362: Podcast Showcase - Wilderness Conversations

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:01

   Hi everyone, it’s Levi. I’m excited to share another podcast for us to highlight. Podcasts have been around for a while. It’s been an interesting, you know, last eight years, you know, pod, I guess podcasting itself has been around for a much longer time. Our, this, but this show we’ve been running now for a, like we said, almost eight years, but it’s been really encouraging to kind of highlight the work that other brothers and sisters are doing in this field. It’s I’m, I’m a massive podcast consumer. I listen to, I don’t know, 3 or 4 hours of podcasting every day. I’m doing my chores or in my long commute. So that’s a, you know, one of our core principles with it’s in our intro for good yourself in talks is we’re trying to get the Bible in your Daily News feed.

2. 0:45

   And it’s been it’s so helpful to me how much our other brothers and sisters are are doing. And so it’s been really great. I think to highlight these, I wanted to kind of shout out other shows that we that we didn’t get to mention. We actually have a page called resources on our website on goodcrystalfiantalks.com that you can click that it links out to other podcasts. But also I wanted to shout out specifically Jason. So Jason Hensley, our Co host here has a weekly podcast called End of Week Encouragement, which I subscribe to and I would advise you do too.

3. 1:21

   I am just now sunsetting. I’m finishing a different show called A Little Faith, which is actually very similar to Wilderness Conversations. I’ll talk more about that in a minute. And then once in a while we post an episode on Good Christelphian Music, which is another podcast specifically about Christelphian music. I have so much respect for all these shows and kind of the work that goes into these podcasts, Wilderness Conversations as an example, but also, but also faith works and and essential Bible studies, which we highlighted earlier in the month. They take so much more work really than our show does than good Gracelfy and talk does.

4. 1:56

   We we listen to a lot of talks and then put in the intro. Doesn’t take much work, right, for us to record an intro or prepare for that. It takes me, you know, 10-15 minutes tops. And the the these other shows have hours of preparation that go into them, which is pretty evident. So anyways, I wanted to take a minute to kind of thank the brothers and sisters who who have spent time podcasting and encourage anyone else.

5. 2:23

   If you want to start a podcast, if you have an idea for one, we’d love to help you. And we, we would love to enjoy and be encouraged by, by your work. But it is hard. It’s as I just said, I’ve, I’m closing a different show called the little faith because it’s hard. It’s hard to keep the energy and to keep the engagement, but to that and yeah, this this show, Wilderness Conversations has been such a great discovery for me and I’m sad I was kind of late to it.

6. 2:49

   Brother Stephen Dodson has been hosting it for almost five years now. He started in 2020, actually this month. I’m looking at it now. So he this show is officially passed its first five years. And this has been a really excellent show. Brother Stephen does a really great job in these interviews with these different people. And this is a good example.

7. 3:13

   The one we’re sharing is Uncle Ron Hicks sharing his story of faith. I have a connection to brother Ron and, and actually they talk about his book in this, in this episode. It’s kind of a review of his book, which came out about 15 years ago. And I just have this very unique story which I’ll tell Jess, my, my wife, sister Jess and I were in India together helping at the Shunam home in 2010 when this book was released.

8. 3:45

   And by chance, we got a copy out there in India. And I got terribly sick just for a couple of days and read the whole book in my, in my bed there in India and told my grandfather about it, who was on the tidings committee at the time. And he asked me to write a review. So I wrote the, I wrote the Tidings magazine’s review of this book in 2010 while I was sick in India. So that’s why this, I was, I was excited to listen to this episode again, kind of remember how amazing the story is of, of Brother Ron’s life and how, how many interesting things he did kind of in, in his work and in his work in the truth. So it’s very encouraging very.

9. 4:23

   And and again, I really, I really enjoy how good of an interviewer Brother Steven is. So this is definitely a great show to go back on. Again, he has a five year back catalog with lots of great episodes. I also would shout out there’s a parenting episode pretty recently that I really enjoyed when that came out.

10. 4:42

    So this is a great, great example of I think a really helpful podcast. So that’s enough for me. Again, thank you to everyone for listening to this. And I do encourage you to check out the other podcasts that we’ve highlighted and, and the ones that we’ve listed on our website. And if you have an idea of a podcast you’d love, you want to start, I would love to support that. So thank you all.

11. 5:05

    And here is Wilderness Conversations, Brother Ron Hicks, my journey in faith. Ron Hicks was born in Adelaide, was baptised in Adelaide in August 1953 and now lives in Adelaide but has been in many places in the meantime. Ron was a member of the Washington DC Christadophian Church or Ecclesia for over 50 years and now back in Adelaide he attends the Happy Valley Ecclesia.

12. 5:47

    Ron joins Wilderness Conversations to share some of his journey of faith. Ron, thanks very much for joining Wilderness Conversations. Ron, I’m very pleased to be here with you today. You wrote a book called my journey in Faith, and you made a really interesting statement. You made lots of interesting statements, but in the in the preface, you made an interesting statement around your motivation for writing the book because you, you made the point. I’ll quote you had a long life aversion to talking very much about yourself.

13. 6:29

    I I resonate with this because people often say that to me when I ask them to join me on the podcast. But you had a reason why you ended up writing a book about your life. What was that reason? Well, the reason is this that I, I really enjoy reading biographies and autobiographies. I’ve always had a lifelong interest in that, in that sort of literature.

14. 6:48

    And and you know, I read the, the a number, a number of books in on that genre really. But then I, I thought I wish more brothers and sisters would write these sorts of books. And then as I mentioned in the premise of the book, I, I realise I’d have been a bit inconsistent.

15. 7:07

    I was wanting others to other rather than sisters. So particularly to, to write, write their autobiographies or then wasn’t prepared to do it myself. So that that was a sort of a key motivation. And on top of that, the, the sister in the Otto work Leisure in Canada, who’s a professional editor and for the Tardings magazine. And she pressed me quite strongly to sort of move in that direction.

16. 7:30

    So that’s how it all happened. Well, it’s out of print now, but I managed to get my hands on a copy and it’s a fantastic read and I really enjoyed it and found it quite engaging all the way through and quite encouraging as well. So for those who haven’t got it, I’m not sure if you can get it, I assume it’s out of print, but there’s plenty of copies floating around. You’ll have a but you’ll probably find someone who’s got a copy.

17. 7:53

    Let’s go back to the beginning for you and just tell us a little bit about where you were born, where you grew up, and some of the, you know, the important early influences in your life. OK, well, I was born here in Adelaide, South Australia. I was very blessed actually because I was born up in a very, a very godly home.

