Real Talk Friday - Dale Trevor

Welcome to Real Talk Friday with your hosts Rohan Das and Gus Urban.

In this groundbreaking podcast segment, we delve deep into the lives of individuals whose

journey has been profoundly transformed by their faith.

From the trial of adversity to the triumph of redemption, we explore real stories, real

people whose encounter with God has reshaped their existence.

Join us as we embark on a candid and enlightening journey where authenticity meets spirituality

every Friday on Real Talk Friday, part of Logan City Christian Church.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Real Talk Friday.

We're glad you joined us and thank you again for your support, for your prayers, for everything

that you do for this ministry.

We are truly, truly blessed.

We have an amazing guest, like always.

Yes.

But this guest is from our church and he has an incredible story.

Isn't that Gus?

He has an incredible story.

No, definitely.

We want to welcome Dale Trevor to our podcast.

As Rohan said, Dale's been in this church for quite a number of years now, has an incredible

story, a man of God, a leader in our church.

He does so many things for the kingdom of God.

But before he started coming to our church, he was actually a lecturer in a Bible college

which my father attended.

And what year was that?

That would have been in the 90s?

Yeah, early 90s.

Early 90s.

My dad was only saved for maybe two, three years.

Went to Bible college down the Gold Coast where you were lecturing at the time.

And so it's just incredible to see how God has brought us, well you and dad together

again, working together for the kingdom and the glory of God.

So it's just amazing how that works.

But Dale, thank you for coming on.

We know that you are a blessing, not just to our church but to the body of Christ because

your influence goes beyond our church.

So thank you for coming on.

It's a pleasure to come and talk to you today.

Yeah, thanks.

Great.

What I would like to do in the first part of our segment of Real Talk Fridays, talk

about global news but mostly in the Christian community.

Because as Gus said multiple times, we get so busy in our life, we just don't know what's

going on.

And sometimes we just got to know what's going on within the Christian community and what's

happening and see the move of God, which is very important.

So I've got a really good, like I wouldn't say this is, it's an incredible story, it's

an incredible news.

Most of the time our news are very sad that we get persecuted, we get condemned Christians.

But this is amazing because we see God moving in this country and it's the country of Pakistan.

So I was just reading on the news and this is just a short snippet from the article.

The article says the government announced decision this week following Interior Minister

Mohsin Naqvi, I believe that's how you pronounce it, on June 5th statement that the ministry

had directed Pakistani diplomatic mission abroad to stop issuing or renewing passport

to citizens who have obtained or are seeking asylum, saying it's in the best interest of

nation.

So unfortunately what this means is a lot of asylum seekers who've been persecuted,

especially Christians in Pakistan, had to flee Pakistan, go to another country and had

to seek asylum because they couldn't practice their faith.

And a decision was made by the Pakistani ministry where they said if these people are leaving

the country seeking asylum abroad, we're going to stop issuing passports to them.

So sometimes some of these people have to leave their family, go abroad, try to get

refugee status for themself and the family and try to get their family from Pakistan

to here.

And they couldn't do that because the government was making it very hard for them.

But a decision was overruled and I believe there's God's hands in that where they couldn't

pass that bill saying that no issuing of passport if someone goes abroad to seek for asylum

or refugee status.

So that was revoked and I feel like that's God's hand there.

What do you have to say about that, Gus?

I feel that in the midst of persecution, we were talking about this two weeks ago with

UNIA about no matter what a government party tries to do or no matter what type of persecution

comes against the church, there always seems to be a time where God intervenes.

And Pakistan as we know is an Islamic country.

So that's a stronghold right there where I can't imagine the life of Christians over

there where you don't know when you could be locked up because you're just a Christian,

because your belief system is different.

In Australia growing up, it's just...

I try and understand that but this bill may not sound like it's very important to us like

in Australia or in America or wherever but when you are living in a country like that

where you could be killed tomorrow for your faith, you don't know when your last day is

just because you're a follower of Christ, this is a huge thing.

So that's sort of my take on it.

Dale, what are your thoughts?

You know, I think we don't realise how good we've got it in a Western country and that

how people over there daily face stuff that we just don't even really think about, we

just take it for granted.

I've got friends in India at the moment having a real tough time because of extremists are

coming in on their church and doing all sorts of things to harm them and people fleeing

all that sort of thing.

It's hard for me to get my mind around that when we live here and I securely and have

our freedoms that we do.

No, it's rightly said, I think sometimes, you know, like when we had Unia two weeks

ago, there were so many things she went through.

She went through, there was a civil unrest in Burundi where she's from, she had to flee

and go to a refugee camp and then somehow found her way into Australia, which was an

amazing story.

And I kept on saying I cannot relate to that, unfortunately.

It's just because, but I do, I can, I feel the pain sometimes.

It's difficult to leave what you're comfortable, like your home.

For example, I see myself leaving maybe Australia where I built a future, I built my house,

I built everything here and just have to give up everything and move.

It's incredibly hard to do that.

But it's amazing, like coming back to this whole issue of Pakistan and them, you know,

overruling that kind of bill.

It's amazing.

You can see that God's actually moving in the midst.

I believe there have been a couple of Christians in Pakistani ministry, I believe.

That's right.

Yeah, where there's a number of people that have been working politically that are Christians,

that are, man, the boldness in them to be able to stand up and this may cost me my life,

but God's called me for such a time as this.

