where the promised land was over there.

And he meets God, and he goes, "You're not gonna get that, but you can come

home with me." And Moses gets to see, not with a cloud any longer, but he gets

to see the face of God and the fire of God, and he gets to see the white robes.

And if Moses got given… I mean, it's always bothered me in the story.

I always read it.

I'm always like, "Ah, how did he not get… What were you… God, it was

only because of a stone. He hit a stone." Like, maybe there was a murder

somewhere or something, you know?

But other than that, he was a great guy.

I mean, God, why?

Why?

But- He, he stood there and he would have had a question, "Do you want

this or do you wanna come home?"

And Moses chose home, which was the right decision and is always the right decision.

And so when Wally, my father-in-law, was there, I mean, I had this kind of

picture of if he chose… You know, if he had that moment of being able to choose

and he saw his loving father and he saw eternity, he saw heaven, he saw everything

that we are, we are here for in order to get there, and he had that moment,

do you want this or do you want that?

If he chose heaven, he chose the right thing every single time.

And we mourn for him back home on this earthly kind of sense, and when we're

often caught up in the carnal world and caught up in our earthly sense, we

think… You know, I heard it so many times, "Oh, it was just too short.

His life was too short," 66 years old.

And I thought, Jesus was 33 But his life was complete.

There was, there was no shortening of his life.

He completed exactly what it was that he was supposed to do.

And so I thought, "Is that the perspective that I have of Wally?"

66 years, but he was ready.

And we held this memorial service, right?

550-something people came to his memorial service.

We had to split it over two days.

I mean, I, I stood in the line with my wife and I said, "I need to be a nicer

person because I'm probably not gonna get this kind of thing when I die." I'm like,

"I'm not sure I've got that many friends.

I'm pretty sure I'm like, I'm, I'm antisocial these days." "But I, I, I

really have to work on being kinder."

Every single person stood for hours.

I mean, they do these weird things in the US, I don't know if anyone knows

about it, but it's like a calling hours.

I've never been a part of anything like this before, but people line

up for hours just to queue past the family and say, "I'm so sorry

for your loss," your condolences.

And then they turn around and they exit and they go home.

And I was like, "That is… I- can we just party? Can we just put some music

on and walk around and say hi?" No, no, you stand in a line for multiple

hours, and people just usher through.

But what it was that these men m- ushered through, mostly men,

people that had worked with Wally.

Now, he stayed with one job for, like, 40 years.

We don't get that anymore.

You don't have that.

The generations don't do that.

I mean, we switch and change.

He stayed with his job.

And these men came forward and said, "You know, I, I knew Wally since I was

15 years old and an apprentice, and I'm now 40-something, and I've, I've…

He's meant so much to me in my life." And we're like, "What?" And these men

walked past and said, "You know what?

Wally had retired less than one year from September to July.

Less than one year he was retired." These men all stood in line and they

said, "I just saw him on Thursday.

He came to visit me on Wednesday."

What we found out was that for 40 years or so, he had been… He's a salesman.

He had been selling to all of these companies all over the US.

Even after his retirement, he still kept the Wednesday and Thursday

visits, so much so that one of the guys said, "You know what? I start

getting in trouble 'cause my boss is like, 'It's not about work anymore.'"

He's there for an hour talking to you about life.

But that was always Wally.

He was never there just to sell.

And some of the men stood there and he said, "You know what?

I don't know enough about Wally, because all he wanted to do was ask

me about my life." But what they did say is, "I know that whenever

Wally spoke, he spoke of God.

He spoke of enough grace in his life that even for him…" Because,

I mean, his life was crazy.

Lived on the streets, selling drugs.

I mean, a bad guy.

Ended up in this incredible family and worked this incredible job.

But he knew that God's grace was sufficient for him, and he knew that

God's grace is sufficient for everyone.

So every man he ever met, said, "It doesn't matter where your life is,

doesn't matter what you're doing, grace is sufficient." He always pointed

his conversation between God and his children that are on the mission field.

And so they're like, "I don't know anything about Wally, but I feel like I

know you, Judah, and I know you, Kelly."

He's like, "I know all about your life because that's all Wally ever

shared about." Because he was so proud of the work that was happening.

Why?

Because he owned it as his own as well, because he sent us, just like

you send me out into the fields.

He owned it as his own.

And so it was incredible for us to, to, to meet these people and see these people.

And I was shown this thing of God.

It's like this understanding, this thing that brought peace, to say,

"You know what? I actually think Wally lived the fullest life to absolute

completion, and he chose the better." Mm. He chose to go home to his father.

I mean, we are incredibly crushed, incredibly sorrowful for the loss of

the generation of his grandchildren that are n- not gonna know him.

But he lived such an incredible life, and it was testament to the 500 and

something people that turned up.

