Local//Global
Shifting tides Expect the unexpected Engaging in our present time Caught between two worlds God’s power through grief
Thanks to all who contributed to the making of this magazine. Primary sources of news and information: our own correspondents.
Editors: Kaitlyn Gaudion, Craig Schneider Get in touch at comms@interserve.org.au
Design: Les Colston
Go Magazine is published twice a year by Interserve Australia Limited. It contains content of Interserve Australia Limited, its subsidiary Interserve Development Limited (collectively “Interserve”), and from friends in the Interserve International fellowship.
Material of Interserve may be freely reproduced with permission from Interserve Australia Limited. Permission for use of other text and images should be obtained from the original source.
Photos: Stock images or supplied by Interserve personnel, except where indicated – thanks to all. Photos do not necessarily relate to articles for sensitivity reasons. Cover photo by M.T ElGassier at unsplash.com.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Bible quotes in this magazine are taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION Copyright 2011 by the New York International Bible Society, used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
Interserve Australia Limited is not responsible for the content of external websites.
Interserve Australia Limited and Interserve Development Limited are ACNC Registered Charities. Interserve Australia Limited is a member of Australia’s Missions Interlink and the international Micah Network.
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ISSN 0256-4726.
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Local and global mission
Local and global mission has always been the call of God’s people. In Acts 1:8 Jesus tells the disciples they will be his witnesses from their home city Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. With our world’s changing dynamics, never has the call to work both locally and globally been more compelling.
The truth is that local mission is global mission. The rapidly increasing cultural diversity of our cities means that to engage in mission in our local neighbourhoods means encountering people from around the globe.
These are the people who will revitalise our churches. The latest National Church Life Survey indicated that more than a quarter of Australian churchgoers were born in a non-English speaking country, and almost half had at least one parent born overseas. Whereas the western church is in decline, multiethnic churches continue to grow.
Migrants will also be a global mission force of the future: without language learning or needing a visa, they can go and share their new faith in Christ with their families and communities in their home countries.
We hope Go Magazine inspires your heart and enlarges your vision for God’s kingdom work. Let’s see how we can take up the call to make disciples of all nations, whether in Australia or overseas, so that together we may reflect his glory in the world.
Lisa Bateup Community & Partnerships Director
The tide is shifting. For some time now, it has been coming in and we have been challenged in how to adapt. The church has traditionally thought of missions as going out overseas, but now the nations have come all around us—at least into Australian society, but into our churches, not so much. So what are we to do?
Jesus calls us as his people to “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). When we think about it, this call to disciple others in following Jesus is applicable to us whether we’re going about our work in our local neighbourhoods, or whether we’re going out to the furthest reaches of the world. The emphasis is on making disciples.
The call to discipleship was not intended to be monocultural, but to be conveyed across cultures. God's heart is ultimately for the nations to glorify him together in vibrant worship. And that's the picture we see of our future in the new heaven and earth:
“Behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, were standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands” (Revelation 7:9).
The multiethnic church is our witness to the world of the reality of God’s Kingdom from all nations. And yet seeing the multiethnic environments in which we live, work and study, it does not make sense that the latest National Church Life Survey shows approximately three quarters of churches in Australia are monocultural. Why is this? And what should we do about it?
Community and Partnerships Director, Lisa Bateup, reflects on how Interserve can use its skills and knowledge to support the work God’s people are called to do.
“Making disciples of all nations is the calling of the church,” she said.
“Yet intercultural ministry requires a great deal of intentionality to produce lasting change. It will not happen without the active involvement of church leadership. So we’re seeking to partner long term with the church in their ministry goals, to better reflect the local community and grow their engagement in discipleship and outreach activities.”
But still we may wonder, how is this locally based mission connected with global mission? How does it benefit the global work we’re called to?
“Local mission is global mission,” Lisa responds. “The nations of the world are here in our cities. The fastest growing churches in Australia today are multiethnic churches. And migrants will be a mission force for the future as they take the Gospel to family and communities in their home countries.
“As we see God at work transforming their lives and communities, our heart to see the nations worshipping Jesus as Lord will also grow, and our desire to become more engaged in global mission will flow from that.”