18. 8:12

    But my, both my parents actually did not come from particularly religious backgrounds, but they, they came to the truth just before their marriage and they provided my brother and myself with a really wonderful, a wonderful spiritual environment. It was very stable. It was very spiritually focused. So as I dedicated my, my book, I, I dedicated to them their, their influence was, was exceptional.

19. 8:38

    And so the home influence was very, very powerful and strong and, and sustaining. But at the same time, at the, at the time the Adelaide eclosure was very large. When I was growing up, it was a, it was a big eclosure of 5-6 hundred members. It was really quite sizeable and it was a wonderful, wonderful eclosure environment.

20. 8:57

    So I had a wonderful mixture really. I had a very good family background, spiritual background there. And I had a very strong exclusive background which provided all all sorts of spiritual encouragement for for folk, including young folk. And I feel that I benefit from that from both those enterprises to a major degree. Where did your mum and dad come into contact with the gospel? Well, my, my father had a before he was married, had a next door neighbor, who I must say rather eccentric brother, whose name I won’t mention, of course, who, who was very interested in international affairs.

21. 9:37

    And my, my father was also very interested in that. But this brother, the next door neighbor was very made very good use of the opportunity to see how to explain to my father how how the scripture sort of rather a good focus for understanding international developments and so on. So that that was the vehicle through through which my my father became interested. And then my mother, that was as I said, it was before they were married, but my mother was equally receptive. And and so they were, they were baptized just just before their their marriage.

22. 10:09

    So, so my background is not really a traditional Christopher background. This from a a background which would say came from from from the outside community. You said you had a sort of a vibrant ecclesial life for a 12 year old, 14 year old, 16 year old leading up to the age of your baptism. What were some of the sort of key activities and important influences for you?

23. 10:33

    Well, the, the two key things there I would say were the summer school and the, and the youth activities. I think the summer school was concerned. It was a very, very well run grain disciplined Sunday school. I had a lot of students, I can’t remember now, a couple of 100. It was just a very, very big Sunday school.

24. 10:52

    But uniquely, I guess for the time, it was very focused on the, on the written. Oh, we always seem to be sitting for written examinations on something or other. And so the discipline of preparing for, for Sunday school, for preparing for these, these exams as soon to go on forever. And all that was a good influence. And the concurrent with that, of course, was the, with the youth activities, because with a, with a, a bigger creature, there was a, a wide range of, of youth activities, spiritual, of course, but also social and, and that was a wonderful foundation for growing up.

25. 11:35

    And also the mutual improvement classes. They even had a younger mutual improvement class with those who are under 21. So the, the, the whole environment was, I would say, disciplined. It was very Bible focused and and it was also at the same time very enjoyable and, and obviously I made friends there. There have been lifelong friends since I’ve come back for living abroad for a long time. Just catching up with old friends is just a real treasure. And, and a lot of those friendships were made in in younger, very younger years.

26. 12:09

    So all all together, the upbringing was a was a huge blessing and I thank the Lord continuously for that. What? Were some of the activities you got involved with as a young brother after you were baptised? Well, the mutual improvement class is one thing, of course, the and of course, giving him one or two of the ones first classes are sort of traumatic. And I remember, I remember so well the very first time I had to give a talk to a quite a large gathering in the in the exterior hall, and it was called the temple still is actually. And and that led I’ll never forget that the first occasion when I had to give that my first talk to a big audience, I, I was a second on the speaking list for the for the evening. And I thought I’d fall through the floor and eventually my, my time as the second speaker, I was on the platform. And then halfway through, halfway through the, the talk and my mind seemed to go complete blank. And there was a long pause.

27. 13:04

    And so, so after the talk, I asked the one, some of the folks there and my family, what do you think of the long pause? And they, they didn’t even recognise it. So I was so uptight on the occasion. I guess that’s that. I was very sensitive to that. But yeah, they’re, they’re preparing for classes, engaging all sorts of occasional activities, helping.

28. 13:28

    And I was also the following my father’s footsteps. I was the secondary of the Sunday school at quite a young age. That was quite a responsibility, although I didn’t do much else apart from move chairs around that it was all, all that was integrated and, and the, the main thing to say I suppose is the, the, the pleasure was just the centre of my life. It was just, it was the focus and not odorous at all. It was extremely enjoyable and and fulfilling and remembered with a lot of a lot of affection. That is a blessing with your parents and your your brother. You went on a an overseas trip, which I imagine back then would have been on the race.

29. 14:09

    I mean, obviously people travel internationally regularly now, but back in what it was at the early 1950. Yeah, 1954 that, that was a major event because my, my father very much wanted to go to the UK because of family links there. And my mother said yes, we’ll go over to the two boys and my brother and ourself come with us. So we obviously we’re on my mother’s side. So, so we, we joined the, the trip, the six month trip, but it was quite an it was quite a decision to make because oddly enough, this might seem rather strange, I guess, but a key factor was that we had been attending Sunday school without any, any miss for 9 1/2 years.

30. 14:54

    And to be a way to be a way would break the 10 year record. Well, not record exactly, but 10 year sort of milestone And, and my parents were, that might seem sort of an old criteria, but we’re wondering whether we should wait until this interesting milestone of 10 years without missing on any Sunday had been achieved. Anyway, the, the, the fact of the matter is we did go on the trip in 1954 and it was a very, it was a wonderful trip really. We, of course, we, those days you sailed to the UK, it took, it took a month to get there in a month to come back again. That was a wonderful experience through the, through the Red Sea, through the, through the Suez Canal. Anyway, the, the trip to the, to the UK was a wonderful experience.

31. 15:46

    And because again, the focus was pretty much on the also a large extent was visiting better assistance in various parts of the UK and also in Germany. And we spent about 4-4 months, I think in the UK and, and Germany and then came back, you know, later in the year. So, so all that was a great experience and, and also I enjoyed on that trip both to and fro having a couple of two or three days in India.

32. 16:12

    And that was a fascination for me because I in India and, and the Indian subcontinent later in life became quite a focus of, of my activities, work activities and. Indeed. I guess even travel. I mean, people talk about a travel bug. Maybe you got the travel bug in 1954? Well, mentioning you made an interesting point about the the somewhat infrequency of international travel.

33. 16:38

    That’s I remember very well the year before we went which is 1933, brother Lindsay Cahoon and brother President who are very well known members of the Atlantic Claser. They were given a farewell, a farewell this sort of evening really in the Atlantic Claser. It was very strongly supported. The hall was full. It was such a rare event and both at the end of the programme, brother a person, Brother Lindsay Given had to give a a talk to the audience and they were completely wound up, completely exercised about the same pain in truth and dramatically.

34. 17:13

    And brother Lindsay given was given to dramatic gestures. He, he unfurled all his, all his stapled sea and air tickets and all the rest stretched from one side of the ball to the other and there was unfurled with great panache. And the, and the audience is sort of agog this extraordinary trip with all these flights and sea voyages and who knows what.