And about six months ago, I, I do this regional convention where I, I

go to, um… I'm an educator, so I work for, um, this Christian education

program, and so I go to schools across Asia, and I encourage the, the

teachers and the staff, and we hold these Christian education conventions.

And I was asked to, to share about a particular topic, and it was a topic

that I actually did not really want to share on, but it's like, "God,

just give me what it was." He gave me this passage, and it's the stories,

um, that's in Matthew 25, actually.

Um, and it's the virgin with the lamps, right?

Everyone's aware of the, the story of the virgins with lamps.

And I don't know what it was on some social media thing or something, and so

the theologians here don't come for me.

It's not, it's not exactly, you know… You can clean it up later.

But the thing is here.

But out of everything that I shared at this Christian education convention,

this was so powerful- Everyone came and asked me for a copy of it.

I was like, "I don't even know where it came from." I mean, I just, I heard

and I just typed out some things, and I, I thought about it and, and

it was about the virgins, right?

And when I thought about Wally's life, I thought he was standing

there with his oil and he was ready.

And so I want to read this passage because I think it's, it's part of my closing,

it's part of, of, of what God's doing in my life and what I want to share with you.

Um, and I'm going to call it Wally and the 10 Virgins

But it says, "The tragedy of the 10 virgins was not sin.

It was not rebellion.

It was not open compromise.

The tragedy was this: that the 10 looked ready, but only five were prepared.

They are all virgins.

They all had lamps.

They all went out to meet the bridegroom.

They all slept, and they all heard the cry.

From the outside, nothing separated them, yet heaven made a

distinction earth could not see.

The foolish virgins were not hypocrites.

They were sincere but shallow.

They were committed but unprepared.

They were active, but they were empty." A lamp speaks of the visibility, what

people can see, but the oil speaks to the reality of what only God knows.

Many have perfected the Christian language, church culture, ministry

involving spiritual vocabulary, but oil, it cannot be borrowed.

Oil cannot be transferred.

Oil cannot be inherited.

Oil is cultivated through our relationship with God and with Christ.

It is not… The oil that you hold in your lamp doesn't come from the stage.

It doesn't come from your leadership.

It doesn't come from the man or woman sitting beside you.

The oil in your lamp only comes because of your relationship with God.

This story is not about bad people.

It's just about almost ready people.

They didn't hate God.

They didn't reject Jesus.

They didn't leave the church.

They were waiting just like you.

They all looked the same, same lamp, same expectation, same direction.

If you met them, you would not have known they were not ready.

That's the problem, though.

They thought there was time, just like us.

I'll pray a little bit more later.

I'll get serious after the season.

God'll understand.

This is how the lamps die.

I'll pray later becomes your habit.

Convictions become the normal noise.

Repentance is postponed.

Hunger is replaced with routine, routine.

Obedience is replaced because God understands, and slowly the oil leaks,

not overnight, not loudly, but quietly.

Secret sin doesn't always make you leave the church.

It makes you more hollow inside.

Hardship doesn't remove oil.

It reveals where oil never existed.

When prayer becomes hard, when God feels silent, when s- obedience costs

too much, that's when the oil matters.

When the cries came out, they all woke up, but only five had enough to stand.

Crisis doesn't make you more spiritual.

It shows that you what… shows you what's been coming.

But this is the grace in the story.

The door is still open.

The oil can still be cor- collected, and Jesus is still waiting.

When I think about his life, and I think about if he was one of

those waiting, those with the lamp, these virgins with the lamp-

When the cries came out, he was ready to go in.

Are you ready?

Are you holding a lamp that because of, "I'll do it later, I'm too busy, God'll

understand, there's always time, I've got tomorrow." Are you a virgin that

would wake up and hear the cry and go, "I don't have enough to get inside the door.

I'll have to come back later."?

I mean, we, we need to be people that are ready, and the way we do

that is not by cultivating it through relationship, coming to the church

services, doing the right thing.

We don't cultivate it by doing the right ministry or going out into the

world or being on the global stage.

It can only come because of the relationship we have from God, and

that's where it's gotta begin, right?

And that's where the ministry begins is with your yes to God, and then where does

it take you, and what does that look like

Are you ready with your lamp?

Is your oil filled?

Are you ready to hear the cry and you're ready to enter in?

I mean, that's my prayer for the church, not just this church,

but just the church as a whole.

God, let us be the five virgins that are ready.

Let us be that when our time comes, whether it's 33 or 65 or 100, let it

be that when God comes and we see the fire in his eyes and, and we're able

to meet him and he says, "Do you want the Earth or do you want to come home?"

Let us choose the right way always.

Let us be ready to go home Father God, I just want to pray a closing prayer.

Thank you, God, that we are the church.

Thank you, God, that we do arise together.

We thank you, God, that we are united and, and, and we are one, Father.