As we speak, Interserve’s church engagement initiative is building a team to work closely with a small number of churches around the country in 2023. The team needs church leaders to advise where they would value support in local and global missions engagement.
“God is the one bringing the nations to Australia and working out his purposes,” Lisa said. “We have the privilege and responsibility of joining in the work he is already doing. Reaching our multicultural neighbourhoods will both revitalise our churches and raise up workers for the harvest field around the world.”
So as the tides continue to come in and many peoples cross the oceans to live amongst us, the question is raised for each of us and our churches: as we go, how can we join in God’s work of making disciples of all nations?
Ask Lisa how your church can be involved: partnerships@interserve.org.au
In April 2020, like many other people, our lives began to look very different from how we had ever imagined them looking. We had left our country of service two months earlier on emergency compassionate leave to be with my husband’s father, who was gravely ill. In God’s kindness, we were able to spend precious time with him in his last weeks. But then the unexpected crossed our path. Not only were our flights back to our country of service cancelled, but visas weren’t being issued to go back. The visa office was closed indefinitely. It felt like suddenly our world had been turned upside down and we weren’t sure how long we would be hanging on the ceiling!
It wasn’t just us; life had changed for everyone. Before long we were hearing on social media and in the world press that things were changing in our host country too. We feared for our friends as we heard of food shortages and lockdown. How would those who lived hand-tomouth survive?
During lockdown, while we were getting to know neighbours in our home country better, we groaned with our friends far away too. Month after month, we heard from them on WhatsApp that their schools were still closed and their young kids struggled with online learning. One friend was upset about her children fighting, as they tried to juggle their four kids learning on two phones.
They were going through so much. We were all going through so much. It felt like God was shaking us out of our normal routines and ways of thinking. The week my husband’s dad died, we received more than thirty condolence messages from our host country, and we felt blessed by our new friends reaching out to us across the miles.
The most intense experience we had was from our host neighbourhood, where most people belong to the majority religion. One day our friend Mama Ira’s husband contacted us to let us know that she was very sick with a fever. The next day we found out she had been
delirious for three days and that they were afraid she had a spirit.
I explained to her husband that Jesus is able to cast out evil spirits. Would the family let one of our friends come and pray for Mama in his name? The husband agreed. We asked Artha, an elder from a local church, whether he could visit and pray for her. We were so grateful when he could.
The next morning, we heard from Mama Ira’s husband and daughter that she had come out of her delirium in response to prayer and she was able to eat again. We rejoiced with them in God’s goodness and power! And Artha returned several more times to help the family access nursing and hospital care.
Sadly though, Mama Ira passed away soon afterwards. We felt immensely sad. Her friendliness had been a huge part of helping us settle into our host country, and we never expected to have to say goodbye to her so soon.
When we were finally able to return six months later, our neighbours wanted to talk to us about Mama Ira. Over and over again, people stopped us in the street to talk over her last days and how we were involved in caring for her from a far.
We never would have expected to grow closer to the whole neighbourhood after what turned out to be two years away—but that’s what had happened. And we have many warm friendships that only began at that time. Only God can do that! So we thank him for his answers to prayer, however unexpected they may be.
Natalie and Shaun are team members in South East Asia
We sat near a window, looking out on a bustling East Asian street. Cars honked outside. A wok sizzled in the kitchen of the breakfast place in which we met, the fragrance of cooked garlic permeating the air. I was with a leader of the indigenous missions movement (IMM) in the country where I lived at the time. I had a burning question.
“Is there still a role for people like me in this country?” I asked.
God had put a particular ethnic group on my heart, but it was hard for me to actually live where they lived. My visa was tied to my job, and as an English teacher, my job was usually in big cities where higher education was provided.
What’s more, we ‘outsiders’ are ‘high maintenance’, while insiders seem to just throw a few necessities into a small bag, hop on a bus, then set up life in a new area with a minimum of fuss. The church in that country was thriving and the missions movement growing. There are still very few if any Christians amongst certain ethnic minorities there—but why send outsiders from afar when there is a local church nearby?
The IMM leader leant forward and slapped his hand on the table, causing our drinks to slop. “Yes!” he said energetically. “There is plenty you can do. But your role will be different to those of the past. If you get a job in a regional centre, I will connect you with Asian intercultural workers to mentor. Your people have a long heritage of missions, while we are just finding our way.”
