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Welcome everybody. I’m Ruth Amos from ruthamos.com.au and today I’m with Patricia. Welcome Patricia. Do you want to be called Patricia?

Yes.

And Patricia is someone very special because I don’t know her. This is the first interview I’ve done with someone I don’t know at all. Personally. But Patricia knows my family and my great uncle and aunt and everybody so that’s the way it goes.

But I saw a video that Patricia did at a recent training day and I thought, ‘I have to have this person on my podcast.’ So I rang her up and she’s been very gracious and has come on my podcast which is lovely. So I really appreciate that and I think you will be as blown away by her story as I was.

But no pressure, Patricia.

Thank you

You’re very welcome.

Thank you very much. Look if my story helps somebody else, that’s all that’s important really. I was very reluctant to do it, actually, for the training day.

It’s a wonderful story.

However, God won. God won the battle.

He tends to do that.

He does, doesn’t he?

So can you tell us how you became a Christian?

I was brought up in a large family and my Dad and Mum were really very busy. I was born in 1930 and that was just the time when our society was beginning to emerge from the Great Depression. And my Mum and Dad, I never remember them reading the Bible. They had a Bible, a very big family bible up on top of their dresser in the sitting room, and as kids we had to climb up on a stool to get the Bible down to answer our Sunday School lessons. Because they sent us to Sunday School, and occasionally they would come to church.

But because there were so many of us and my Dad was a butcher and he raised his own stock, killed his own stock, and sold his own stock, he had two runs to the country twice a week. So they had really busy lives. Because he had to grow crops as well to feed to the cattle and so on.

So how many children were there?

Seven.

So we were sent to Sunday School but I never ever heard about a relationship with God. So I grew up thinking, if you try hard to be good, I thought well if was a good kid and I didn’t disobey my Mum and Dad too much, then maybe one day when I die I’d go to heaven.

That’s not quite the gospel is it?

Not quite the gospel, no.

But anyway there were two families, one lovely family had a lot of boys and one daughter. And also our Bible study lady who was a spinster, she taught us Bible stories. And I think that, looking back I really think that she had a relationship with God.

So one night there was an evangelist, a travelling evangelist who came to our town (Ulverstone up on the North West Coast) and the daughter, the only daughter of this family, said to me, ‘would you come?’ So I had to get permission from my Mum and she, when she heard I was going with this lovely lady, she was very happy for me to go.

So that was the first time I ever heard that being a Christian wasn’t just rocking up to church and Sunday School, and trying to do right. That everyone has sinned and fallen short of God’s standards and that I needed to have a relationship with him.

And he made it very clear that Jesus had died for my sin, had made this way for me to know him. And it didn’t happen right then and there, I walked around for two months feeling very convicted. One night just walking along I stopped at the end of our street and said, ‘I can’t go on any longer.’ Because one of the verses he’d used and it was with me all the time, was from Revelation 3:20 ‘I’m standing outside the door and knocking, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I’ll come in and have fellowship with him and he with me.’

So I’d had this thing happening, my mind thinking, I haven’t opened that door of my heart to him. So I just answered, ‘I want you to come into my life’ and of course, he did. And that began the relationship.

Somebody, I must have told somebody and I can’t remember whom I told, but I was given a little John’s gospel, a little pocket gospel. I was 16 at the time and I was in my last year at high school. And I used to take this little gospel with me and read it whenever I got an opportunity. But always under cover because I was scared that if somebody found out that I was a Christian I wouldn’t have any friends. Isn’t it interesting? And that obviously was so important to me at that time.

However, God was at work, and his Spirit was at work, and I became thirsty and hungry to know him more.

When I was 17 I started nursing training and there was a group of lovely Christian nurses at the hospital and they took me under their wing and helped me grow as a Christian and we had lovely fellowship.

It’s really interesting, somebody shared with me just recently that we’re in the family, God brings us into the family through a relationship with Jesus. But then we grow in the family because we need the family to help us grow, wherever that might be.

I love that.

Yeah, it’s good isn’t it? I love that too, I thought it was good.

So that’s how I became a Christian.

So did you work, you worked as a nurse and that was your major work through your life?

Yes, I did, in those days it was four years general training and then I met this handsome young man from Launceston and he said, ‘when you do midwifery, come to Launceston and do your training there.’

So you were planning to do midwifery? Or did he tell you to?

No, no. He didn’t tell me to. I was planning to do it.

And so off I went, but just before I went, his father – he worked at his father’s shop – and that was sold. They’d been trying to sell it for years and couldn’t sell it, and eventually it sold and he was without a job. And his uncle who was in Coonarven in WA said, ‘come and work for us’. So the whole of the time I was doing midwifery training, which was nine months, he was away. But in hindsight it was good because I could concentrate on my studies.

So I did my midwifery and then I worked, I only worked for about six months in hospitals. My Mum was very ill and my sister who was just a bit older than me had been caring for her and she got married. So I went home to look after my Mum.

And then about twelve months later, I got married. And we had six children, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. We had five boys and the fifth boy presented with jaundice and he was orange when he was born. We didn’t know that my husband was Rh+ and I’m Rh– so the Rhesus factor was strong. And Chris had to go from Ulverstone to Launceston for an exchange transfusion. So then, after we got through all that, they said, ‘Don’t have any more children.’ Because they’ll be badly affected.

Well about four years later my daughter started to make her presence felt and it was a very hard pregnancy because we’d been told she could be stillborn, or miscarried, or brain-damaged. And so she was born six weeks premature, she had to be brought on, because she was badly affected. And they told us twice in three days that she wouldn’t make it through the night.