Um, under your covering, God.

We thank you for grace that, um, surpasses everything.

We thank you for peace that brings, um, the peace that we

can have upon- p- p- peace beyond any understanding, Father God.

We thank you that you minister to our home, Father God.

You minister to our communities, God.

You minister to our cities, and you minister this globe, Father God.

I thank you the stories that we have that glorifies you, Father God.

The stories that we share that point to a God that loves even the lowly, Father God.

A God that loves both the persecuted and the persecutor.

God, give us a mindset that we can see past a shipwreck and not

consider it failure, Father God, but a shipwreck could be our Malta.

Father God, I, with that being my prayer, God, shipwreck me every single day.

Father God, that I land before the people that I'm supposed to speak to, that

I'm supposed to share with, that I'm supposed to give my yes to, Father God.

Let me be bold enough not to just want a life that is easy sailing in a yacht,

Father God, um, a- across the beautiful islands of, I don't know, Malta, Father.

But Father, let me be in a ship that is tousled by the waves and storm, and let

me still know that the promises that you have said to me, Father God, are yes and

amen, and the promises that you have is not just everlasting life, Father God.

The promises that I have to go to Rome and I have to speak to Caesar and

that I have to do these things, God.

Let me stand so firm, Father God, that I could say to the people around me,

"Take heart. Don't worry. Have courage." Nobody's life is going to end because

God's told me, and he's assured me, and I have no doubt, and I have no fear.

God, continue to bring us with that boldness.

Continue to lift us up, Father God, and continue to help us.

Father God, that we might live life that glorify your names, that we

might live a life of Romans 8:28, God.

Romans 8:28

That we might live a life that says, God, no matter what circumstance, no

matter what things come, God, let it be glory to you because let everybody know

that I live because I love you, God.

And everything I do is because I love you, Father God.

I thank you, Jesus, for this house.

I thank you for the leaders, Father God.

I thank you for each and every person that finds themselves in their seat, Father.

Let them be encouraged.

Let them know that this journey was part of their story, God.

Let us all stand up with the knowledge and the affirming, Father God, that you've

done great things, and you continue to great things, and that is everything

that we share in with one another.

In the precious mighty name of Jesus, amen.

Oh, I, Judah, you might need to come up and just finish that little story, mate

So the, the bed scene Okay.

Okay, go.

The, the, the- We need- Yeah, the bed scene … a finish I think

I need a close up A finish Okay.

Okay, I'll try to remember.

No, so the crazy thing was, all right, I had a speaking, like,

that Christian education thing was happening, and The decision was,

is go in a wheelchair or not go.

And I was like, "Well, not going is not really an option," right?

So I spoke to the surgeon.

I said, "Look, I have gotta go speak at this international thing." And he

said, "Well, you, you need to have immediate surgery or everything's gonna

be a problem." And, um, and so I made an arrangement that I would be able to

get on that flight four days later, and he assured me that I would be able to.

Now, I still had to have the, the drainage tubes and everything in the

back, but he said I could get there as long as I had someone that would

take me on the airplane and whatnot, and that I was, you know… Anyways.

So I got the phone call, and then I had to get up and learn to walk again, which,

um, was harder than what was expected.

I mean, really, I thought, "I've got this." And, um, I stood up, and that was

enough, and I sat back down, and that was the end of it for that day, day one.

So, um, it was not that easy to take the first step, but I am

one of those people that kinda just, just push myself past that.

So four days later, I did catch a flight, and I went to

speak at, at this convention.

Funny thing was, is that almost all of the speaking points were up the stairs

on a stage, and I couldn't take stairs.

So I had to always get them to bring me b- down to the floor, where I

prefer anyway, during that time.

But, um, yeah, God just miraculously did His thing, and that is

really my life s- story now.

I mean, if I, I… They, they do call me a cat because a cat has nine

lives, and I am working through them.

But I mean, before I was married, I contracted septicemia, which

is a type of blood poisoning.

40% of my blood was completely gone, total organ failure.

Liver, lung, kidney, heart, everything started to shut down.

Um, miracle.

I basically was, was, was gone.

Um, my, my mum was there, and, um, Kelly, my wife, and they had spent several

days in the hospital, I think, with us and didn't even go home to shower.

And, and, um, I said, "I'm feeling better." And so, um, they were like,

"We'll go home, and we'll shower." And, um, Ray Law, who's, who's our

national director that I work with and a, and a, and a reverend, a

minister, um, "I'll watch over Judah."

And so they went off to shower after three or four days at the hotel, and Ray picks

up the call, and he says, "He's gone.

He, he flat lined.

He's… It's, it's all over." And my mum just, "You… What are you telling me?

He can't…" He said, "He's gone.

They're, they're gonna try to resuscitate him.