35. 17:39

    But it was just, I just mentioned all that because it really was quite a not a rarity, but it was somewhat unusual to take a, a long, a long trip away from Australia. I didn’t work out what year you were born in. How old were you when you went on this trip in 1954?

36. 17:57

    18 years of age, right? My, my brother was just over a year old, older than myself. So, so it was a very, it was just a wonderful trip at a very formative Salomon. What are some of your memories, because you would have gone to go to lots of different ecclesias and met lots of different brothers and sisters. Was there an overwhelming sort of insight or or realisation from that trip with regard to how brothers and sisters lived in other places?

37. 18:22

    Oh, very, very much so, very much so because they just seeing eclusion life was very interesting the the the number of Eclesias there as you went from town to town. There were so many Eclesias in Britain. I found that quite impressive. There was somewhat of a sadness to it, of course, because at that time, at that time the, the, the reunion of the two communities in the UK had not been completed. It was completed just very shortly after we were there. But it meant that unfortunately at the time we couldn’t, we, we were in terms of fellowship, we were restricted to the substrate fellowship when at that time we did not really have access to the central fellowship.

38. 19:07

    Sometimes it’s best not to talk about these things. But on the other side, there’s a big plus factor because when reunion of the two fellowships was accomplished in the mid 1950s in the UK, it was such a such a huge development. So this disappointment we had and sort of not having completely free access to quite a large part of the brotherhood in the UK, all that was that division of anticipated really with the, with the realisation of reunion in the mid 1950s.

39. 19:40

    So, and we also stayed just one other part. We stayed, we’ve got our sister Cyril Cooper in London for many, many weeks there. And that was extremely hospitable. And they, they were, they were quite well unknown. And so they gave us wonderful access to, to, to Cledus, you know, throughout, throughout Britain. To put it in the most general terms, it was, it was another exhilarating experience, the spiritual experience, which we it’s exhausting.

40. 20:14

    We we’re seeing it travel everywhere. We even drove down to Rome and back. I don’t know how we managed it. It was quite an exhausting program in a way, but but it’s certainly memorable. I’m interested in your statements about fellowship because it’s when you’ve got it, it’s not something you appreciate because you’ve always had it.

41. 20:35

    And in Australia, largely speaking, we’ve had the the benefit of the work that was done in the 1950s. And for something someone like myself just a little bit younger, have really never had the experience of not having that. So I think that’s really interesting to hear you make that statement and it obviously had an effect on you. Well, it had a big effect.

42. 20:54

    Particularly it’s some of the well known speakers like brothers John Carter and those are, there’s some of the really well known speakers at the time, but we, we did not really have full access to and that was disappointing Brother Norris. So you can think of a lot of other Whitaker and many others who, who are very, very capable speakers and exceptional Bible scholars. And in many ways it meant that we didn’t have full access to them.

43. 21:21

    Of course, we went to a few of the Bible classes and lectures and so on. But it was just, it was, there’s an awkwardness about it, which was there at the time, but that that’s why throughout life I’ve always had a strong feeling that we should press the unity as much as possible as long as of course, it’s on good scriptural foundations.

44. 21:41

    But but the, the, the the disadvantages of of disfellowship, I think are quite acute and and every effort I think should be made to try and have a unified brotherhood. So much we all, we all obviously benefit. Around this time you were deciding on what career choice to make. What were some of your early thoughts and where did you end up?

45. 22:10

    Well, when I finished schooling, I didn’t have much idea what what I was going to do. I didn’t have any particular sort of preference or idea what I would do. So my, my father was actually in the insurance business. So he, he, he arranged an appointment for me in the, in the, in the AMP, which is a life insurance company in Australia.

46. 22:33

    And his, my father’s main concern was that I take a position which would not involve in any social engagements, which would sort of be discouraging spiritually. So, so my first position for, for my viewers was actually with the AMP Society, but which, you know, which was a very interesting organization, but there’s no career opportunities there at all. You, you just clearly would be a sort of static career. Nothing would happen.

47. 23:05

    So I’m not weary of that. So eventually I, I remember that I had a common scholarship which I should have taken advantage of. So I went to, back to, I went to university for, took a degree in economics and then. Why economics? Well, that was it was by default, actually. I wasn’t. Medicine wasn’t quite my thing. Engineering was not my thing.

48. 23:31

    It was almost ruling out the others. Yeah, right. And it turned out to be God-given choice because it opened up business of employment which later became very, very helpful many particularly in terms of missionary activities and so on. So, so anyway, I, I left when I finished university after four years there at the other university in economics, I, I had to leave Adelaide because the degree in macroeconomics, you really, there was no career in Adelaide at all.

49. 24:06

    So you either had to go to Sydney, Melbourne or, or Canberra. And so I took a a position, I was offered a position in the Reserve Bank of Australia which were just then being established as the Central Bank of Australia. Give me that was a God direction decision, certainly. So you were one of the, well, not the first employees, but you moved to the Reserve Bank of Australia, right? And its inception which and I I’ve just assumed it’s always existed, but that’s of course not the case. Well, I I should clarify that the central bank functions were were previously under the, under the umbrella of the Commonwealth Bank, the Commonwealth Bank.

50. 24:43

    Which was which was then owned by the federal government. Yes, that’s right. The Commonwealth Bank was had two functions, a trading function and the central bank function. In in the early 60’s the the central bank functions were taken out of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and became the, the, the, the Reserve Bank of Australia, which of course it is now.

51. 25:01

    So so I, I joined, I joined the Reserve Bank just after they had kept just after it had opted out from the Commonwealth Bank and become a became a separate, a separate entity. But the, but the, the, the plan of the Reserve Bank was particularly a God director because it’s, it gave me a, it, it LED into other avenues of my employment which were very beneficial to me spiritually and in terms of mission opportunities. So the the the time at the Reserve Bank was was particularly helpful and and enjoyable too. You were a young brother and you’re moving state. You had to move from Adelaide to Sydney, so life in Sydney would have been a whole new experience for you. Well, it was actually.

52. 25:51

    And I, I enjoyed it because when I went to Sydney, Sydney’s always an exciting city. It’s, but I, I decided when I went to Sydney Ecclesia, I, I would join a small ecclesia because in that light, I’d always been a member of a very big ecclesia as I, as I mentioned that. So I joined the, the ecclesia which is, which was called the Burwood ecclesia. It was called Little Burwood actually, because it was very close to another much larger Eclasia, the Shasta Rd. Eclasia.