I’m telling you all this because I think this is all leading into what comes next.

I was so tired. But we got through and went through lots of hoops to have her blood taken, and another transfusion after she’d come home after six weeks in hospital. And life was pretty hectic.

With five boys and an unwell daughter, yeah. That would do it, that would make it hectic.

Yeah it did.

I was about 42 I’ve worked out when I entered into this horrible depression.

We would just say that was postnatal depression now?

Well my daughter, by this time she would have been seven. So I was tired. It could have been a form of postnatal depression and I just battled through it, and then there was a catalyst that started it all off. It was bang, bang, bang, anyway …

So I entered into that. There’s a lot that I can’t remember about that time which is really good.

I know I was on anti-depressant drugs and walking around feeling like a zombie, and feeling like ‘I can’t do this’. It all got so bad I just wanted to opt off the planet.

I tried a couple of times, but thankfully unsuccessfully.

And one of my sons came home from uni on holiday to find his Mum really depressed. And he said, ‘Mum, why are you depressed?’ I ended up saying, ‘They’re saying I’m having a breakdown.’ A nervous breakdown they said in those days.

And he said, ‘Have you memorised scripture?’

I said, ‘Yes, but I haven’t got the brain to remember it. My brain is so tired.’

He said, ‘You can remember where you live, your phone number, and a few other things. You can memorise scripture.’

So he got me going on memorising scripture. Not only that, but he taught me how to meditate. And I had never been taught about meditating on God’s word.

He said, ‘I want you to learn this verse.’ He was associated with The Navigators. And they were very strong on scripture.

He said, ‘When I come home for my next holiday I want you to memorise these twelve verses, and I want you to tell me how you’ve meditated on them.’ And he started off with Philippians 4:13 ‘I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.’

And I realised that I hadn’t really been relying on Christ to give me strength up to this time. So I guess I’d reverted to being a nominal Christian. You know, to turn up at church and look good. And in those days you wouldn’t dare tell anybody that you were depressed. Because that would be so un-Christian.

However, I’ve found it very freeing since all this thing happened, this video thing that wasn’t intended for anybody else but clergy in Melbourne.

Anyway, I was climbing up to get all the medication I had. I kept the medication in the house in the top shelf in a high cupboard. And I thought, ‘I’m going to take it all.’ When my Mum was really sick, just before she died, we had to give her morphine injections. So I knew that the leftovers were there and I thought, ‘I’ll take everything I can find.’

I was climbing up the steps, and into my head came, ‘I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.’ And it was almost like that voice saying, ‘If you trust me I’ll give you the strength to get through this.’

So I got down and I got through the first hour and so on, and so on. I got through the first day, and through the first week. And it went on and on and on.

And I won’t say I was never depressed again, I was. But because I was learning to trust God’s word, it came alive to me. That was what really got me through.

Do you have any tips for meditating on scripture that you could tell us?

Well only what was shared with me, and it seems to be effective. Even with one favourite verse, we’ll take that one for instance, I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength. So what does it say? Who is relying on Christ? I. Can – take it word by word, and then take it phrase by phrase. Think about who you trust in to give you the strength. God is. What a promise! That he will give us the strength if we trust him. So it’s really just taking it little by little and thinking about it and somehow the Spirit of God takes that.

And opens it up to you.

Yes.

So instead of thinking about how miserable I was, I began to really find that God was giving me that strength.

And you rewrite the pathways in your brain, don’t you?

I think that’s probably what is happening, yeah.

Although I’m sure it’s encouraging for people to hear that it wasn’t a miracle cure that just changed everything overnight. It’s a journey.

Yes it was. And it was really interesting because not long after I’d come through that initial stage of trusting God and getting that into my thinking, I was reading in the Psalms one day and Psalm 92 and I think it’s about verse 12 to 15, it’s talking about those who have been made righteous in God (through Christ of course, there’s no other way) that we’re like palm trees. What’s a palm tree like? Strong, tall. Or a ceder of Lebanon and that’s a tall tree, a strong tree. And even in their old age they will still remain fresh and green and bear fruit and be able to say at the end of their life, ‘the Lord is good.’ So I underlined it, I thought, ‘that’s so lovely’ you know how when you’re reading the Bible sometimes, the Spirit of God makes it jump out at you and you think ‘that’s beautiful.’ So I underlined it and I thought, ‘I don’t think God could ever use me when I’ve tried to opt off the planet, when I’ve been so tired, and so whatever and the focus would go back on me.’ And I forgot about it. It was in my very old Bible.

And then we had all these wonderful young people come in because we started using the Navigator Bible studies. We had nurses from the hospital come and say, ‘Would you do Bible studies with us? Will you pray with us?’ And we said ‘Yes, when can you come?’ ‘Six o’clock on Monday morning?’

Oh OK! Good, good.

So we had all these lovely young people coming and we were helping them, but they didn’t realise that they were strengthening me as well.

So that was a beautiful time in our lives. And I was doing Bible studies that really encouraged me and helped me as a mum and a wife. That was great.

And one of the wonderful Bible studies was The Way of Agape by Nancy Missler. And she’s gone to be with the Lord now. So we got her out to the North West Coast and she had a seminar with us so that was the beginning of a journey of being refreshed and refilled. That’s an ongoing thing, isn’t it? Billy Graham says, ‘I leak. The trouble is, I leak.’ And so we have to keep on being filled.