A few months after that meeting, I returned to Australia. I had intended to come and go as a regular visitor, and did so for a few years.
I wanted to pursue more education. Health issues demanded my attention. And teaching positions for foreigners which provide a visa—let alone in the isolated areas of the people group on my heart—were few and far between. Then of course, the pandemic struck. And borders to that country remain closed to all but residents still.
Nevertheless, God has granted me rich involvement with people from that part of the world, even though I remain based in Australia. In our interconnected world, terms such as ‘here’ and ‘there’, ‘us’ and ‘them’, are less and less useful. I am free to pour most of my time and energy into God’s kingdom work, thanks to the support of his people here.
Oh yes, I would have been glad were God to have opened the door to a teaching position in a mountain town over there. But it was not to be.
Yet he has opened the door to many other ways in which I may serve him here: supporting an Asian sister through a simple English Bible study; learning one of the ethnic group’s significant languages as a way of meeting people both in Australia and online in Asia; receiving more education in the religion of that area; training others, plenty of networking and more. It’s not what I had in mind when I first embarked on my cross-cultural career years back, but it is good.
Now I sit in a cafe in Australia. An aroma of coffee fills the air. Mothers chat and children play. I look out onto an expanse of green lawn, trees and open sky.
In front of me is an article written by the same IMM leader I shared breakfast with eight years ago. He calls for the church in his country to “expand its global partnerships” and for organisations with a long history of missions to support the indigenous missions movement there through our “missions experience, mobilisation strategies, anthropological knowledge and training resources.”
Yes, there is still a role for people like me to play in God’s work among people from that nation. The role isn’t like those of decades past, but it is appropriate to our present time. What a privilege we have to participate in what God is doing through his people there and beyond.
Gemma is a long-term worker serving in Asia and Australia.
Nothing had gone to plan. Nothing of our plans, anyway.
It was in late 2021 when it became clear we couldn’t go back to live in South East Asia. The past two years of waiting had been tedious and turbulent, characterised by a recurring cycle of roadblocks barring our return. Finally, a lack of suitable schooling options for our two growing children necessitated that we remain in Australia.
We were confused and disappointed. How could we serve God in South East Asia if we couldn’t live there?
Yet, at the same time as we were riding the pandemic rollercoaster, God had been slowly revealing to us a new way of doing ministry in collaboration with the local church—one that we could not have imagined pre-Covid.
In 2020, when many expats returned to their home countries, the local church remained. Video calls allowed us to communicate from afar, but it was the local church who distributed food parcels, showing love beyond their own ethnic and religious borders.
Through this period, God continued working through the local church. And as we heard of what was happening from afar, we were challenged in how we could better partner with them.
Over the past few years, we had become interested in recording and sharing people’s faith stories in their own languages and contexts. Being in Australia gave us the opportunity to produce a video of a friend’s testimony.
Setia, like us, was unable to return to South East Asia. But for him, it was the only home he’d known. Raised as a Hindu, Setia had come to faith in Jesus a few years before, and he wanted his family, village community and others to hear about Jesus, too.
As we worked with Setia to record his testimony in his heart language, our eyes opened to the possibility of this becoming our main focus,
producing faith stories that could be shared near and far to bear witness to God’s transformative power.
Now we are based in Australia, where our kids have the stability and education opportunities they need at this time. Every few months, we travel to South East Asia to record people’s stories and share them with others.
Stories like that of the rapidly multiplying women’s discipleship groups in one region. Or of a family in another city, ministering to marginalised communities and mentoring future leaders. It is exciting to hear from those who have engaged with these videos and become inspired to think about their own faith journeys or to pray for the regions where these stories originate.
Each project impacts us, too, as we closely follow someone’s life to authentically document their story. Like that of our Iranian friend, who has lived as a refugee for more than 10 years, his faith and hope in God sustaining him through this indefinite period of instability. Or witnessing how another Partner’s business is positively impacting his staff and creating a space for interfaith friendships and dialogue.
Two trips back this year have helped to clarify this new way of working, but they have also brought up new questions: How can we better partner with the local church in telling their stories? How can we work with the diaspora here in Australia?