And I sort of really believe that it's these fearless born again believers that are actually

putting themselves out in public and fighting for Christian communities and that are making

the difference in an Islamic country that where it's like, no, I know where they may

understand that the country's base is Sharia law.

And you know, it's just a horrible place for a believer to live.

But yeah, really that the spirit of God upon these people that are working in government

must be just incredible.

So my prayers are with them.

And my prayers are with all the Christians in Pakistan and all over the world.

You know, as Australia as we're so blessed to be in this country, we're given so many

prayers, the least we can do is pray for them.

And for sure, and that's what's required.

You know, we have a certain role that we have to do and part of the role is the minimum

we can do is pray for them.

That's right.

Yeah, that's pretty much it guys for the segment of global news in Christian community.

Now we come to some of your testimony, which is amazing because off camera just before

we were doing the testimony, you were showing us some of the pictures of, you know, you

will be talking about the event soon in the interview, but we were just surprised to see

you the way you are physically.

I am surprised.

And we can just see this is not like this is a miracle.

You being here today, you being looking the way you're looking right now.

It's a miracle.

Yeah.

We'll get into that story in just a bit, but we want to start off by knowing about your

childhood.

We want to know how you grew up, whether it was in a Christian home or you had Christian

values and talk us through your childhood because we love to hear that.

I have a lovely family.

I'm the middle child of five children and mom and dad attended the Methodist church and

we were brought up in a very moral way.

I had a great upbringing in that we, mom and dad didn't have a lot of money early on, but

we had our own veggie gardens and chooks and all that sort of stuff.

I remember, you know, helping dad kill a whole lot of chooks at once and was one of my jobs

to feed them and do all that sort of stuff.

And we went to church on Sunday.

I went to Sunday school and heaps of songs that I still know.

We did all sorts of singing in the choir and even items in church, all of that sort of

thing.

That was before the Methodist church turned into the uniting church.

Wow.

Okay.

So that's very interesting.

So where was this?

Which place was this you grew up in?

I grew up in inaugural, which is a suburb of Brisbane.

Oh, inaugural.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And yeah, I went to school down Newmarket school down the road, which is where my wife

turned up in grade five.

Okay.

Tell us that story actually.

We want to hear that in grade five.

That's a pretty young age.

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, it's this girl from out of town, uh, came to, came to our school.

And uh, I think the big thing happened when she asked me to come along to the Baptist

church, inaugural Baptist churches, vacation Bible school, which was on in the May holidays.

And I went to that and loved it.

Yeah.

Wow.

And I went to that for a couple of hours a morning and you know, all sorts of games

and singing and Bible stories and, and craft and all that sort of stuff.

And uh, I went to that for a number of years and actually started gravitating more to the

Baptist church.

Yeah.

Uh, after the other one went to the uniting church and I was, uh, joined their boys'

brigade there as well.

Yeah.

Oh, amazing.

So you've had like, would you say your childhood was, did you, what's your relationship with

God during your childhood?

I didn't pray a lot.

Um, but I thought a lot about the things of God, loved the stories from the Bible, uh,

loved to ask questions.

And I had a couple of very pivotal Sunday school teachers that had an experience with

God, older guys.

And uh, they, that really sunk into me that these men had had some sort of experience

with God and it had changed them.

Yeah.

Well, uh, I grew up in church as well.

And it's, it's funny because for me as a child growing up in church, I love children's church.

I love the stories as well.

It wasn't something that made me, uh, a spiritual powerhouse by any means, but it's like it

just conditioned my heart to the goodness of God.

Yes.

I guess you could say, would you have a similar, um, experience with all the children's church

and stuff like that?

I would, I would say that I internalize a lot of those stories that really took on a

new dimension when I did come to know God in that I realized that all of these stories

in the Bible were just ordinary people like you and me who had a problem, reached out

to God and God in his many ways, fix those problems to those that look to him.

And uh, there's a lot of people don't really believe even today that are Christians that

God can intervene on their circumstances.

The way that all those people in the Bible called out to God and got an answer.

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

What would be the time in your life where you actually started to have that relationship

with God?

Tell us your story of how you built that relationship with God.

So I kept going to that vacation Bible school every year until I was 16.

And they said to me, no, you can't come anymore, but why don't you come as a teacher to teach

to someone who has a group of kids and does the activities and all that.

And so they asked me to teach the memory verse and the theme for the vacation Bible school

was down by the sea.

So I had to teach this verse four words.

Jesus said, follow me.

So years before I bought this catamaran at a fate at a church at a Methodist church fight.

And I had the 78 cents in my pocket and I hung around this catamaran that wasn't selling

and it had a number of dollars on it.

And it was at this fight.

A real catamaran.

It was about that long.

It was painted white and red and had sales.

And this lady running the store could see that I was hanging around.

And towards the end of the day, it's still not sold.

And she said, how much you got?

And I wasn't going to spend or send on anything.

I was going to give that whole set.

I said, I've only got 78 cents.

And she said, okay, you can have it.

Oh, wow.

The 78 cents.

And it sat up, I sold it and did little things with it as boys do with boats.

But when I was 16, I thought, oh, if I get the sale off that.

So I went down to the shed, got the boat out and I was sewing the words.

Jesus said, follow me.

With mum's sewing machine, mom's singer sewing machine, onto the sale.

And I got halfway through it and the Holy Spirit, I didn't know it was the Holy Spirit

then, but I know now, said, you know, are you going to teach this and not be doing it

yourself in your own life?

Interesting.