They're gonna try to bring him back."

Like, you know, the doctors, it was at a Christian hospital, and they

said, "We've done everything that we can." And so Ray Law asked, "Can

I anoint his head and his feet with oil?" And so he did, and I woke up.

And, um, they wrote on it, "Scientific miracle," with my exit papers on that.

My mom flew home to Australia.

Kelly drove me back, um, home.

I had that, then following that, I ended up with a double pulmonary embolism,

so I had a deep vein thrombosis, threw blood clots into both lungs,

less than a 10% chance of survival.

I didn't actually realize how severe that was until you speak to any

medical person ever, and they're like, "Double pulmonary, we don't…"

When you enter an emergency room with both lungs com- like, almost completely

blocked, they do not ever expect for you to be able to make it back out.

And so that in itself was an incredible miracle.

God saw me through that.

I, I… You have to learn to walk again after a PE.

I don't know if anyone knows that.

After being in intensive care for that long and having no lungs, when you've

only got about a half a lung working, you actually don't know how to walk anymore.

And so I was restored from that, and then I ended up… There was a

fire at the neighboring property.

I kid you not.

These are shipwrecks, right?

And I'm running, I'm running to tell the neighbor that there's a fire in

their field, and I fall over and I hear this snap, and I broke the, my, um,

all the tendons, ligaments in my ankle.

Well, I'm in a field of fire, and so I'm getting up and I'm like,

"Okay, well, I've gotta get to this house." I'm yelling at them.

They come.

The fire engine goes past, and I know the only way they can get to the fire

is if they come into our property.

So I'm waving down the firemen, and they're like, "Just run

and show us where to go."

And so on my broken leg, I'm, like, running.

I showed them where to go.

I get to the house.

I put my leg up.

It is black.

And I'm, like… Just swole and black.

I said, "I think I'm gonna have to go to the doctor's." We went to doctor's.

They were like, "It's not broken." I was like, "How is that possible?"

Um, they're terrible doctors.

They should all lose their licenses.

Two weeks later, still couldn't walk, still swollen, still terrible.

Went back to another hospital where they did scans, and they're like, "It… You've

not just broken it, it is ripped apart. We need to have surgery." So we did.

Weeks later, I just was not recovering.

And all this numbness in my legs and my feet and going up my…

They said, "This is not-" concurrent with, with the, the ankle injury you've got.

We're gonna do a, a full MRI.

And they did the MRI, and I went in to see the doctor afterwards, and,

um, any of you that, that go and see a doctor and they call another doctor

in with a lab coat, you know it's bad.

And I, I sit there and he goes, "We found the tu- we found a tumor."

And, um, it started this whole process of, like, what, what's it gonna look like?

Is it benign?

Is it malignant?

And thank God that it actually is benign, but it's already grown into the spinal

cord, and it's wrapped around, and there's nothing that they can do about it.

It's growing still, so it's eventually gonna sever the cord, and the rest is

history, which is what happened when I woke up one day and lost my legs.

And, um, and so what was an inoperable chance, the doctor that I had

said, "I'll do the surgery. I'll do the open spine surgery," did it.

I survived, and, um, four days later, got up and walked and, and went to

teach at the Christian Education Convention, came back, and then

helped with 10,000 people to go home.

So that's kinda the end of the story.

But it, it's- I mean, it's … I know we clap and applaud, but really, I

mean- And so that, that again resets.

I mean, God, Wally was 66 and, you know, why did he go home and I get to live and

live and live and live and live again?

And there's many people that I know that, that ha- s- smaller

stuff happens and they lose it.

And why am I still here?

And I think for something more.

And so I will of course continue to just live out this life of

just doing whatever it is that he wants me to do, and I say yes.

And it's, it's also why I'm here today.

I mean, I didn't have plans to come to Australia, um, again and,

and, and visit, but Lake Gwelup Church, um, wrote a message one

day and said, "Would you come?"

And my answer is always yes.

So I did, and, and, and, uh, much to my surprise, um, doors open, red doors.

And I find myself, um, here sharing with you today.

I mean, it's an incredible, remarkable life.

But I will tell you this, any time you partner your life with Christ,

your life with God, and you say, "You have control," be ready because

there is going to be miracle after miracle after miracle because all of

it has to point back to his glory.

And he will use anything, Romans 8:28, it's my anthem at the moment, he will use

Romans 8:28

for his glory if you just give it to him.

Every illness, every moment, every shipwreck, everything in your life.

Say, "If you give that to me, if you give this bed-ridden self to me, if you

give this operation to me, if you give this, this ministry of, of going to the

Christian Education Convention, if you give anything that you do, if you give

to me every moment that you live, if you give to me, I will make it for my glory."

And that's why I'm standing here today, that he be glorified

in everything that we do.

Amen.

That's my story.