And that was my first encounter. I guess it was an encounter with the Spirit that I hadn’t really understood before. I know I received the Spirit of God when I became a Christian, because things changed. But I think I didn’t understand what it meant to be filled with God’s Spirit until I went through that time.

When we retired to Port Sorell there were two lovely women that I used to meet weekly with and pray. One of them was associated with Prison Fellowship. I don’t know if you know anything about that. It was started by Charles Colson that was during President Nixon’s presidency when the Watergate affair happened with the secret papers. And Charles Colson was the scapegoat for President Nixon.

President Nixon didn’t go to prison but he was, what do you say when a president is dethroned?

Impeached.

Yes, that’s right. He was impeached and Charles Colson went to prison. And he was horrified when he saw the condition of American prisons. And he thought, ‘I’ve got to do something about this.’ He’d become a real believer, he was a head believer, a nominal Christian like I was I guess, but just before he went into prison he became really born again. And that was a journey from brokenness to healing. And when he came out he started this Prison Fellowship. It’s world-wide. There’s volunteers in every state in Australia. This last year they just opened the organisation in the Northern Territory. So we’re just hoping that those lovely Aboriginal people will get to benefit from that because there’s been some horrible things happening there. So that’s lovely and there are a couple of workers there now.

So Prison Fellowship we were praying for in our little weekly prayer group. And then when David died, my husband died, I stayed on for another five years. We had ten years there together and then I stayed on for another five.

And then my eldest son said, ‘Mum we’re buying a property and we’d like to build a granny flat, will you come and live with us.’ So that’s how I’m here. They built this on.

And it’s a beautiful place. Just gorgeous.

Yes, it is lovely.

So, you moved down to Hobart to this Granny flat …

And then a dear friend from the same area where I lived, was sent to prison for something that he didn’t do. And his wife wasn’t well, and I said to her, ‘would you like me to go and visit, when you can’t visit, when you can’t come down. Like, in-between visits.’ She said, ‘Oh that would be wonderful.’

We went in and it was so in your face, so daunting, it was horrible. Going through security and seeing sad people. Hearing people shouting out. It was just horrible.

I remember there was a dear old couple, a couple of months older than me, but a dear old couple and I’m sure it was their son they were going to visit. And I thought how sad to have to come and visit your son in prison.

So I thought I’ve got to do more. So I took this need to a prayer group I was involved with. One of the ladies she’s actually physically disabled, but a warrior, a prayer warrior.

She said, ‘We have to do something about this. We have to go to that prison and sit in the carpark in our cars and we have to pray for that prison.’

So we went for about three or four years. And then she couldn’t drive her car so I used to go, and still do. About once a fortnight I go to the outside and pray for the prison.

But I started to pray that God would show me what I could do. What else I could do. And I  went to an Art From the Inside exhibition. It’s put on by the Prison Fellowship every year. Each state gets prisoners to paint or do craft and they have an exhibition that is open to the public. And I went to the one that was in the old Cambridge St gaol. I was so moved by the stories of why they had written about this particular theme that I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, I’ve got to somehow reach them, somehow, I don’t know how.’

And so I mentioned it to the then manager for Tasmania, Ray Metcalfe, and he said, ‘will you come in to observe, I’d love for you to come in to the Shine program’ Have you heard of Shine?

I’ve heard of Shine. But in high schools.

It was originally designed for high schools but they’ve also adapted it for prison.

And I said, ‘What do you do?’

So he gave me a manual and I thought, ‘I don’t know about this, I don’t think I could do this’. However, I developed cancer, so it was put on hold, and I had surgery and I thought, ‘oh well, that’s it I suppose, I’m not going to get into prison.

Most people aren’t disappointed about not getting into prison.

[laughter]

That’s right.

Anyway, the thing I dreaded, I sailed through the surgery ok, and then was about to go back to see the surgeon to see if I needed chemo. and I was in panic mode, I dreaded chemo. At my stage in life, why would they want to keep me alive anyway? And I had to really face up to this trauma of me going through that. And so my daughter had given me a beautiful song that she’d written out for when I had the surgery. It’s called Oceans. And I thought, well that’s lovely, yes, I got through that alright. But when I was having this panic attack I thought, ‘What am I going to do, Father? What am I going to do?’

Well, ‘Get that poem out, get that song out’.

So I got the song out and read it again, and that’s when it became really, it really ministered to me and it got me through. Just thinking about, well, it was like he was saying to me, ‘I’ve been faithful to you and got you through the surgery, don’t you think I’m still with you? When the waters rise keep your eyes on me.’

I’m a slow learner, I think.

I think we all are. We go round and round the mountain.

So I went off to see the surgeon really at peace. And he said, ‘Do you want the good or the bad news?’

And I said, ‘Oh well, whichever. Whatever.’

So he said, ‘Well I had to take out 20 inches of your bowel.’

And I’m thinking, ‘Oh yes, well we have got a lot.’

He said, ‘Yes, you can manage without it. But the good news is, you don’t need chemo. Because I’ve got it all.’

God is so faithful.

Isn’t he?

So five years down the track I haven’t [relapsed], and now I don’t have to go every six months and have checkups or whatever.

So then it was, ‘Now, will you come to prison?’ and then the process of applying and having police checks and all those types of things.

Because that takes quite a long time, doesn’t it?

It does, yes. It was about nine months altogether. So I went into the Shine program. Well I just thought, ‘I just want to take all these ladies home!’

And one of the chaplains at that time said to me, ’85% of the women are here because they haven’t been parented well. They don’t know how to parent. Some of them have had their children taken from them. And they’ve landed themselves in here. The other 15% are because they are victims of domestic violence or for some other reason.’