As we have met with people, produced stories and seen their initial impact, we are encouraged by the opportunities opening up to connect with new people and places in partnership with the local church. While a little daunting, our vision continues to develop and we trust that God will enable us at each new turn.
But one thing is clear. While we make plans, it is God who determines our steps. And His ways are always better than our own.
Alice and Chris serve in Australia and South East Asia.
I’ve spent most of my life working beside other men: with Aussie diggers in the army, with farmers in Central Asia, and now, back in Australia, with men in prison workshops.
I remember one summer evening in Central Asia, walking with a local colleague. With the harsh sun gone, the cool water of an irrigation canal running beside us and lush green vegetation everywhere, almost pulsating in the twilight, I thought we could have been in the Garden of Eden.
My friend, however, was deeply troubled by something. As we walked, we talked about how to know the right thing to do, and where we got the strength to do it. I tried to encourage him that just as God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden all those years ago, he was still walking with each of us—if only we would listen to him. My friend wasn’t used to thinking of God as one who comes close, so as we parted for the evening, he continued to ponder this.
Fast forward ten years and I’m back in Australia, running a manufacturing workshop in a men’s
prison. What a contrast to that evening, working inside a windowless cavern, literally locked in and no vegetation or water to be seen. One thing remains the same, however: I still work with men—men facing the consequences of their actions and certainly not where they want to be.
So we work. And as we work, we talk. We talk about their lives and mine. I ask questions and listen. One bloke has a court appeal coming up. Another has children he doesn’t see, or a mother who’s ill. Most feel that life is out of their control.
I try to encourage them with how God is real for their everyday lives, just as he’s real for me in my life, for farmers wanting rain, and for soldiers nervous about a parachute jump, or missing their families while they’re away.
In the workshop there are 20 men watching me, so they figure me out pretty quickly. Am I for real when I tell them that as a follower of Jesus, they can expect me to treat them with respect? Jesus gave the lowest outcasts dignity as people made in the image of God. Sadly, I don’t always live up to that example: I’m impatient or don’t listen. Then comes repentance and asking for forgiveness. That’s part of ordinary life working beside men.
Tim* is one bloke I’ve worked beside. As we talked, we’ve found a common concern in feeling out of control in life. I explained how I have to keep going back to God and trusting him that he is in control.
Tim asked why I believed in God at all. “Jesus,” I replied. “When I read the accounts of his life, I am so struck by how he interacted with people. He’s a guy I can follow.”
So Tim started to read Mark’s Gospel. About a month later, Tim came to me and simply declared: “You know, when I came here, I was a confirmed atheist. But now I’ve decided to follow Jesus.”
What’d brought about this change?
“I knew a bit about Jesus,” Tim said, “but I’d just never heard it put that way before.”
“How on earth did I put it?” I asked myself. But I encouraged him to keep re-reading the account of Jesus.
Only a few days later, he was shifted to another prison. I can write to him, but I feel a bit out of control… so I hand Tim over to God.
By working alongside each other in the time we had and encountering the Gospel, God had shown himself to Tim and made an eternal difference in him. Wherever we are, I figure God has put us there. So we can live for him at work, loving people and listening to them, praying for them and speaking about how God is real for their life.
Brian is an Interserve team member working in Australia.
*Not his real name
So often when one returns from working overseas, the question is asked, “So, what did you do while you were away?” For us, that was the wrong question. The better question is, “What did you see God doing while you were away?”
Many Partners serving in Central Asia face a significant educational challenge for their children, as there are few, if any, schools in the region that offer a boarding opportunity for students. Consequently, some long-term workers have taken steps to address this need by starting a boarding house offering a ‘home away from home’ experience.
In 2021, we were asked to step in as house parents for two months while the regular house parents took leave during summer break. We accepted the invitation to support these long-
term workers, enabling them to reconnect with family and supporters back in their passport countries. Our task was to look after the house and the five young women living there. What was going to fill up our days?
A friend who had previously travelled with us jumped at the opportunity to join us and use her gifts in TESOL training. Initially, the plan was to upskill local schoolteachers in their delivery of English lessons; however, God had other plans.