So here I am halfway through sewing this sale.

And I had to stop and go into my room and I knew I had enough teaching to know what

to do.

Yeah.

I never wanted to go out in a big crusade or on the emotion of the moment when the music,

I didn't want to be pushed by emotion.

I wanted something that was my decision.

And I'd heard enough of the Word of God to know what to do.

And I went into my bedroom, I was nailed down the foot of my bed and probably pretty in

a pretty religious way, but I did what I needed to do and ask God to come into my life and

to forgive me of my sin and that I could teach this in the proper spirit that was meant to

be taught the next day.

That is incredible.

So here I am at the Baptist Church teaching to a huge bunch of kids, probably 70 or 80

kids, with this sailboat in my hand, Jesus said, follow me.

And those four words would be the sort of a pivotal verse in my life where it's simple.

He's not pushing us.

He's leading us like a shepherd leads sheep.

Yeah.

And you follow.

That's incredible.

Wow.

So my life changed a lot from then and it changed a little bit later on too when I got

involved with a rebel home group at the Baptist Church and got filled with the Holy Ghost

too as well.

Let's go straight into that.

Let's go straight into that.

I'm keen for that.

I'm keen for that.

Well, there's this rebel home group and I love the guy running it and his wife, they

were just, they had an open house, hospitable, and I could just ride around on my bike and

just chat to them.

They were in their 30s.

They had a couple of kids and they'd talk about God like he was real.

You know, and with a greater depth and a greater belief in the power of God.

And I heard that a couple of the kids from the youth group were going to go and get filled

with the Holy Ghost.

We're talking about it.

And I'd heard about this thing.

I didn't even know much about the Holy Spirit.

And then I started reading his verse in Luke that said, how much more will you give the

Holy Spirit to them that ask?

And I thought, I haven't asked for this.

And I'd read through acts, you know, have you seen the, have you received the Holy Spirit

since you believe?

That's right.

I'd studied a lot of those verses.

And so I thought I'm going to beat them to this, you know, young man 16.

I'm going to get in first, you know.

So I went around their house and I said, look, I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And so there was a, there was a guy living with them who is a Bible student and they

said, come on out and there's three of them praying for me sitting on a chair in the lounge

room to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And you know, they started praying and laughing and one of them's almost falling off his

feet and I'm sitting there.

I don't feel anything, you know.

And this went on for about 20 minutes, half an hour.

They didn't rush.

Yeah.

Wow.

And I got up and I walked, I went to go home and I'm at the top of the stairs and it was

a pivotal moment where I could either say, well, I didn't feel anything.

You know, that was a waste of time.

Yeah.

You know, I'll forget about that.

Or I can say, I asked you God, I believe you've done this.

Yeah.

No matter what I feel.

Yeah.

Because that's your word and you're faithful to your word.

Yeah.

And I walked down those steps saying, I know by faith that I have something different in

me.

Yeah.

And the next day, you know, I got up as normal and I'm riding my bicycle and I know exactly

where I was on the road at Gaythorn, not far from an ogre.

Yeah.

I was just outside the army barracks, probably going about 25 kilometres an hour and I just

started speaking in another language.

Wow.

While I'm on my bike.

That's incredible.

And from then on, I thought, wow, something's happening here.

And I'd done some study.

I knew about 1 Corinthians 14 here that speaks in an unknown tongue, Edophiles himself and

that sort of stuff.

And I thought, wow, this is cool.

But along with that came a whole lot of things I had to do.

I just started to know that I had to get baptised.

Yeah.

I had to go to somebody and repent of something.

And there was a series of things I knew I had to do.

And so I went and did them.

It was hard.

Yeah.

Well, but I lined them all up and did those.

And I was obedient to that new voice and the spirit that was leading me.

That's incredible.

You said that because last week we had Dan on and when he got born again, he said it

was like all of his sin laid before him.

Now, he hadn't been to church or anything like that.

And it was just all of a sudden the Holy Spirit revealed all the sin that was in his life.

Now, he didn't believe in sin before that.

And then from then on, he said the exact same thing, that there were things he knew that

he had to deal with.

And so you were 16 years old when you were 16.

That would have been 76.

So in 76, and then we got Dan who's in, he got saved, I believe, 2020, COVID, 2020.

So it's funny how throughout the generations and the years, God is still working the same.

And just calling people to himself.

And yeah, just incredible.

It is incredible.

I think, you know, your story is so good, honestly.

And you know, there's lots of people who think, you know, there has to be some fancy thing

for the Holy Spirit to come to you into your life.

It really is not.

There is no time or there's no place where the Holy Spirit comes.

It will come when it has to come.

And I like your story.

There have been certain journey since then to now that has shaped you to the person you

are.

Let's go into some of that journey.

We want to know that's actually, you know, let's talk about some of the challenging things

you've had in your life, you know, that you questioned your faith.

So one of the things I had to do after I got filled the Holy Ghost was go and see this

girl and repent to her for saying things behind her back.

So 16, at 16 years old, that's not an easy thing to do for young man to do.

And so I said, God, I don't really want to do this.

You know, I don't even like the person.

Sorry, sorry for me.

It's just so true, right?

And so I said, well, and the God said very clearly, you got to love everybody.

And I said, All right, God, you're going to have to give me love for this person.

Yep, I've been there.

So so I said that and here I am Sunday night lined her up in the side of the in the church.

The church is over and she's out in the yard talking to someone and I got the moment God

gave me the moment and I went over and started talking to her and and God did give me love

for that girl because I ended up marrying her.