So I went in and I thought, ‘What am I going to do about this? You’ll have to guide me, Father.’

So I had a lovely time in the Shine program. Two lovely young women, much younger than me, shared with the women and really helped them to learn how to set goals and get a different thinking about what they would do. And I thought, ‘that’s good.’

And then someone said, ‘ Would you be prepared to mentor somebody?’

I love one-on-one.

So I said, ‘Yes, alright, I’ll do that.’ So that was the next step.

And that was a real milestone for me being able to see this lady. I would pray before I went, ‘Father what do you want me to share today?’ and every time he would give me something. I’d get there and she’d say, ‘So what did he give you today for me?’ It was so special.

And then of course it’s been mentoring and visiting since then. And then one lady who had been doing craft wanted to put her attention on visiting, so they said, ‘would you help the lady who goes in to do card making, would you help her with that?’ So that’s what I’ve been doing on a Thursday for two hours in there.

And at that group we have forms in Prison Fellowship and a read out – this is what’s available. You can have somebody visit, you can have somebody do Bible study with you, you can have somebody to check up on your family if they’re struggling. We will help you when you get to going out on a visit outside and coming back – they call it section 42 (I don’t know why). Somebody to just be alongside them and help them out.

So they have to come and say, ‘I’d would really like this.’

Prison Fellowship also provide birthday presents for children up to 16, and the parent can write the sort of things that they would like, and we will buy those and they would write a little verse or something, a little message. Same thing with Christmas presents.

How much of your time, do you reckon this takes up every week?

Well, because two women have come out, that I mentored, I don’t want to see them go back in and I’ve been supporting them and they’ve both have become Christians. One is doing really well and she’s now being supported by someone from a church. She’s doing an Alpha course and she’s really going well.

So after I’ve been in, quite often I go to see her because I’m sort of half-way there to visit. So I guess from the time I leave home on Thursdays, usually just before 9, and I’m probably only home at 3.

That’s a big day

It is for an old woman.

And then the other one I’ve been seeing on Wednesdays and because she has her children it’s just a bit tough at the moment, trying to nail that one down. But anyway, she’s God’s responsibility and I just fit in when I can.

And then on Wednesday afternoons at the moment I’m visiting someone who’s asked for a visit. So I leave home at the same time, just before 9, visit the first one, and then might just have time to go and do some shopping, or just to go and sit quietly or have a nana-nap somewhere like Risdon Vale Dam. And then going back to prison for, it’s only half an hour, but it takes about an hour by the time you get in and get out again.

So I guess probably two full days a week.

And is a similar thing happening in the men’s prison?

Yes. Not card making.

No, really?

I heard on the news that there was around 40 female prisoners but ten times that many male prisoners. So the need is very great there.

Yes it is. And they have three wonderful chaplains. One of them volunteers one day a week and she’s only paid two days a week when she could be paid three. And then there’s two other chaplains, Luke is really the main chaplain and he’s a lovely man. So they do quite a bit and Prison Fellowship, we work in with them ( I think I said that, didn’t I). We work in conjunction with the chaplains.

Once the ladies have filled out requests we hand the request forms to the chaplain and he or she OKs it and then they’ll be in touch with Prison Fellowship who will assign someone for the things.

So I guess we are the main people who do one on one, but there are other organisations who go in, like Hillsong go in for a, they have a worship time. And then there’s a volunteer who goes in and plays her guitar. So she goes in to men’s minimum and medium and they have a service once a fortnight (I think it is).

In my church, it was really interesting because I don’t know if you know anything about the church next to the prison but it’s called Family Church, I think or Community Church, and they do a wonderful job. The pastor there has got that place on his heart, and he’s got a wonderful ministry there and the prison recognise that. He’s started getting children to have video sessions with their parents and he started children’s days where the children can go in. They have to have permission, of the person who is caring. And that’s just an amazing thing that’s been happening.

And I thought, ‘Lord, do you want me to start going to that church? I could probably be more involved with that.’ And I felt God was saying, ‘No, I want you to stay where you are, because I want you to make people aware of what they can do.’

So letter writing is a big thing. And do you know, there are three people at my church now who write letters. And last weekend in our little connect group, where we pray for the prison as well,  these two ladies shared how they’d had a reply from the women that they’d written to and that doesn’t always happen. They were so excited that they got a reply and so encouraged to know that the letters to them was making a difference. So that’s special.

And then, so there are six women altogether now who are involved in Prison Fellowship. So I’m really thankful that God said no, not to go. He said, ‘stay where you are and make it known.’

And how have you found your experience with depression has helped in relating to people in the prison?

I think God uses broken people. I’m sure of that. When you’re willing to let him pick you up and put you together again, it’s very special. Because it’s almost like a rite of passage if you happen to share that I’ve been there.

I have a lovely little illustration of Japanese Art called Kintsugi. Do you know that?

Yeah, but do describe it, it’s amazing.

Well, when I saw it, I just thought, ‘that’s the story of my life’ So I got my daughter in law, she has a printer, and she prints out these beautiful pictures of a piece of pottery that has been broken. And if it’s a special piece of pottery, they don’t chuck it out like we westerners do, and buy another one. They put it together with a glue mixed with gold dust. And it enhances, it makes the art form even more beautiful, through the scars that are enhanced with gold.

And when I found that I thought, ‘it’s so wonderful, that’s what you do God. You take our brokenness.’ It really is Romans 8:28-29 for me because it says (I’m paraphrasing) God uses everything, even the hard things in our lives to make us more into the image of his Son, if we let him, of course. Because he knows beforehand what’s going to happen, and when we’re willing to come to him with our broken pieces and he can mend them and make them even more beautiful, I think that’s so lovely.