Teachers at a local language school became the beneficiaries instead. Through a conversation with a local worker, we became aware of the need for teachers at the language school to be trained in best-practice TESOL delivery. It was God’s perfect timing in using our friend’s training skills to meet the need of the teachers.
We explored other opportunities for service: English conversation club, English classes, dance for the disabled. But nearly all of them ended up a non-event. So, what was God saying?
It became clear that God didn’t want us to ‘do’; he just wanted us to ‘be’. At times we think we must be doing ‘big’ things for God, only to discover that in the small things we find his greatest pleasure.
God simply wanted us to be there for the five young women in the boarding house: to cook for them, hear their stories, encourage them in their faith and support them through job interviews. We listened as they worked through options for the future, such as where to live and how to budget, and celebrated with them as they started full-time work.
Proverbs 16:9 says, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” This verse so clearly describes our experience working as house parents in Central Asia.
Because the girls were our focus, the relationships we formed were deep and rich. We learned so much about culture and life in Central Asia—and the cost of following Jesus. Their stories gave us insights into how God used ordinary people to sow seeds of the Gospel,
then used dreams and miracles as his harvesting tools. The fruit from this faithful service is visible through the generations.
An unexpected and uncomfortable outcome of less hurrying to do for God was allowing God to do some soul surgery in us. Our thought patterns and motivations became exposed to the Holy Spirit’s scrutiny during simple tasks. A long-term worker shared how it took her first three years on the field for God to prepare her heart for the work he had for her. That work of caring for marginalised, and often abused, women is slowly starting to emerge several years later.
On a personal level, we are open to what God wants us to do next, even in our advancing years. Being involved in global mission, albeit in small and unexpected ways, has reignited our determination. We want to spur on friends in our local church to understand the importance of being involved in the continuing mission of Jesus to the world.
David and Amelia are Interserve Partners in Central Asia.
I am with my local family in the village hidden in the mountains, which is connected to the rest of civilisation by some bumpy, narrow and winding roads. I am sitting with Lilian, a sister, on tiny wooden stools in front of a woodfire, discussing how to translate certain Bible passages into her native tongue, as Scripture is not yet available in that language. I scratch my head as I attempt to explain the meaning of the passages to her with my limited third and fourth languages, using reasoning, examples and metaphors to which a farmer with little formal schooling could relate.
But as we are finally getting somewhere and are ready to do some audio recording, the rooster begins to crow and the ducks quack, entertaining us with unwelcome background sounds! So we resolve to make some vegetable soup and feed the pigs, while we wait for the animals to calm down.
Later that evening, in a city a couple of hours from the village, I find myself in a group of highly educated individuals watching an English film and discussing it afterwards. We ponder such issues as conflicting values and socialism. We enjoy the movie on cushioned sofas in warm blankets, with the room temperature appropriately controlled by air conditioning. There is a large variety of delicious foods beautifully set out on the table. In contrast to earlier that morning, everything happened exactly according to plan!
Most cross-cultural workers constantly live in between two (or more) very distinct worlds. I am no exception. One constant challenge in serving cross-culturally is learning how to survive as we drift between these worlds—let alone thrive. I remember during one home
assignment being shocked when I saw pet insurance ads in a shopping centre, because all I could think about was how delicious the dog was in the village just the week before!
It can be extremely taxing and lonely to juggle two worlds: we often feel like we belong to both, yet neither. When I go from one world to the other, my head and heart need time to catch up; and in the meantime, my reaction is often to judge due to feelings of guilt or emotional weariness. I wonder: “How come you don’t understand, it’s so simple!” Or, “How can we live so comfortably and indulge like this when so many people are struggling to live on so little?” Or, “Why do we have 50+ versions of the English Bible, when so many people haven’t even heard of Jesus?”
The more I am caught between worlds, the more grace I need: grace to understand, empathise with and accept those who are different, grace from others when I offend them because of my pride, and grace from the Father when I feel too tired to be kind. Along with this grace comes a deeper appreciation for both the abundance of God in a luxurious meal without guilt, as well as the simple contentment from a bowl of vegetable soup without a sense of self-righteousness. Then there is being able to enjoy eating dog when I am with certain people, but loving my family’s pet dog wholeheartedly at the same time!