Okay.

I wasn't expecting that.

I didn't know that at all.

This is not scripted.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's incredible.

So at an early age, she was in that journey as well.

Yeah.

And one night she we went to a Christian meeting, a Baptist Christian meeting and she got really

hungry and really dissatisfied and she she asked me to pray for her to be filled with

the Holy Spirit to and we did that in the middle of city Albert Park and the next and

she started speaking in tongues as well and that was we did that together and from then

on the journey was very much to get the both of us together.

Wow.

So three years later in 1980, we got married.

That's incredible.

And straight away we moved to the Gold Coast because I just started a new job.

It was my I just got out of Teachers College.

Yep.

And God really helped me through Teachers College.

I wasn't a really good student at the end of grade 12 and that's when I received the

Holy Spirit and my marks started up very bad at Teachers College and my grade point average

went up from very low right to very high at the end.

Oh wow.

Oh wow.

And bit by bit the Holy Ghost was showing me and guiding me on how to do this.

And my writing went from being a terrible grammar and terrible spelling to which you

don't need for a primary school teacher you need to really well because I live with the

dictionary.

I live with fixing my English and getting help with it.

Yeah right.

Wow.

That's incredible to just see how not only does the Holy Spirit want to help us with

spiritual things but natural things as well.

He's there for our entire life and every area of our life.

He's just there for everything.

Yeah.

And by the sounds of it this is what you experienced.

And during that time at Teachers College I went to a number of different churches, Pentecostal

Works, you know CLC and COC and some of those big mobs were in full swing in those days

and I went to a lot of those meetings.

I used to go to a tape library and borrow lots of tapes on cassette so that I could

listen to them at home and I'd listen to four or five hours of teaching a week.

Wow.

Yeah wow.

So really being topped up.

Yes.

Yeah.

Really enjoyed it.

Yeah.

So and they were a great time in my life.

And then when we got married my first teaching job was at Coomber Estate School down on the

Gold Coast.

Yep.

So then started my new career and Christine and I, I owned nothing at the beginning of

that.

She owned a caravan and a car and we towed that down to the Gold Coast and lived on the

Broadwater overlooking the water with our little yacht which was a blow up four, four foot

dingy that dad gave me years ago.

Beautiful.

Blow up and we'd go out onto the island and fish you know in the middle of the Broadwater

and do that sort of thing.

And she worked at Woolworths down there and I worked at the school as a primary school

teacher and that's when we did Kenneth Hagans Bible College, Rayner Bible Training Centre

Australia.

Yeah.

Wow.

In the first couple of years together.

Yeah.

Wow.

Wow.

So it was quite a journey for both of you guys like newly married and living off a caravan

and fishing.

Hopefully you cook the fish to eat.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I remember that my grandmother gave me some money at the, when we got married and

we bought a freezer of that and we bought a boat not long after that.

16 foot tinny with a 50 horsepower Suzuki and one of the guys in Bible College took

me out deep sea fishing, Chinese guy and we liked it that much we went and bought our

own boat and went out deep sea fishing across the South Port Bar on a regular basis.

Wow.

And then on a Friday afternoon if the weather was good we'd be out there Saturday and then

on Sunday we'd be at church teaching children's church.

Wow.

Wow.

How long did that go on for?

Well we had the boat for a number of years and we ended up buying a house out at Hellenswil

and having our first children there.

Oh wow.

And we visited a couple of different churches in that time.

Yeah.

So that's an incredible story that shows how you came to, how they really started having

relationship with God and things change over time.

It wasn't an instant thing.

It took some time but things change.

But what would you say was one of the hardest and difficult situation that you were put

in as a Christian, as someone who served the Lord and in your mind you were like, do I

really need this because I serve you?

What was that, do you have that situation where you were put in that you did not like

as much?

It was difficult at school.

You're always towing a line between what was allowable and not allowable.

And so in those days when we had reading books that had Christian stories in them I was really

able to go to town and we were able to have a certain amount of the day with Bible reading

then and I used that wherever I could.

And I found a lot of the kids in the 80s had no idea who Noah was or who King David was,

never heard the story of David and Goliath.

So I'd take a little bit of licence and teach those stories.

Yeah, cool.

I only had grade five students, they're 10 year olds and some of them had never heard

them but it was always a line of I couldn't be fully open to what I'd like to do with

those kids and also the pressures, the secular pressures that were increasing around what

you could teach and not teach.

Yeah, okay.

And this would have been in the 80s still?

Yeah, that was in the 80s.

And it got worse as time went on.

And to the stage where when I had my own children, I made a decision to leave teaching and teach

my own kids at home for a little while.

Oh wow, like a home school.

Yeah, I felt I was throwing them to the lines and I saw what some of my young girl was being

taught and I thought, you know, God, why have I got to throw my kids to the lines like this?

And he said, well, I'm not throwing them to the lines you are.

And so I thought, all right, all right, I need to do something about this.

And that's when I faded out my career in primary school teaching after about 17 years and,

and taught them at home for a little while.

And then we made the change.

There was quite, I could see that kids growing up on the Gold Coast were growing up in a

party atmosphere.

Some of the even the Christian schools down there were getting full of drugs and stuff.

And I thought, you know, I'd like to make a move away from this.

And then a situation arose where we decided to move back to Brisbane.

Yeah.

Okay.

When, when was it that you started actually where you felt the call of God into ministry?