So I take these little pictures of the pottery that’s been mended and they use them on their cards sometimes. So they say to me sometimes, because it’s changing, the population in there is changing all the time, so I take them in and they say, ‘What’s this Miss Pat?’ (They call me Miss Pat – that’s my nickname in there.)

‘What’s this Miss Pat?’

‘That’s the story of my life’

‘What do you mean?’

So it gives me this lovely opportunity to say, ‘I’ve been broken.’

‘What? How did you get broken? What do you mean?’

And it gives you the opportunity to say, ‘My life isn’t perfect, it still isn’t. But when you’re in touch with the one who made us, and you bring your brokenness to him, he can mend it and make it even more beautiful. So you have the opportunity while you’re here to let him do that in your lives, if you’re willing.’

So that’s given some opportunities to share.

Would you encourage people to get involved with Prison Fellowship? Here in Tasmania, but also, I’m hoping I’ll have an audience in the wider world so …

Well I would because but I think you would need to ask God what he wants you to do.

It seems like there’s different levels of commitment. I mean you can go in, but you can write letters, or you can pray.

Pray. Pray. Praying is the most wonderful thing. I’ve got these wonderful women who pray for me, and I guess some of the men do too. Every week in our church bulletin there’s a little prayer list and I look at it and think, ‘This is so good.’ ‘Pray for our volunteers with Prison Fellowship.’ You know, these dear women, just to write a letter to somebody is just so encouraging. But to pray is even more wonderful.

And I think I couldn’t go in there if I didn’t have the assurance that the folk that I know pray are praying.

It was really interesting. When I turned 80. This was before I went into prison, when I was just praying for the prison, my friend and I would go and pray. But before I volunteered to go in, my family, one division of my family was going overseas. So the rest of the family said, ‘Mum, we’d love you to go and will you go?’ So I went with them.

When I came back I stayed with my daughter in Melbourne and she said, ‘I’ve put you in our caravan because you probably will have jet lag and you’ll need to sleep a lot.’ I said, ‘OK’ Never had jet lag, didn’t know what to expect.

The first night I woke up at about 3 o’clock in the morning, and I felt I heard God’s voice, ‘I want you to be called by the name that your mother gave you.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Am I having jet lag? Is this what happens with jet lag?’

‘No, you’re not having jet lag. It’s my voice talking to you.’

So I said, ‘OK Lord, why do you want me to be called Patricia, I’ve been called Pat for 80 years, how am I going to be called Patricia?’

He said, ‘Start with the people you haven’t met yet and tell them what your name is when you meet them.’

I said, ‘Why do you want me to be called by my name.’

He said, ‘Because it means “noble”.’

And I said, ‘But I don’t feel noble.’

He said, ‘You are, because you’re my child, and I’m the King of kings.’

And he said, ‘I’m giving you authority.’

And I’m saying, ‘What are you giving me authority for?’

‘If you’ll listen to me, I’ll tell you. Just keep listening.’

Well three years later, when I had my cancer, that’s when he really made me think, ‘OK. Is this what you mean?’

So, when I’m going in, when I go to the reception room at the prison, you have to clock in. No not, clock in, scan in. And then you walk down, and it takes about 7 or 8 minutes to walk from reception down to the women’s prison. You go through lots of security. And so there’s not one time I go down there when I don’t say, ‘Father, you’ve given me authority, so I put on the armour. I’m going in, just control everything today. And I go in your name. So whatever comes, whatever happens, help me to be aware of your voice, and to share what you give me.’

And I find that is just a really special thing. So I think that was for me, that understanding that I do have his authority as his child. Pretty awesome, isn’t it?

Very awesome.

There’s a couple of questions I ask everybody. So we’ll finish with these.

When do you feel closest to God?

When I’m still enough to hear his voice. And that’s a big thing for me, to be still. I’m a doer I think. But when he speaks to me from his word, and when he encourages me when I do hear his still small voice, that’s very special.

And I feel, I can’t nail it down to one thing, when I’m worshipping with my fellow believers in my church fellowship. That’s when I feel close to God too.

We have this gorgeous little boy, he’s the son of our rector. And a couple of weekends ago, a couple of Sundays ago, his daddy was leading us in worship and this little guy, he stood for the whole of the song. He wouldn’t be any more than about 14 months old, just standing there looking at his daddy playing his guitar and his mouth organ all at the one time. And you could tell his daddy was really worshiping and he was just standing there. And it was like God whispered to me, ‘That’s how I want you to gaze at me, like this little boy.’ And into my head came, ‘A little child shall lead them.’ So I thought that was so precious because I think that’s what he wants most of all. Us to gaze at him.

How wonderful.

What’s something about God and Christianity that you wish everyone knew?

I wish they would realise that it’s not religion that – religion doesn’t get you anywhere, but relationship is what God longs for. Because I had to learn that through brokenness, I think that’s the most important thing that I want to say.

And I think that’s why he’s opened the door for me to go in and share. It’s not religion, it’s relationship.

Are you still committing verses of scripture to memory?

I’m trying. Yes. I do love it. And I’m a bit slower than I used to be but I carry a verse around in my handbag and hopefully it will stay there. I have to look at it a lot more often than I used to. My brain isn’t as alert as it used to be.

What’s your verse at the moment?

It’s Psalm 37, this is from the Passion translation. ‘Keep trusting in the Lord, do what is right in his eyes. Fix your heart on the promises of God and you will be secure feasting on his faithfulness.’ That one in particular was lovely.