As the Father transforms me through each of these different environments, I begin to realise He is implanting His wisdom in me: the wisdom to withhold judgment and to ask questions in culturally appropriate ways, the wisdom to examine my own values and beliefs more humbly from His much bigger perspective, and the wisdom to discern how exactly the Father wants me to serve others.
It has been humbling to see how His wisdom has widened and deepened my relationships, as people are more willing to listen to someone who understands and empathises with them. Although I continue to wrestle with these distinct worlds, I find comfort in knowing that they are in fact the same world to our all-wise Creator, who gives me His grace wherever I go.
Felicity is a long-term worker serving in Asia.
Both big decisions and insignificant events can have a cascading impact on our lives. Our chance decision to listen to a visiting speaker at our church talk about refugees in Australia was the beginning of transformation.
The speaker had been inside a detention centre and had spoken with people who were classified as illegal. This gave him first-hand experience.
For truth to triumph, it must be told. And the teller must be credible.
For years now, we have had both casual and close friendships with those who have come to our country as refugees, and my life has been changed because of it. I have been gutwrenched on listening to their stories. My sleep patterns have been troubled.
A refugee friend recently remarked, “I think the Shepherd has forgotten his sheep.” I wept over that, because I have had the same unspoken thoughts, even though I know not a sparrow falls without his knowledge.
We have had refugees with trauma living with us over the years, and our aging lap dogs have played a part in helping to heal their hearts. They would cuddle the dogs because they could not hug another person, and weep into their fur with nicotine breath.
During this time I have had my untidy pantry rearranged so it was ‘tidy’, and the peach and salmon tins placed side-by-side because they were the same size. The intent was helpful, but I felt a little hysterical at the thought of trying to find things. However, I have had my rice-cooking skills improved. I have had the borders of my spiritual and mental garment enlarged, stretched and strained to breaking point—and I am the better for it.
One woman, who stayed with us for about six months, dropped to her knees and kissed my feet when she was leaving. I had images of Paul
and Barnabas with the crowds first giving them garlands and then wanting to kill them flash through my mind. So I grabbed her by the collar and said, “Get up, get up.” We are still friends.
Our granddaughters were favourites with the men in detention in Brisbane, because they were the only children they had seen in years. The girls would play board games with the detainees, sing Christian songs and recite Bible verses to them. They gave those burdened men memories of family and long-lost normality, while the girls revelled in knowing they were making a difference in their lives.
Weeping is part of the healing, and change comes in different ways. Kindness and truth walk in sync. God is the author of grace and truth. Grace makes truth palatable and enables transformation to begin.
Transformation is slow, painful, and entails walking valleys in tears and occasionally striding on the mountain top when a victory is achieved. Transformation is ploughing, cultivating, weeding and watering, while remembering it is not us who do the miracle of transforming a hurting brother or sister into a vessel of the King. That is God’s job. Our job is to be Jesus with skin on wearing overalls.
Sylvia and her husband Peter are Interserve team members based in Queensland.
There was a time following a series of losses in my life when I could not pray anything more than, “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love… Establish the work of our hands” (Psalm 90:14a, 17b).
Each day, that simple prayer would focus my mind as I headed for work in a local Sydney physiotherapy clinic. Life felt like it had become as fragile as a flower—springing up just for the day, but gone by evening, just as Moses had contemplated earlier in the same Psalm.
There stood a wall of unanswered prayers as I watched my family struggle relentlessly with grief, including the sudden loss of my husband and father of my children. We faced a continuous flow of demanding problems to solve and skills to learn, which overwhelmed me and seemed to shrink life down to just the difficult parts.
It left me wondering why some people were saying, “next year we will go here or go there.” Did they not realise that everything and everyone could be gone in an instant?
I spent time wondering about characters like Jeremiah, who was asked to bear so much yet somehow kept his faith in God, or Moses who led a rebellious people going nowhere for so many years. I was a widow leading a few teenagers. In Jeremiah 15:18, Jeremiah asks, “Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? You are to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails.”
God was at work in my tears, using his word to dig deep into my pain and to reveal himself as the greatest treasure. As the psalmist says in Psalm 73:25, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.”