53. 26:20

    And I joined this bird Eclasia, which were mainly comprised weather and sisters who’d come out of the Concorde Fellowship, which was which had, which had previously been in the Old Pass Fellowship, but now had just joined the Central Fellowship. So. So it was very nice joining a small meeting of enthusiastic weather and citizens who just appreciated the, the benefits of coming over to the bigger Central Fellowship in Australia. So the time at the, at the, at the moment eclosure was very, very nice.

54. 26:53

    And of course, living in Sydney and working in the Reserve Bank, I found the whole that the whole experience are very, very interesting and uplifting. I was only in the Reserve Bank with two or three years and they asked me whether I’d be interested in doing exchange with the Reserve Bank of India during a study of the short term money market and in Bombay and in other parts of India. So that was, that was a wonderful opportunity really too.

55. 27:21

    So I, I seized that opportunity of spending quite a few months in India working at the Reserve Bank of India in, in Bombay. And that, that again was triggered by the employment of the Reserve Bank of Australia because they arranged it all and encouraged it. And and it it’s sort of generally sort of was the seed of my later interest in missionary activities that three or four months I had in India was, was very important in terms of enthusing me for submission activities. So on return to Sydney, I note that the Reserve Bank at that time moved to a building on in Martin Place. Yes.

56. 28:09

    And in your book, I chuckled when I read, you watched the construction of the Sydney Opera House. Yes, as the iconic structure gradually took shape. What an extraordinary memory. Well, there was the Reserve Bank was a lovely new building. It was just being built. Of course, it was a new, new institution. It was a lovely building on the corner of Macquarie St. and Mountain Place. And I had a lovely office.

57. 28:28

    They really just on the 15th floor. I think it was looking out across the Sydney Harbour. It was just gorgeous. You have to be, you had to be distracted from your work, look out and look at the beauty of the of the harbour. But they’re way in the distance you can see the Sydney Opera House gradually being, being built. Yeah, Sydney’s always been a special place for me. I, I enjoy the collision.

58. 28:51

    I know it’s frustrating traffic wise, I know all the problems with Sydney. But the time I had there, the 10 years I had living in Sydney, I, I very much enjoyed them. But then then career wise, the the Reserve Bank, it was very generous in, in providing scholarships or financial arrangements where you could, where you could take a year after to further your studies to do graduate studies in economics. The typical thing for the Reserve Bank was to send you down to the Canberra, to the Australian National University in Canberra to, to do some studies. There were, I didn’t want to do that too much because it was all, it was just sitting in a corner writing a thesis on some, some, some subject or other.

59. 29:36

    I really wanted to, to have more training in, in, in theoretical economics where you’re taught, you’re in classes, you know, we’re taught. And so the, the only prospect of that, well, there’s no prospect of that in Australia at all. So the bank, which surprised me, said to me, why don’t we can, why don’t we send you abroad and do that sort of study abroad.

60. 30:00

    So I thought that was an extraordinary offer which I, I took up and that led to the time I had the Yale University in the, in the US, which was fully looked after and financed by the, by the Reserve Bank. So, so the Reserve Bank was a was a wonderful help to me and in moving forward.

61. 30:23

    It’s great to see investment in young people in their development, like that’s quite inspirational. I think in between sort of that time, correct me if I’m wrong, but you out of you took some time off and went to, well, Britain and the Holy Land just as a young man, is that right? So that was in your early days at the Reserve Bank?

62. 30:43

    Yeah, that’s right. I should have mentioned that that that’s jumping. That’s before I I went to the United States. The Reserve Bank had another scheme. That’s just a wonderful institution. It still is. I respect the Reserve Bank a lot, but they had another arrangement that if you wanted to take 6 to 9 months to travel abroad, they would encourage that and they would arrange for you to work in the Reserve Bank’s office in London, their branch in London. So I, I learned of that and I thought that’d be wonderful really to, and that this preceded the, this preceded the, the university in 20.

63. 31:24

    So I, I jumped at that opportunity and, and went across to the UK and worked in the Reserve Bank, obviously in London. And because they gave me just a wonderful opportunity to get to know the many brother and sisters and the clashes in the UK. And at that time, because the reunion had been accomplished and, and I had the full benefit of, of, of the wider fellowship.

64. 31:51

    And that was a that was that six months was absolutely wonderful. The work was not onerous at all. And the London officer was there back and I because I went to all the study weekends and heard all the well known speakers and Oxford Conference, all the rest of them and made full use of the opportunity to to visit them.

65. 32:12

    The creatures in the UK and and the brothers and sisters were so, so welcoming. And so I made many, many friends with the folks there and and for a younger brother, that was again, a great spiritual experience. And you took the opportunity to go to the Holy Land. This got my interest in particular because I’ve, I’ve been there a few times myself and have quite an interest in it. Of course we’ll get on to it, but you ended up going there many times.

66. 32:45

    But this is 1965 S pre Six Day War, and when I’ve been to particularly Jerusalem, probably more so than other places, I I always kind of wish I hadn’t been able to go there before it became such a big sprawling city. It must have been amazing back in 1965. Well, it was really because that was just, yes, it was, that was before the the war, of course. And it meant when you went through to Israel, you didn’t have access to East Jerusalem.

67. 33:15

    All you, all you could do is to so sort of viewpoint you could look across to the Mount of Olives where you, you didn’t have access to the Old City of Jerusalem or going up the Mount of Olives or walking through a Ghana, Gethsemane and so on. So it was a much smaller country across then.

68. 33:31

    Yeah, that was on the way back from from London. I spent about a couple of weeks, I think it was in, in Israel at that time. And I travelled, you know, from a lot right up to Galilee maybe four years ago. But it was very different in later years when I went back to Israel for work. Later years when I, you know, when the country of course was much larger and you had access, you had access to the Mount of Olives, to the, to the area across to the Jordan and so on. That, that, that visit I very much show. And from, from Israel I went down into Africa. I went down to Nairobi and then stopped for about quite a few days of Mauritius where there was a new mission programme just developing and that was, it was a, it was a great trip back actually from the UK through Israel, down through Africa, into Russia and back to Australia. So I made full use of the of the travelling opportunity. Well, you certainly did.

69. 34:28

    You were certainly you had a level of curiosity and interest in in travel, no doubt as a as a young brother. Well, I, I also on that trip because I always made a point of being in touch with the brothers and sisters in and Tebby when in Uganda, I stayed with brothers and Sister Johnson, who are them as missionaries in, in Nairobi. I stayed with them.

70. 34:50

    The Sykes, the Sykes, Steve Sykes and his wife were there and Wendy Sykes were there. Well, the Stanley own was in Nairobi. And then in Mauritius there’s some brother and sisters engaged in mission activity. There’s, there’re all these places there. There’s an accretional focus, an accretional interest and, and a reason for being there really. And on top of that, because the the sugar on the cake there was the was the stopover in Israel on the way. And that was, that was a very good way to start the trip back home.