I always go through my interviews and I write out the scripture references and put them up on the show notes on the website, but I’m going to be really going today because you’ve put scripture, it’s been woven through the whole interview. It’s been lovely.

Well, thank you Ruth, because it really is important to me. I think when I saw the video that the Bishop had asked for, I said something and I thought, ‘That is right, that’s correct, I’m glad that came through.’ And it said, ‘To be in a place where the word of God is taught, has always been really important to me.’ And I guess probably because that’s the main way that God speaks to me. So I do love his word. I’d be lost without it.

Thank you so much for chatting with us today.

It’s a pleasure.

I’m sure it will bless many people, so thank you.

Thank you, Ruth. If it can do that, it’s worth it, isn’t it?

For sure.

Welcome Everyone, I’m Ruth Amos, today I’m chatting with Bruce, welcome Bruce.

Good morning.

Bruce and Wendy have three children and seven grandchildren, and when Bruce retired, he and Wendy moved from Launceston to Hobart to be closer to family, well, most of the family, because one daughter is still in Singapore. And the others are down here.

Bruce and Wendy came to our church and they immediately got very involved especially with Alpha and all sorts of things. Bruce is a skilled photographer and I’ve recently learned last week that he’s also a skilled watercolour artist.

It’s a pleasure to talk with you today, Bruce.

Thanks Ruth

So, questions, how did you become a Christian?

That’s interesting, I actually discovered a little note going way back in the family archives here. And this little note says ‘I was converted on 6^th June 1956 and since that date my religious knowledge (wasn’t that scary) has progressed with the aid of various courses including “What the Bible Teaches” “Guide to Christian Growth” “Guide to Christian Living” and the Epistle to the Romans. All of which have proved helpful.’

Wow! So can I ask, what age you were in ’56?

Sure, sure. I would have been around about seven. So I guess that was sort of a first statement of faith if you want to say that I guess. This was probably written, my guess around about 9 or 10 something like that.

You should see the handwriting, it’s so neat for a ten year old. That’s amazing.

I was privileged to be born into a Christian family. Both my parents were Christian. They’ve since passed on. As I said, my parents were very much into church going. I was dragged morning and night when I was a young guy. And I don’t know whether I really appreciated it then, despite the bit that I wrote there. I guess you sort of learn … as your life progresses you sort of learn a greater appreciation and obviously yes, you get a greater knowledge of God. And you’ve got a chance of becoming, or making a greater relationship with God, which is what it’s all about, or with Jesus in that sense.

I mean the most important thing really is to have a relationship with Jesus.

And if I can sort of stress that, it’s gotta be what it’s all about.

And a relationship doesn’t stay still does it? It always grows and changes, and you learn more about him.

It’s constantly changing. I mean my relationship has always had ups and downs and all sorts of different things but at the same time, you’re quite right, we’re learning more, we’re changing more.  God is changing us.

So what did you do in Launceston for your job?

Well my parents were in Burnie and I moved to Launceston around about 1967, desperate for a career in photography.

How does one go about a career in photography?

Well, much to my father’s disgust because I think he really wanted me to become a trade or have a trade under my career belt as it were, in that sense they allowed me to go to Launceston and I had great ideas of getting a job at the Examiner at that stage, as a professional photographer. Of course with no experience you just don’t get that sort of thing. You don’t generally wander in, even as a cadet photographer, even back then. However I walked into a photographic store on the recommendation of my uncle who I went to Launceston to live with, my uncle and aunt. My mother’s brother.

And he said, ‘Bruce you’d better get down there to Graphic Arts and ask him for a job.’

So I walked in and asked him for a job and within an hour, yes I had a job.

So those were the days when you could walk in and get a job, if it was the right thing.  Now very obviously God had his timing in all that. I perhaps didn’t appreciate it then so much as I look back and do now.

I worked for this guy for about thirteen years and just before he had to pay me long service (which I think back in those days was fifteen years) he made it known that he wanted to sell the business and get out of it and I had an option of buying the business which is what we did back in about 1980’s something like that.

By that stage Wendy and I were married. We married in ’73. And it was late 1970s that my career changed in terms of being just a worker, to working even harder. Because when you have your own business you don’t just rock up at odd hours.

It becomes more of a 24 hour thing.

It can be, it can be almost an obsession if you let it. But the key thing is trying to maintain a perspective in terms of your family, probably should preface that with God. Because when we were married we actually stated that God was going to be the head of our house, at our wedding reception.

Nice, that’s very nice.

It was an interesting thing when I look back because although Wendy’s mum was a Christian, and certainly some of my family that could be there were Christian, most of the folk there were certainly not Christian.

I haven’t prepared this one, but how did you and Wendy meet?

Oh, that’s interesting. I used to chase nurses.

[laughter]

You used to chase nurses?

A group of us. I had a flat in Launceston, it was above an art gallery, and whenever the art gallery had an opening we used to have a party on top. We figured that the neighbours wouldn’t know any difference then. They’d blame the owner of the art gallery.

However, I used to entertain groups of nurses, and at that time I learned how to cook. I was cooking because I figured if I had a flat I had to learn how to cook. Takeaways were not a thing then compared to nowadays. We learned to cook and we entertained groups of nurses.

Well in the end, probably in about 1971, we went to a Singspiration, we used to call it then. Now Singspirations were a gathering of youth and at this stage it was being held at a bible training college which was out St Leonard’s way in Launceston. And that was called WEC college. MTC or Worldview college now. And probably anything up to 100 or 150 youth would turn up and have a Singspiration after church on a Sunday night. And that would happen at least once a month if not twice a month.