God expanded my capacity for compassion as I spent time with people who had experienced all kinds of losses, such as displacement, relationship breakdown and death of loved ones. Our common humanity and powerlessness made it easy to connect cross-culturally, coming together with a shared bewilderment over the events of life.
One couple I know and love in Sydney recently lost both their fathers in Pakistan. But they were unable to travel to mourn together with their extended family. I longed to be able to bring them comfort. So I used the tools I had learnt in a Bible storytelling workshop to recite the Beatitudes, then prayed for a chance to speak to them at the right time. God answered that prayer beautifully.
For many years, my parenting style swung between being controlling and carefree. Yet over time, my deepest desire was formed: to show Christ to my children and my friends. He is my source of greatest hope, my wisdom, my dignity and my delight.
As I sit in quarantine, preparing to work for several months in a foreign nation in order to be with my own daughter on her wedding day, that is exactly what I want to write in the wedding speech. When we have a hope that endures, nothing can hold us back from wanting to reveal it to the world and pass on the gift of life. Christ is our great high tower. He is our greatest treasure and the brightest light in any long, dark night. His kingdom is the only one that will last forever.
Another friend, a single mother caring for teenage children, was unable due to Covid-19 to attend the wedding of her eldest daughter in Bangladesh. And no other family member even within that country could celebrate with her. We could cry together as mothers.
Michelle engages cross-culturally in Sydney as part of Interserve’s work.
We at Interserve are thankful for God’s faithful guidance through these pandemic years, through the gracious provision of our National Directors. As we welcome our new National Director, Rev. Stewart Hunt, we want to honour the contributions of the two who preceded him, Christine Gobius and Arco De Leede. So let’s hear in their own words what God’s work through Interserve has meant for them.
Christine Gobius
Christine served as Australian National Director for nine years—but God has worked in and through her at Interserve for many more:
“I give thanks for the privilege of serving God and Interserve as the National Director.
“What a privilege to have worked alongside women and men from a diverse range of churches, from many nationalities and in many contexts, all with a passion for the transformation of individual lives and whole communities as they encounter Jesus. This role has given me a window on God’s world, through which I have developed a much deeper love for God and all he has created.
“We are in changing, uncertain and exciting times and I sensed it was right for a different leader to continue to shape Interserve to respond to the opportunities before us. It was also good for my husband Kari and I to begin a new season.
“My relationship with Interserve stretches back over 30 years, to when I first applied to be an On Tracker. I am so grateful for this international community of disciples that has significantly shaped me, my faith and my understanding of this world.”
“I give thanks for the privilege of serving God and Interserve as the National Director."
Arco De Leede
As Christine and Interserve began a new season, the baton passed to Arco as Interim National Director. He came to the role after having served as a Partner in the Middle East and as National Director in the Netherlands:
“The first thing I think about my time in Australia are the relationships and community. It was heart-warming to meet old friends again, like the Aussie Partners we knew in the Middle East 15–20 years ago. My wife Mirjam and I really enjoyed experiencing the fellowship, community and passion for serving in God’s mission.
“I’m thankful to have been involved in helping Interserve Australia move forward in areas like integrating local and global mission, considering financial sustainability for the future, expanding the use of Salesforce, and even preparing a Business as Mission network!
“Mirjam and I are very grateful for how God led us to join his work here. We pray for God’s continued blessings over Interserve Australia and for Stewart leading this wonderful organisation to serve God among the Asian and Arab people.”
Rev. Stewart Hunt
And now looking forward to the season to come, we welcome Stewart to take up the baton:
“Interserve has a long and rich history of sharing the love of God. I feel humbled to be able to draw on that experience as together, we continue to shape a Christ-centred response to a rapidly changing world.
“I’m thankful for the opportunities I was given to experience God’s love. This was modelled to me by my parents, who did their best to live out their faith in every way. They helped form within me a heart for God and his world.
“My wife Bronwen shares that passion. Together with our four children, we have served God in the marketplace, in churches and overseas. For the last fourteen years, it has been my absolute joy to pastor The Vine Baptist Church in Melbourne.
“We’re really looking forward to connecting with you in the new year!”
International Director, Dr Bijoy Koshy, urges the Australian team to make disciples both locally and globally.
Matthew Kuruvilla shares his experience in growing a vibrant, multi-ethnic church.