And how did that come about?

Oh, look, right, right when I moved to Gold Coast, I thought I'd only be a teacher five

years and that I'd be in full time ministry.

Okay.

And the more I saw about church and the religious things in church, the less I really went along

with many of the things that were happening in churches.

Yeah, okay.

There were good things, lots of good things, but there are other things there that I had

questions about.

Yep.

So that didn't eventuate because I wasn't in that I wasn't, you know, really a pastor.

I was more of a teacher.

Yeah.

And a lot of people in Australia that are part of the so-called fivefold ministry, you

either become a pastor or you sit in the congregation.

Yeah.

And so you end up with people that are, you know, evangelists or prophetic running a church

as a pastor when maybe they're not called to that.

Yeah, true.

And so I saw all that tension.

And that's when I ended up, I love preaching and I learned to preach in children's church,

you know, with 30 or 40 kids and some of the best fruit I have today comes from those days

teaching children's church.

That's cool.

And the kids that got saved and filled the Holy Spirit there.

Wow, that's cool.

And I've had some of them come back and thank me later on in life for the foundation they

got at that.

So I was at a big church that started up at Carrara and they asked me to do the kids work

there and then from that they had a little teaching competition one night where you taught

for 15 minutes, they were picking Bible college lecturers.

And so I put my hand up and had a go and they said, we're going to give you the job of being

the Bible college.

Ah, so that's how it started.

That's how I got the job.

Ah, yeah.

One night and but I was a bit of a plant in the Bible college because I didn't totally

agree with everything that was in the course.

Yeah.

And they didn't have enough repentance and prayer in there.

Okay.

And there were a few students that were sort of on the edge of being worldly.

So I was always injecting my stuff into it.

Okay.

In terms of repentance and praying and having a personal life with God.

Yeah, yeah.

And a lot of them were still living on the edge of the world then.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Very, very good.

Well, when I started this segment, I said, we're so happy to see you here in physical

form.

Perfect.

But that wasn't the case a few years back.

There was a major incident that happened in your life and it's a testament that you're

here with us now and we want you to share that testimony with us.

Of course, if you're comfortable, whatever you want to share about that.

And you've sent us some pictures which will tell, we'll definitely show our viewers as

you speak.

And just as a disclaimer, these images are very sensitive and not every one of you will

be able to see it.

But that's the reality of what happened to you.

And we'll be flashing this picture on the screen and our YouTube video, which will be

available later on.

If you're listening to a Spotify podcast, usually our YouTube videos go live in the

evening.

So if you keep on watching our YouTube videos, you'll see these pictures popping up.

But please tell us about that testimony of yours.

Everybody goes through some dips as you're talking about before.

And a bit like the dark night of the soul sort of stuff.

And I became quite critical of church.

Some of the churches, particularly one church I was in, and we'd been there a number of

years and I was very dissatisfied.

And because of some things that happened, I just slowly withdrew and stopped going to

church.

I still believed, but when you slip like that, your life gets in, not into really bad things,

but you slip lower than where you were.

And I had some struggles with my faith.

I had some struggles with some things I'd been through, particularly in churches and

in association with other people.

And some things in my life that could have been straighter than they were.

And so I wasn't real happy about where I was with God.

And all I was going to was a men's group and some things that happened with that that were

good and bad.

I was struggling with that too.

And one day I prayed some things that wasn't quite full of faith.

This was just before the accident.

And I thought that as a Christian, I should have progressed a lot further than where I

was with God.

And so I prayed some things that was really unwise.

And by doing that, I'd left the door open.

I thought I was getting beyond the grace of God and I left the door open for the devil

to try and wipe me out.

And he'll use any opportunities prowling around like a roaring lion.

So I went off to this men's fellowship meeting and I'd only just walked in the door and I

walked straight through to this fire where they're going to cook dinner on.

And a guy had a bottle of accelerant there, a fire starting gel.

And I thought he was going to put on a log, but he didn't.

He thought he was going to put it on the wood and then pass the flame over.

But the next thing I knew, there's this big blue ball of flame coming towards my head.

And I got up and turned at the same time and it hit my shoulder, went up over my face,

down over my body.

I was wearing shorts and a shirt.

The shirt was flammable and it went up.

And I started rolling on the ground because I taught fire safety to the refugees that

I was working with at the time.

And I rolled on the ground that didn't get it out.

I rubbed myself in it more.

And I was like one of those flaming guys on the movies for about 21 seconds, something

like that.

Oh, wow.

And but God had people there right from the word go to get me out of this.

And one of them was a guy who was a cleaner at that house.

And he knew exactly when he came out and saw me a lot, he ran for the bucket and the laundry

and was filling up a bucket of water watching me burn.

Not knowing when to turn off.

Will I have enough water in the bucket?

And he raced over and threw that bucket of water over me, which saved my life.

And I'm very grateful for that.

And I got up off the ground.

And I knew that I wasn't in a bad way because I'm lying, I'm sitting on the ground while

I'm burning and I'm going, this goes on for too much longer, I'm going to die.

And very, very matter of fact, I wasn't panicking.

I had my hands around my face protecting my face at the time, but I still got very badly

burned on my face.

But that's why my hands got very burnt.

And I got up after the water's drawn on me and I said, shower, got to go to the shower.

I'd just been to a first aid course where they talked about burns.

And strangely enough, which is a strange part of my burn story, my niece had got burnt seven

or eight weeks before that.