71. 35:22

    You made a comment in your book which I could actually relate to. And there’s when you get to Israel, you feel like you’re at home. I thought I I absolutely relate to that. Well, I relate to it too, very much so because the, the, the, the main thing is that the, what you read, the place you read about in Scripture, come up, come alive.

72. 35:41

    You know, you can, you can, when you read Scripture again, having visited these places, you can, you can picture the scene and, and it’s somewhat different to what one I’d expected. I hadn’t expected Jerusalem to be so small. It’s quite, you can walk around Jerusalem, you know, half a day, almost or less. So, So it allows you to get a feel for the dimensions of the place or the, OR the topography of the, of the land or how places fit.

73. 36:07

    You know, when you read them during your daily readings, you can, you can sort of visualize the scenes even like the Galilee and the, the several amount, you know, when you’ve been to the place where the servant was given it’s look across the Galilee and across the the Sea of Galilee. There. It still allows you to read Scripture with another, another dimension with a perspective of having been there. You have some idea of the of the location of the topography and so on.

74. 36:39

    Great experience. You were a young brother at this stage, you’re not married and you didn’t get married. And you mentioned that you had some interest, but they weren’t reciprocated, which I did find amusing. Maybe I shouldn’t have what? What advice do you have for young people? Because not everyone gets married, so you had to sort of come to grips with that.

75. 37:03

    What are your reflections on that? That’s a very good question really, because this is sort of more personal aspect, I suppose, but the, the, the overriding feeling I have on all those the Lord directs your Lord directs your life really that that I I hope was a theme that came through from the book that I wrote, the autobiography.

76. 37:22

    I I felt that the Lord directed me because like marriage, marriage obviously would have been very nice, but then on the other side of the coin, I would not have been able to do all many things I did. I have done. You know, if I had been married, would it be impossible to to have moved around as much as I have business so many occasions have been involved in missionary activities would mean would not have been it would not have been difficult.

77. 37:49

    It would not have been possible. It would have been very circumscribed. Really. It’s not that I didn’t want to get married. It’s just it was just the way the course of life took. Really. It was not. I wouldn’t say it was an even a decision. It was just the way events unfolded and I accepted them as the Lord’s direction and and unfolded a way which I felt in the end was my own spiritual advantage because in marriage I couldn’t, I just couldn’t have, I couldn’t have done those things. I would have just, I would have been, would have just not been possible.

78. 38:27

    Now, I’m not saying one thing is better than another. It’s just the the the flow of life was and I I took it strongly as the as the Lord’s guide guidance and accepted it and and joyfully so because I’m very, very happy and and content life. Oh, I think the theme of submitting to and allowing the Lord to work in your life very much did come out in the book. I think it it, it was, it was strong for. Sure.

79. 38:56

    That was my objective. I, I really wanted that flavour and it’s not, it’s not a contrast, hopefully not a contrived theme, but I just, I just felt that the, that was the central theme I wanted to convey that the Lord does direct one’s life. If one proceeds in prayer and, and with a good spiritual back background, which I was given, then the Lord’s erection is, is absolutely critical.

80. 39:20

    And I I I accepted them. Well, you’re you’ve taken the opportunity to go and do some study at Yale. So you left Sydney, left Adelaide and went to the US. Another new experience. Well, that was a big change, you know, because that was again provided by the Reserve Bank. The Reserve Bank was just just an extraordinary employer in that sense. And and again seems odd to say for Central Bank to be got directed.

81. 39:51

    It seems very odd to say that, but it was because he opened up all these different opportunities. So I, I had, I took this graduate degree at Yale University, which is a, a very, it was, it was challenging because it’s a very good university and, and the style of the style of teaching there is, is different.

82. 40:13

    When I was used to at the University of Adelaide, it was very, very, very, very. How would you say that the teaching was not just a professor standing up front, Just. Talking for an hour, it was all interactive and I, I was just not used to that style of, of instruction at all. So and you, you just had to contribute. And so it was, it was challenging, but, and of course some of the professors, they were very well known as some very good economists there.

83. 40:40

    So, so the experience was, was a challenge professionally, but very rewarding, I would say. But they, they, the very nice thing about is that the Yale University is, it’s, it’s only about 30 miles away, I guess, from the Meriden Ecclesia and the Meriden Ecclesia in Connecticut and Central in central Connecticut. And so I, I joined, when I was there, I joined the Meriden Ecclesia, which was a charming ecclesia, just lovely. And they were, they, I had the fondest memories of the times I was there.

84. 41:14

    They looked after me. Yeah, of course, I was living in the Hall of graduate studies at university. So it was so nice to get away from the university and the pressure of the university. There’ll always be a Sunday to look forward to and the the fellowship and hospitality that they provided was very, very memorable.

85. 41:31

    You have to tell the story of when you arrived there first. Oh, well, yes, well, the very first Sunday I was, I was there. I, the, as I said, the university was about 30 miles away from the Meridian Ecclesia and I booked a taxi to take me the next morning to the treasure hall.

86. 41:53

    And I, and they, they said that they, there’s a shortage of regular taxis and they’ll be providing a, a stretch limousine. So I was alarmed, you know, Oh my, I thought it was very amusing at first then and I got closer and closer to the treasure hall. Oh dear. What are the, what are the local brothers and sisters going to trying to think of this as this Australian, young Australian brother arriving at the scene and, and I arrived at the time of maximum embarrassment actually, because the, it was a, it was a period between the finishing of the Sunday school and, and the memorial service.

87. 42:35

    So quite a lot of the folks were outside and on the lawns. And so here I was arriving in this enormous car. That’s all the black car. Oh dear. I, I was never, I was never allowed to forget that moment. A great introduction to your new ecclesial home for the next little while. Yes, it was and the music, but that, that was an ecclesia of about 50 members or so and, and very nice, very nice ecclesia and extremely hospitable.

88. 43:04

    And then during the summer months, I, I, I was given an Employment Opportunity in Washington, but then of course, took the chance to visit some of the American Bible schools. So, and at that time I thought Wilbraham was the main, Wilbraham was the main school which I went to. And that was, you know, I was, there was a member of all those, Brother Harry Whitaker was a speaker, I think, and Brother Alfred Norris. It was just a, it was a panel of biblical experts. So that was that was a time to remember. You returned to Sydney via the Soviet Union. Yeah, well, I was wanting to sort of maximise opportunities and the Reserve Bank typically was saying just come back anywhere you like.

89. 43:54

    So which they’ve done on the way back from London, you know, I mentioned through Israel and Africa. So I thought, well why not try something good ambitious. I always ask them, you know, if this is reasonable or they always said yes, it’s fine. So, so I threw from the US they’re back to I went through the UK for then went on to the Soviet Union. When it still was the Soviet Union, I stopped in Leningrad and and Moscow in the middle of winter. Oh my, it was freezing and, and even more so in Helsinki and Finland, where, where, where the weather was. I don’t know how many degrees below freezing, but that was interesting.