So you’d just be singing, guitars, and yeah …

Everything, yes, it was fairly radical for its day. I mean this was way back in the 1970’s. So yeah I met Wendy at that stage at WEC college. And we became friends. Married in ’73.

She’s a nurse, by the way.

She’s a nurse. She came from Queensland, she came ‘overseas’ to do her midwifery training.

To Launceston to train?

Launceston, yeah.

OK so you’re working in a photography shop, and then you’re owning the business and you did a fair bit of wedding photography …

That came a bit later. We had a real variety of business, everything from not only retail sales but also we were selling professionally as in not only professional equipment but supplies to government departments and started tendering for government departments and in fact, I remember meeting a guy by the name of Rod Viney way back then.

And if you wanted to hear Sue Viney’s interview, that’s available, you should be able to find it on the website.

So I remember meeting him somewhere on one of the trips down here because we had to sort of come down and visit some of the government departments. I had a very good staff person at that time helping me do that and she was able to make some very good inroads into some of those departments. Lots more adventures in my store, but we won’t go there.

So how did you find that your faith showed itself through your work?

I guess, we tend to perhaps be a little bit more conservative at times, but at the same time my staff that I employed, and I had a huge variety of staff over a number of years and I had the business for about 18 odd years and we had a huge number of staff people go through. On more than one occasion, because it was a small business, the conversations often used to mention God or what God was all about. I had the opportunity on more than one occasion to answer some questions, particularly with regards to how to become a Christian. And also to present a bible or a couple of bibles to a couple of staff members on one occasion.

Now I had to be very careful that we didn’t compromise, and don’t misinterpret this, I’m not talking about compromising our faith, but just compromising our stance in terms of the relationship with a staff person, in fact nowadays it probably wouldn’t be allowed but this was way back then. And I guess at that stage as far as I was concerned it was presenting God’s word. And the chance of these folk, in once case one particular woman did become a Christian. I’m not too sure where her stance is now or where she’s situated now but we can only sow the seed and let God do the work.

Wonderful. Did you find that in terms of running a business that you were tempted to not have biblical principles in your running of it? That your Christian stance owning a business changed the way you ran the business?

My Christian stance changed my whole perspective in terms of running a business. We had some fearsome opposition, and I mean really fearsome opposition back in those days and there was some wicked stuff being done around us. I guess with hindsight now you’d say, ‘OK that’s fairly normal with the way the world is at this point in time.’ I tried to ride above and through that. In some cases we had to do some pretty ruthless actions to be able to survive.

Now they certainly weren’t morally ruthless in any shape or form. But one occasion one of my suppliers had decided to cut off my line of purchase in terms of an actual vital part of my business. At that stage we owned a one-hour processing lab and the key supplier in that instance was Fuji, and our opposition decided to take the stance of getting the sole franchise for Fuji in Launceston which immediately drummed us out of getting availability of goods.

As it happened my former employer had known the owner of the sole business. The whole business at that stage was called Hanimax and he knew the owner of Hanimax. And he also knew the guy who did the accounting at Hanimax. So I had knowledge of that guy’s name and I rang him up and said, ‘this is what the status is’ and he took a few moments just to register who I was and he said, ‘Ah yes Bruce, I remember you, I remember meeting you when I was down with the former owner of the business, leave it with me, I’ll fix it.’ So within about two days there was a new contract drafted from this particular group. They’d given me a different franchise name and a different franchise thing with virtually the same discount in terms of purchasing which I’d had previously. All I had to do was do a new delivery which cost a bit in terms of paperwork and all that sort of stuff. But that’s the sort of stuff that was going on.

I mean that was a pretty vital exercise when we were dealing with that sort of business because we were dealing with an investment there of about a quarter of a million dollars back at that age which was a lot of money to be borrowing back in the recession we had to have, according to Paul Keating.

Yes, I remember. So you feel like God helped you through those times?

He helped me through those times incredibly because a number of years later when we’d sold the business, I was able to go back into the opposition and simply take my business to them. Because at that stage I was doing professional photography and the group that I’d sold my business to couldn’t handle what I needed so I was able to get stuff from this other professional crowd and I still have a relationship with them in terms of wheeling and dealing today.

And I guess that’s where it could have all fallen over if you weren’t a Christian, is that relationship would have just –

Absolutely. You would have had a grievance, and it’s just not worth letting grievances continue, particularly with a Christian faith.

As the saying goes, why let someone with a grudge live rent-free in your head?

Good point, good point.

Perhaps I haven’t phrased it terribly well but that’s just …

OK that’s really great.

So coming to Hobart, it’s been a bit different to what you thought it would be?

Oh it’s been a sea-change. We’ve been very blessed in terms of coming to Hobart. We had sort of reached the end of a point in Launceston with a) careers because Wendy had retired and I was working from home at that stage so I could sort of move and shake a little bit. And our son and daughter-in-law, Mark and Sarah, had two young children. Sarah had maternity leave for I think it was three years, she had to then go back to her career or not continue working as far as the school where she was employed. So we said OK, we’ll take Becky, the youngest one who wasn’t at school at that stage, and we’ll look after her for I think it was two or three days a week, in order to allow Sarah to go back to work.

In that instance it meant us coming down probably about two days, or it might have been three days out of the week and then back to Launceston.

Which is a fair commute. It’s a two an a half, three hour commute, each way.