And I'd been in a burns ward for the first time in my life only a few weeks before I

got burnt.

No way.

And I didn't handle it very well.

And then I found myself in one.

Lo and behold, you're in one.

So I was in the shower for about 25 minutes and I'm going, what's this?

It's like spider web.

And I'm in the shower and I realised it was my own skin coming off in my own hands.

And so I stayed in there while the ambulance came, I was in the shower.

I think they gave me a painkiller in the neck.

They were worried that I was swelling up.

And so they called in someone to intubate me, put a tube in so I didn't have to do a

tracheotomy because my, you know, and breathe through the neck.

So they brought in someone to put a tube in.

So after about 25, 30 minutes in the shower, they wrapped me up in glad wrap and I walked

down to the ambulance.

Didn't have much on and that by then, we just thought, well, a whole lot of this glad wrap

and a pair of undies and...

Good thing it was a men's breakfast.

So I got down to the ambulance and this guy who happened to be in the area because he'd

happened to be there right on the spot because there was an accident.

He was called in but wasn't needed.

And he was a special ambo that could do this intubation.

And he said, I'm going to knock you out with some ketamine.

And he said, you're going to have some strange dreams.

And man, he was right with that.

And he said, who knows when you're going to wake up because you could be under for quite

a while.

And so the next thing and I have recollection is halfway through ICU, then waking me up

to suck the fluid out of my lungs and come out of the horrible demonic dreams I was in

while I was in ICU.

Wow.

What kind of dreams did you have?

You don't mind me asking.

Yeah, it was a hallucinogenic, but these drugs, they play on you on what's happening in your

mind.

And it's really interesting because even though I've been quite well off financially, I'm

pretty tight with money.

And I thought I knew I was in hospital subconsciously, I knew I was in hospital, but I thought it

was costing a lot of money, even though in real life, I know that Medicare is free.

And I thought we were losing money because I was in hospital and we'd run out of money

and the house had been sold.

And that I was in a boat first at New Zealand because I'd been to New Zealand only recently.

And that they were offering up my body parts, but I don't think New Zealand wanted me so

they sent me to the Philippines.

And I'm in this boat at Christmas time and I'm listening to a radio in this boat that's

tossing up, should we let this guy live or should we let this other person that's had

a really bad life in the Philippines live?

And it was a bit like Jesus and Barabbas.

And I'm thinking, well, I'm not doing really well here, what's going to happen to me?

And I had other weird dreams, like there was this chemical internet and it was to do with

I had tubes in me everywhere.

And I was part of this chemical internet of tubes and bodily fluids were going out of

me into these worm monsters and they were enjoying living on my bodily fluids.

My goodness.

So I won't go any deeper into those sort of stories.

But that's what happens when you're in delirium through trauma and with a big cocktail of stuff

to keep you in an induced coma.

Yeah, that's right.

Going on from there, how long were you in intensive care for and how long was the recovery

period?

I was in intensive care for 10 days.

It finished on Christmas Eve in 2016.

During that time, I had two de-briding operations where they if you don't have a de-briding

operation of scraping all the dead skin and everything off, that goes those chemicals

and toxins go into your system and kill off your kidneys and liver and you die.

So we're very good at that in Australia.

Our burns technology is second to none.

The survival rate of our hospitals for burns survivors, burns, people that have burned

is very good.

And I had two of those operations while I was in there.

And whole time from hospital or from the incident happened to being home would have been how

long roughly?

35 days.

So I had another 25 days of they I was I was doing so well.

So the day that they the day that I came at ICU, they will be out in the sunshine.

And I thought I'm going to live.

Wow.

I'm out of this hole.

Yeah.

And they took me into this bright sunny room.

And there was all these pictures of my family on the window.

Oh, wow.

There's there's my son there with his fish and there's there's other other pictures of

family.

And I thought, oh, I'm going to get back to real living again.

Yeah.

And it was part of what they do to help you come out of delirium, because they knew I

was struggling.

And I'd already swung at a nurse when I woke up wanting to hit it because I told Christine

to go home because these people are trying to kill you.

Yeah.

So that's how threatened I felt while I was in that state of all those dreams.

So I was getting better at a fast rate.

So they didn't graph me till or day 21.

Okay.

And that's when they did nine skin graft took me in a big operation.

Nine skin grafts.

Wow.

So they took skin from this leg here and put it all over my different parts of my body,

my torso, this arm and a little one here as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what were your thought process in terms of, you know, you in terms of what were your

thought process in terms of like, spiritually?

Well God spoke to me when I came into that room.

And he said, I'm giving you a new start, a new life.

And I think, thanks very much.

I'll hold on to that.

And I gripped on to it.

There was nothing I could do.

I was, you couldn't move.

Yeah.

You were just lying there at the mercy of everyone else.

Yeah.

But I lied.

I was lying there in the hands of God and I started singing.

Oh, well.

Because I was out of this dark world and I'd sing all sorts of songs.

And the nurse had come in the morning.

She said, do you know you sang Advance Australia Fair at one o'clock in the morning last night?

And I said, no.

So I was still under a lot of sedation, you know.

But you know, I knew the verse, sing O barren woman.

And if you acknowledge God in the midst of your trouble and just hold on to him by faith.

And I knew people were praying for my healing.

But I think the most important thing was I knew that God is living in me.

And I had doubted that.

But from then on, I knew that God had never left me nor forsaken me.

Yeah.

I'd left and forsaken him.

But he hadn't.