90. 44:37

    I, I found, I found Leningrad, well, Saint Peters very much more interesting than Moscow because it has all the, has all the Russian history, the, the Hermitage, the old, the Irish palaces and so on. And, and even, and the whole Leningrad or Saint Petersburg extremely attractive city in, in particularly from a historical perspective.

91. 44:59

    So, so that was, that was interesting. And I flew on from Russia down to down to India and then stopped up in Sri Lanka. It was Salon and then back home. And back to Sydney for a period of time in the overall in your overall life a short time. Yeah, that was interesting because I, I went back to Sydney for and rejoined the Board of Closure and I was happy to be back there.

92. 45:26

    And then then the opportunity came up to to be seconded to the IMF, the International Monetary Fund in Washington. And I was offered a three month, a three-year secondment. Of course, it was a bit awkward actually, because I had to be very careful that I didn’t upset the Reserve Bank. The Reserve Bank had been so good to me with these training, all the rest of that, I just couldn’t announce that I was going to take this secondment. So I make quite sure that the Reserve Bank was happy and at the time they got, the Reserve Bank was very liberal in the sense he, he felt that you work for international organization that’s good for Australia and so on. So, so I, I again, I went to the, I went to the IMF with the Reserve Bank’s blessing.

93. 46:20

    Really they didn’t require me to resign. They gave me 3, three years leave of absence to, to work in, in the IMF of Washington. So that that that gave me time to work out whether how I felt about working and living in the in the United States. So whereabouts was that? Where did you go for there for that?

94. 46:40

    Well, the IMF is based in, in Washington and the the IMF, the International Monetary Fund is a, is a international sort of financial agency where most countries in the world are members. Well, the most. And initially I worked in the, in the research department of the IMF, But then then after you’ve been there for a while, you’re, you’re, you’re, you, you work on a particular country,

95. 47:12

    you, you’re, and you sort of wait with bated breath to work out what this country will be because you don’t know, it could be anywhere, really anywhere in the world and as placed in the European department or the IMF. And then the nitty gritty, what, what country are you going to work on?

96. 47:32

    And and then then I was astonished, actually astonished. And this is another case of of God direction. I was astonished by being asked whether I would like to to work on Israel because Israel was at that time would not the Middle East department would not accept Israel as a member. So Israel was actually administered by the European Department of the IMF. The economic relations were emissive in the European Department.

97. 48:02

    So, so I was my first assignment, the country assignment for, for the IMF, my first country assignment was, was Israel. And that was wonderful. Of course, you know, I went there many times to work. At the time, Israel was having a, quite a major, a major economic problem. So they were borrowing very, quite substantially from different organisations, including the IMF. So, so these are these were negotiating missions for the loans I took from the IMF.

98. 48:41

    But of course it gave me an A new dimension or a new opportunity to to learn more about Israel because people there quickly, the authorities there quickly got the message. I was interested in biblical history. So, so they’re very good to me the way they took me to different places, you know what during breaks, you know what have you walking towards Jerusalem and so on, so on.

99. 49:06

    So that was that was one of the clearest indications of God direction working on Israel. I was just, I didn’t ask for just this happened. Amazing. You would have had the privilege of being able to see the difference in Israel or particularly Jerusalem, I guess between 1965 and then later in the late 60s, early 70s after the Six Day War. It would have been amazing to go back and have that different experience.

100. 49:35

     Well, it was, it was and and without name dropping, without when I went on these missions with the IMF, with the IMF, Israel, you meant the first, the first week or so of the visits on 10 days. Where? Where technical, where you’re discussing the economic programs and so on. The second, the second round was with the senior people, the ministers where you’re where the team was negotiating the the final terms of the loans.

101. 50:05

     And that meant that, yeah, that gave me an opportunity to, to me something these quite these people who are well known, Simon Perez and and Nashua Dayan, they were there, they were ministers of the time. But so and ABBA Ebam, here’s the foreign minister. So that was a dimension which would have been normally out of reach.

102. 50:27

     And it would say interesting hearing on speak and even commencing, of course, with some of them, quite a few of the meeting. So that was a a background which which I valued very much. And then incidentally on that. So when I was at Yale University, it was a side, side issue. When I was at Yale University, God of Maya’s son was in that was in the music power and studying cello. And so I always went to her talks. It was very, it was very interesting listening to to these leaders.

103. 51:00

     And you realize when you hit listen to them, you realize that these are just ordinary, ordinary people on the way or they they gifted many respects, obviously, but the ordinary people who thrust into into important positions. Yeah, but that was a very nice aspect of the of the work involvement. You could meet some people which were which were which you normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to do. And the other point that you’ve very mentioned is that going back subsequently you see the changes, you know, that’s that was very that’s very interesting. Can you?

104. 51:35

     You could spend a lot of time on this, but just for us lay people, briefly explain what the IMF does and I guess why you were going to Israel, what you were doing. And then I’m also interested in connecting that with, you know, your view on the extraordinary development of Israel as a nation, even financially across those decades.

105. 51:57

     Well, it’s, it’s an interesting question. I don’t want to bore you or listen to the details, but the, the IMF is, it was mainly you can advise, so offers advice to all these member countries. They every year or more, they assess the economic situation of these countries and, and recommend actions. Of course, these are sovereign governments who can do what they like, but that the import from the IMF is usually take into account quite a bit.

106. 52:23

     So there’s the advisory side, but the, the side which I, I was in, involved in more was the, the loan negotiations. Because particularly the time when I was going there for work, this row was not terrible economic situation that there was hyperinflation, the inflation rate was over 1000%. And so they were, they were needing to borrow quite, quite heavily. And so with, with lines of this sort, you, you have to negotiate the terms, you know, what the exchange rate policy will be, what the monetary policy would be or what it’s up to them in the in the end to decide whether they accept the advice or not. But it’s a negotiation or show back and forth. So to determine whether the loan will be could go forward or not. And as A at the time, the, as I say, the Israeli economy was in very bad shape.

107. 53:15

     In fact, hyperinflation was so bad that the not the normal joke was that if you took it went from A to B, you took the bus rather than taxi because the bus you pay upfront, whereas by taxi you pay when you reached the destination, right? Yes. By the time you reached the station by but, but but taxi, the inflation’s gone up 50%.

108. 53:39

     So, so the IMF is a, is a, is a, is a advisory institution and, and the lending authority and under the aegis of the of the United Nations. It’s it’s we, we travel around the UN passports, which itself was very nice because it gave us benefits. So reflecting on Israel, where it came from obviously in 1948 through that those troubled times of the 70s where reading between the lines, they could have gone broke in in inverted commas to where they are today, almost an economic powerhouse. What are your thoughts on that?

109. 54:18

     Well, that’s a very interesting question because because Israel does not have great resources, really it doesn’t. So I, I won’t, I’ll never get a statement by Shahram, who at the time was agricultural agricultural minister. He was explaining that the resource constraints in Israel and he was saying that Israel has a, an economic advantage in oranges and soldiers. It was an unforgettable comment.

110. 54:45

     They haven’t. And then when you reflect Israel does not have, doesn’t have oil resources like like the Arabian states. It’s just, it does not so, and that’s one of the future things that will happen when the Lord returns. It will be, it will flourish like the desert will flourish. It’s a country with very limited resources and the, but it’s had an extraordinary growth because the, the people are so technically skilled that they, they developed all these technical industries, these high tech industries, you know, where they have the, the wonderful expertise and they, and the, the growth of the country, the economic growth of the country has been quite remarkable given the, given the general paucity you, you think of Israel relative to the Arabian states, which are awash with oil and all that. Israel doesn’t really have very much and not in this dispensation.

111. 55:35

     And so it’s, it’s quite miraculous. I think you’re saying that they’ve done so well and the, and the growth rate is very high. And how they ever managed to financiate event spending is beyond me because they get a lot of external help on that. But, but the defence spending for a small country of only about 9 million people is, is extremely onerous.

112. 55:56

     So, so it’s, it is somewhat of an economic miracle I would say, and a very fascinating case of again, I’ve got the reckon. Well, you didn’t know it at the time, but when you moved to Washington, you were going to be there for I think it was nearly 50 years, was it? Yeah, yeah.

113. 56:13

     So after the three years I mentioned, I, I was there initially advised a common from the Reserve Bank. After the end of three years, I just had to either decide to go back to the Reserve Bank, return to Sydney or to stay on and watch it. And that was a, that was a major, that was a major decision.

114. 56:32

     I eventually signed my, my resignation letter from the Reserve Bank and with a sort of a trembling hand really, because that was, they’ve been absolutely wonderful for me and to me and I made quite sure they were happy that I was doing this. I didn’t, I didn’t want to do anything which would upset them. And so I, I, I resigned from the Zerbank and joined the permanent staff of the IMF and was with them for 30 years. So a long time really, from 1971 to 2001. And then that gave you extraordinary opportunities to get involved in in Africa and the subcontinent as well. Tell us about some of those experiences. Well, as I mentioned earlier, I was initially in the, initially I was in the research department. Then I went to the, as I said to the European Department that I, I worked on Israel, but then, then I went to many missions on all over Europe, Portugal, Greece, Spain, Malta, Finland, Yugoslavia, Romania, some of them several times. And oddly enough, South Africa.

115. 57:39

     I was still on the European Obama because nobody else would have South Africa. So, so I went on missions to South Africa as well. I suppose, I’m not sure, almost 20 years, I guess on the European Obama, which is very interesting because visiting all these countries trips would be about two or three weeks at a time.

116. 58:00

     You know, these negotiating trips were two or three weeks at a time. So you, they weren’t long protracted absences from Washington, from home there. That was sort of, they were not, not terribly intrusive even from an ecclesial point of view. But of course, I made good use of visiting ecclesias I in Germany and Finland and most of these places in South Africa are mostly places I visited ecclesias and, and some of the some of my mission leaders are the the heads of the sections that they knew that I had a scriptural interest. And on Sundays, they would never, I found this quite touching actually, that, that that’d always free me on, on Sunday mornings to go to a local or cliche service, particularly when I was going to Africa, when there’s so many, so much cliche activity that they don’t, they don’t, they’d often give me the freedom to, to visit the cliches and have time off from work for a few hours.

117. 59:10

     So then after, after all those years in European apt I, I transferred to the African apartment. And that was, that was absolutely wonderful, unforgettable. Because I, in that particular case, I was asked, what country would you like to work on? And I said I’d love to work on Malawi. And Malawi at that time, of course, was, was was was growing leaps and bounds occasionally. And so I went to Malawi many, many times and Mozambique and Zimbabwe and.

118. 59:44

     And you’ve seen that, seen the gospel message grow amazingly in those years. Well, the most amazing was Malawi Malawi’s as you probably know from the magazines, Malawi now has a Christopian membership of about 10,000 I think and then and the ALS story for Mozambique. The current membership of Mozambique Ecclesia is about 11,000. And when you go to Malawi, driving around Malawi, it’s just like driving around Birmingham really. You drive around there’s, there’s a, there’s a glacier here and the glacier there, another village, there’s another creature there.

119. 1:00:20

     And of course I went to got a lot of these eclipses and I found that totally charming. Just the most of them. You walk through the cornfields or they’re out in the rural areas you and you go to unpretentious sort of mud Hut, but and sitting in a African crucial service. I, I found it exceptionally uplifting.

120. 1:00:43

     Just wonderful really. And so I’ve always had a special affection for Malawi, which is a very, I must say, a very biblical country in a way. And and and notably so even even in business life, I remember quite well some of the speeches after the speeches get them business speeches that that they allow in central bank governor or something or other would cite something from make a point and and cite them or reinforce the by some scriptural quotation. And I remember very well one occasion where the mission leader asked me he had to prepare some after dinner after dinner response.

121. 1:01:24

     He wanted to make a point. He said, Ron, can you can you find me a scriptural quotation which will support the right support the point I’m making whatever it was. So I did that and and when, when when buses roll down the street in Malawi, they have signs on the side. You know, God is good and you get off the bus and they’re playing God and be with you. Join me again.

122. 1:01:49

     It’s a very it’s a remarkably religious country or Christian country in that sense. And, and because of the, the fascinating influence of David Livingstone, you know, I’m sure you read the history of Livingston, the great explorer, His influence on that area is, is, is right, comes right down to modern times. But, but it’s, it’s very fascinating to me to see the Malawian and the Mozambican exclusion particularly doing so extraordinarily well.

123. 1:02:21

     And the other area which we need to talk about is the subcontinent, India and Bangladesh in particular. Well, that, that’s right, that’s coming towards now the end of my career with the IMF as you, when you’ve been in the IMF for quite a long time, you, you become eligible for what they call a resident representative Osama. So in other words, you, you represent the IMF in that country.

124. 1:02:43

     And they’re not all that easy to, to get assigned to, but they’re attractive in many ways. So I, I didn’t want to finish the IMF career without that, that sort of experience. I really wanted to go to Sri Lanka. Actually, I wanted to take the IMF position there as a small office located in the country for two or three years, not travelling to and from Washington.