And the big revelation that God gave me later on as I came out of hospital was that Christ

in us is the big thing here, that we are one with him, that what Jesus prayed for it, John

17, is an actual reality.

So while lying there in hospital, I decided I was going to do everything to have a great

recovery.

And the first part of that was acknowledge God, stay with God in faith every day, strive

to enter the rest of faith that Christ the healer lives in me.

And while I didn't get a miracle healing where I just walked out of the hospital and I had

brand new skin, I didn't get that.

I did.

And people need to understand there's a difference between healing and miracles.

Yeah.

They're two different gifts in 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

That's right.

And people often want a miracle.

They're demanding a micro-oil miracle when God is offering them healing through the Atonement.

And whether it's, you know, whether you make wine the slow way or you turn water into wine,

it's both a miracle.

Yeah, true.

And so whether you get a slow healing and mine was two years, or whether you get an

instant one, what matters is how it ends up.

All's well that ends well.

Absolutely.

And so I held on to God, you know, right through all of that.

I had every graft take.

I had no infections.

I had an extremely experience speedy recovery.

The surgeons to this day tell me, Dale, your results are outstanding.

Yeah.

And I've got a video of me and my surgeon that we've used to help promote the Hospital Foundation,

where he says it's often up to the survivor to really push in with all the aspects of

the health, the exercises, the right diet.

Yeah.

And I did everything right in those areas.

And also wearing compression garments for two and a half years.

And then I ended up making research videos on how to keep compression garments on for

23 and a half hours a day.

Yeah, wow.

And we'd developed some things, Christine and I on how to do that well.

How to design the garment to help help a occupational therapist design the garment and put it together

and keep it on.

That's incredible.

And, you know, stay hydrated in your skin because you've got to put on, you know, lots

of lotions.

Yeah, yeah.

A couple of times a day during that first couple of years.

So in the first year, I got hooked on painkillers, Panadol and Lyrica.

And it took till about the 11th month, Mark, that I had to go cold turkey and get off them

and God helped me with that as well.

So I'm assuming there was lots of nerve pain.

Yeah, lots of strange nerve pain.

And I was glad to get off those and I haven't been on anything since.

So but when you come off them, your brain clarity, say to those people out there that

are stuck on some sort of pharmaceutical drug, it's great.

They do their job for the right time.

But there comes a time when you got to get off those.

Exactly.

Otherwise, they're going to bring your life down.

Who knows what they're doing in the long term.

In terms of your gut biome and everything else.

If you stay on those.

So I got off those, my mind came a lot clearer.

It wasn't long after I got off the Panadol and Urofen as well.

And then my mind really came back and my life really shot off with the Lord because he kept

giving me revelation on revelation.

That the answer to the Christian walk is to walk in Him.

We don't do things for Him.

We do things in Him.

Yeah, there we go.

That's totally different concept, isn't it?

It is.

I was doing a lot of stuff for God.

And it was wood, hay and stubble.

But now when I'm doing it in God, it's gold, silver and precious stones.

Exactly.

And that's why when we get to heaven, we won't have anything to boast in of ourselves because

He was doing it through us.

Exactly.

Amen.

Exactly.

So let's come to what you're doing now for Christ because that's an incredible story

you have.

And I think that has really helped you come to the place you are right now.

So just wanted to know, yeah, talk about more of what you're doing now.

I have what I'd call a threefold thrust in my life at the moment.

So what happened because of this revelation of Christ in me, I did a lot more Bible study

and read the New Testament in a new light.

And I told God when I woke up out of ICU that if I get my voice back, we weren't sure whether

I'd breathe in fire and wreck my voice box.

Oh, wow.

I said, well, if I can speak well and praise God, I'm going to praise you and worship at

the top of my voice.

So when I came out, I started looking for a church to go to where I could yell my head

off and thank God for this new life.

And I ended up coming here on Sunday nights.

Yeah, I remember that.

And really going to town.

And I'm known as someone who sings pretty loudly, but I do it anyway.

And so I got involved here and then started teaching Bible college.

So teaching people, I have a passion.

I believe there's a great move coming of God on the earth.

And I want to train up thousands of people, if I can, that are ready to disciple these

new believers.

Exactly.

And I want them to disciple them on the message of that through His Spirit in the inner man,

Christ will dwell in your heart by faith.

And that everything we have, what we need is in Christ, the armor of God, the healing

power of God, deliverance.

Everything else happens through one thing, that we're blessed in all spiritual blessings

in heavenly places sitting with Him because He's living in us.

Exactly right.

Exactly right.

So that was the one, that's the one big thrust in that area.

I have another thrust where I'm reaching out to shine to people.

And that's that Chris, I'm the president and Christine's the secretary of your motorhome

group.

Yep.

And we just love to go away with people who are older than ourselves that are in the latter

part of their life and we do meals and barbecues and games and board games.

And we just go there and have good fun and shine with a whole lot of people.

Yeah, cool.

We do that 12 times a year on the first weekend every month.

And we just, we love them and we love doing that.

And we, the third thing I've gotten into, strangely enough, after that research project,

I got asked to join some boards in the hospital as a consumer.

And I ended up joining standard two, which is to do with consumers, standard four, which

is to do with pharmacy medicines.

And that was very interesting going into COVID.

And I'm also in standard five, which is comprehensive care.

And from then I joined, I'm also on the end of life committee at the Royal.