125. 1:03:06

     You’re actually located in the country, but two or three years. And I wanted to go to Sri Lanka, but it wasn’t available. The only, the only option I could take was, was in Bangladesh. That didn’t enthuse me too much. Being a Muslim country, I thought the, the prospects of being fruitful in a missionary sense wouldn’t be all that promising. I knew that work wise I knew it would be very interesting. But but then I suddenly realised that maybe the Lord’s telling you, you know, somewhere which you haven’t thought of before. So I accepted the position in Bangladesh and three had three wonderful, wonderful years.

126. 1:03:45

     They really just work wise. It was extremely interesting working there on the economic issues of Bangladesh. But then having an opportunity to witness and especially witness in a country where which is basically Muslim, it was a challenge, but it’s it’s another growth, spiritual growth experience. And we have a number of residents, sisters in Bangladesh now.

127. 1:04:10

     Yes we do. It’s a yes we do. We have 3, three main Eclis in English now it’s, it’s a difficult country. It’s heavily populated and, and it’s not easy to witness there because you can’t, you can’t give out literature. Of course, in a Muslim country, lots of things you can’t do. But the long and short of I, I didn’t know how to go about this because the work wise, I was very busy. But I, I how to, how to witness the first few weeks. I was a bit puzzled.

128. 1:04:40

     How am I going to do anything useful here when you can’t give out this, which you can’t do this, you can’t do that. And I looked through the, I got an idea, a God directed idea, I think to look through the telephone book and I, I saw two reference on the Bible. One was Bible Society of Bangladesh. Another one was Bible student Fellowship of Bangladesh. So I rang the number of Bible student culture of Bangladesh. And, and so I’d like to have a chat to you about what you’re doing here.

129. 1:05:06

     So I went out there to see them and I think they found it rather unusual for a foreigner, A diplomat, to so be showing interest in their activities. And they asked me, you know what, my background, I gave all the Christopher background. I didn’t hide anything. I, I said we’re not mainstream ortho Christianity at all, but we were very keen Bible students. And then after a week or two, they said, would you like to lead one of our studies here?

130. 1:05:38

     Oh. Wow. And and they asked me what, what have you been studying lately? When I said I’ve been studying the Acts of the Apostles, and the Acts of the Apostles I think is a wonderful book where you can just you don’t seem as though you’re imposing A doctrinal view. You just go through the book.

131. 1:05:52

     And what did Peter say about this? And what? Yeah, also something else. Let the apostles tell the story. That, that them speak and that that was, that was very remarkable because the response I have from the students, they, they, they said, you know, can we meet outside the classes, you know, have additional classes.

132. 1:06:12

     So, so anyway, I’ll continue that to do these classes at the Bible student fellowship. But but one by one, my, a number of them came to my home, the IMF home. There was which and from that the the early ones were baptized. That led to the baptism of quite a few. And then that led to others, you know, family connections and things like that.

133. 1:06:38

     So the preaching was there. It wasn’t, none of it was by advertisement or it was all but basically by word of mouth. And that was very exciting because it was just another yet one more answer of prayer. And so I, I still have the greatest affection to it for the folks in Bangladesh, you know, they, they need our prayers. It’s not a, it’s not an easy country at all. It’s very congested and difficult and economic problems are plenty.

134. 1:07:09

     But we’ve got some faithful, we’ve got some very faithful members there now. An extraordinary opportunity that you had, but the time had to come to an end because you had a a forced retirement. You were a compulsory retirement, as it was. Yeah, well, that’s right. When, when the IMF, when you’re 601065, you, you have to retire.

135. 1:07:32

     So that’s it. And I didn’t mind if it’d been a that’s another stage of life, you know, that was it. I’d had a particularly fulfilling employment which led all sorts of directions, especially I thought which never never envisaged. None of it was planned. It all happened and that’s why I feel they the the whole issue of God direction is so important. Not none of that was planned.

136. 1:08:00

     It was just happened happened, happened one after another and and that’s one that just led to it just led to one spiritual opportunity after another. Then yeah, retirement came yes. And I stayed on in the US for a while. What brought you back to Australia? Yes. I stayed on the US because I I enjoyed a casual life there very much and I knew many brother than sisters and and I also did quite a bit of travelling because in North America you have more chances to go to Britain and that more more easily than Australia.

137. 1:08:33

     But but when you when the years climb, you’ve got to think of the the wisdom of things. And so I I thought it was hard time to come back to my hometown. So that led eventually to return to to Adelaide, my hometown. And then we have the full circle. Yeah, we come. We come back to where you belong. As you look back on your life, what’s a take away message? What’s 1 of the the most important reflections you can share with us?

138. 1:09:02

     I, I do think it’s a question of, it’s an issue really of how the Lord directs you at the time. You don’t often see it that way, but in retrospect, you can see it. You’re meant to do this or you’re meant to go to India or you’re meant to go to the US and it turns out to be open up vistas of as you haven’t even thought about before. Really.

139. 1:09:23

     My feeling is, I don’t know whether you agree with me on this. I feel that the law directs our lives much more than we sometimes acknowledge. And, and that’s something that you see in retrospect, you see it more when you’re older. You can look back, you know, you can see, well, that was remarkable that you’re working on Israel as a remarkable, but it just all happened.

140. 1:09:44

     So I, I just have a strong feeling that that the, the, the life is like a flowing stream. And, but I think the Lord is in that flowing stream that guides and shapes you and leads you and, and opens up opportunities for you, which it turned out to be evidence of, of, of providential gardens.

141. 1:10:11

     Sometimes we don’t talk about that too much and we’re sometimes a bit disinclined even to talk about, about testimonies and this sort of thing. And that language is probably not the best. But I think more discussion about how the Lord leads us and will lead us is is very important for faithful service. I don’t know whether you agree on that. That’s.

142. 1:10:37

     I think what seems evident to me is you. You had a great foundation in terms of your outlook on life, your biblical outlook, and you allowed God to work in your life. Well, do you give that? You just give the Lord thanks. And you realise when you get older it’s quite short. Really.

143. 1:10:56

     That goes by quick, pretty quickly. And you, yeah, want to waste time. We can be real procrastinators waiting for this and waiting for that. Sometimes the Lord is guarding us and we need to respond very quickly. Because when you essentially when you get in beyond into well into retirement years, you realize that the life is just like it is a vapor. It’s just it’s just come and gone. And so that that means that you one has to be make good use of the four score years or whatever it might happen to be. It’s, it’s a limited, it’s quite a limited brokerage, which means that every moment has to be thought through carefully as much as we can and and and not just wasted. Ron, thanks very much for joining Wilderness Conversations.

144. 1:11:43

     It’s a pleasure. It’s a pleasure to be with you.