I'm also on a lot of research to do with nutrition, to do with ICU, to do with burns, to do with

aging frailty, all those sorts of things.

And I just love doing that.

And you know, God's healing happens instantly.

It happens as we're in faith, but it also God uses what's in our bodies and medicine

to fix things up as well.

And we're very good at doing things like I've been through trauma, road accident trauma

and fixing those people.

And not as good with chronic disease, but we're working on it.

Yeah.

Well, the funny thing is you've been on that board.

I know on a Sunday morning when my wife's here, as soon as you, cause she works for

Queensland health, as you know, as soon as you guys get talking, I'm like, well, here

goes another hour.

King sharp.

Yeah.

But it's just so interesting to hear what goes on and the meetings and all that.

And yeah, no, it's really, really good.

And I love the fact that there is a born again believer that knows he has Christ in him that

is going to give him all sorts of wisdom and knowledge that's on a board of Queensland

hospitals.

And I feel like that's a blessing.

Something we don't even think about our hospitals are under siege in a way.

You know, the justice system, the schools and the hospital, I think, you know, are a

bit of a battleground.

And our population isn't getting any well in terms of what we eat in our lifestyle.

And that's, that's producing a, you know, a bit of an exponential curve of co-morbidities

in people's lives.

And so we've got a lot of work to do there.

And our hospitals since COVID have been strained budgetary in a financial sense, but they're

also strained with they're overloaded.

And we've all seen them, the ramping and that's, and we're doing their wonderful workers there

that work hard every day.

Some of them are at the edge, you know, particularly in emergency departments and other stressful

ICU, other stressful areas.

They are working very hard and under a lot of strain.

And so that's why we're looking for solutions and godly solutions and wise solutions that

are going to help patients and clinicians.

So instead of working harder, we work smarter and more innovatively.

And that's why I love Alloyed Health because they're working on the natural side of things

with nutrition and movement, occupational therapy and speech therapy, all that sort

of stuff is working on that natural side.

And I love to see that progress as well.

Yeah.

Well, I guess, sorry for jumping in Rohan, but he's one of the guys that we're talking

about.

He works at the Royal, Dr. Rohan.

Yeah, like he's told me, he says, if I wanted to, I could work 12 hours every single day.

Yes.

He's like, there is that.

The work's there.

The work's there.

And yeah, so yeah, they do work hard.

So yeah, I'm just very blessed to see we've got Christian doctors that are out there,

Christian men that are on the board and women.

And yeah, so I feel like that's a blessing.

Yeah, we should be salt and light wherever we are.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And you know, sometimes I don't have the answers and you know, I'm not a clinician, but I ask

God to help me.

And we look for innovation, ways that we can connect better with patients and get them

on a speedier road out of hospital so that because the longer you stay in hospital, you

know, you get hospital acquired stuff and you know, infections and other things.

So we want to get them in, get them fixed.

And that helps flows, you know, as well from the other end where emergency departments

are banking up waiting for a bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you Dale for such an amazing interview.

We really liked it.

And it's a bit of a different interview because we can see how God's placed you in a place

where you know, in such a professional environment where your faith can be looked down upon.

But at the same time, as you said, we are meant to be that, you know, pillar of light

on the top of a hill, shining on the city.

And that's what we are called to do.

And I think you're doing a great job for that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, unfortunately, we don't have much time, but we need to wrap it up.

And do you have anything that you'd like to say to our viewers?

That's in your heart.

There's a lot happening in the world at the moment and things appear to be getting darker

and they are in some respects, but this is a time not to sit on the fence.

God's shaking the world and it's time for you to go deep in the things of the spirit.

We've got to put off the old man, get past the things of the world that might be dragging

you back, get off the fence, get firmly on God's side.

You need oil in your lamp.

The five virgins tell us that we should have the Holy Spirit.

We should do that through singing, through being in the Word of God, flying with God,

learning to listen to His voice and following Him each day.

It's not a time for being complacent.

It's a time to dive in deeper and to be ready to go and ready to shine wherever you plan

it and to do what you're called to do.

Amen to that.

On that note, would you like to pray for us and we can end the show?

Sure.

Father, we thank you for this session today.

We ask that these viewers will hear these words, that they will fall on good ground

and that they will hunger after you, that they will be wanting to be filled with the

Spirit and led by the Spirit, that they'll want revelation as they read the Word of God,

that the Spirit of God will open their eyes, that they will know the hope of their calling,

the richness of His inheritance in the saints and the greatness of the power toward us who

believe through Christ in us, the hope of glory.

We pray for these things that people would rise up in the Spirit, not in the natural,

but in the Spirit and do what they're called to do.

And we thank you Lord that we'll come into even into the unity of the faith to a full

and accurate knowledge of the Son of God.

Father, we thank you for this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you for joining us again on this amazing segment of Real Talk Friday.

I know you were truly blessed by the show and again, thank you again for your support

and we'll be back next Friday with another great interview lined up for you.

See you then.

As we conclude our episode of Real Talk Friday, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to all our

listeners for joining us on this enlightening journey.

But our journey doesn't end here.

Join us every Friday as we continue to uncover the real stories of real people where authenticity

intersects with spirituality in profound ways.

Together we'll navigate the complexities of life, finding inspiration and hope in the

remarkable narratives shared within the walls of Logan City Christian Church.

Thank you for tuning in and until next time, may your faith journey be filled with grace,

understanding and the unwavering presence of God.

Stay tuned for more Real Talk every Friday on Real Talk Friday.