It’s a fair commute, absolutely. And especially after doing a day of child-minding and then working on from there. We did that I think for about the first month. In between times obviously we had our house listed in Launceston. Launceston was facing probably one of the worst real estate slumps I think you can imagine. That was OK because the house we had, we had actually bought close on thirty years before, so OK sure, we could make some money out of that. But at the same time – replacement. And in Hobart we already had a market which was about thirty percent above Launceston anyway. And this was before the current surge we’ve seen in the last three years.

So we’re actually very blessed to be getting a hold of, and downsizing radically, a unit, which we’ve got.

And you had a what we call a ‘fleece’ some sort of requirements for this unit that you laid before the Lord didn’t you? And I remember Mark saying to me, I think this is impossible. So what were you asking for in this unit?

Because both of us had had various bouts of surgery, I’d had back surgery with remarkable recovery around about thirty five years ago, and she’d had a knee job done, so she’s got a bionic knee, and age creeping on, we decided we needed a flat block of land. Our previous house was on a block of land at Trevallyn which is somewhat sloped.

And we needed a smaller house, we needed a smaller garden area, we had a huge garden area in Launceston which was fantastic but, yeah, a time and a place.

So we asked God to provide us a flat block of land, we needed a view.

Flat block of land with a view?

We’d had a gorgeous view in Launceston, straight down the Tamar river, we could see probably about 20 km down the river, or certainly 15 kms. It certainly kept us sane to look out the window and say, ‘Good morning, God.’

So yes, here we are with a flat block of land, a small unit, a view.

Everything that you needed.

Praise you Lord. We had to downsize in terms of a few things that we really wanted like double garages and three bedrooms and everything else didn’t occur but really it would only have been an excuse to bring more junk which there’s only a certain amount that you need in this day and age.

It’s true, it’s true. The less junk the better.

And so you came down here and you set up to look after Mark and Sarah, and then …

And then! Well, somewhere in between times, because Louise and her husband Brett were in Alice Springs, we knew that there were some issues up there with their family and they were just not getting any resolution in Alice Springs. The reason being Alice Springs is really like, although it’s a city, it’s like a big country town. It’s a remote city or remote town. Any serious medical issues need to be done through Adelaide or Sydney.

And that’s a fair distance from Alice.

It’s a fair distance to commute to Alice Springs. In fact, the cost of getting out to Alice Springs is probably greater than Singapore. And in terms of getting treatment even, even though Louise is in the medical field, it’s still a difficult stance. So they made the decision to come to Tasmania. This is now about two years ago. And she’s scored a good job in a GP practice in Huonville. One of their sons has got some medical issues that are being sorted out that certainly wouldn’t have got treatment in Alice Springs.

And you and Wendy are here to help them out as well.

We’re here somewhere in the middle of it, trying to keep pace with kids and collecting from schools and cooking meals, which Wendy does admirably for them, at least a couple of days a week because obviously Louise is working flat out and Brett’s not a cook. He can boil water I think but … I don’t think I’m casting aspersions on my son-in-law.

So that’s great. So I think at the beginning of the process nobody knew that this is what was going to happen but it’s just worked out.

Absolutely, we couldn’t have picked our retirement. It’s a way different retirement. I remember Pete Adlem saying at one stage, I think it might have been when we first came down here, he said, ‘Bruce, remember that retirement is spelled with a TYRE’

New tyres.

Thanks Pete.

Well yeah, I can definitely see that.

So one of the things that you’ve been majorly involved in here has been Alpha. Can you tell our listeners what Alpha is, and why it means so much to you?

Certainly. Back in about 1996 I think, Nicki Gumble who is one of the early movers and shakers of Alpha in London, at a church group called Holy Trinity Brompton, and Sandy Millar who was the previous vicar (or what ever you call them in the Church of England), came to Australia and they brought the concept of Alpha into Australia.

At that stage, Wendy and I think three other women from the house church that we were a part of in Launceston went to Melbourne to do this conference. To hear Sandy Millar and also to hear and meet Nicky Gumble.

We used Alpha in our house church because we had a ministry to Asian students. Students coming through university in Launceston, students coming through the Maritime College which was a separate entity at that stage in Launceston. And over the course of time a number of students that came to learn English, we simply talked to them about Jesus. And Alpha was one of the tools that we used. We saw a lot of lives changed during those nearly 20 years our house church functioned before we moved down here.

I guess I’ve had a passion for Alpha for that very reason, because I know how Alpha works, and I know how God works through Alpha. Now it’s not the only thing that God uses but certainly it is one of the things that can allow people to ask questions.

And that’s what it’s all about, people feel free to ask questions.

So across the world, millions of people have tried Alpha. I think it’s about 189 countries or something like that which Alpha has currently penetrated into and I think there’s about 112 languages.

I know back in our day we were doing Alpha in Chinese, we had Chinese subtitles, we had a Korean stream of Alpha because we had some Korean students, and I’ve forgotten what else, there might have been another one. But certainly English was the clear thing they came to learn.

So that’s exciting because they’ve got the subtitles, but they’re hearing the English, they’re getting the English conversation, and nobody is forced into anything with Alpha are they?

No one at all.

They are just asking questions.

So I’ll tell you about a guy who came to our house church back, in fact one of the early sessions of Alpha we were doing, it may have been around the year 2000. And he was a PhD in English literature and English language, he was a senior member of the communist party from Beijing. He’s now Dean of Foreign Languages in a Chinese university in one of the big cities over in Northern China. He is an Australian citizen, his wife and young boy are now Australian citizens. However, Yong started asking questions about God and after doing several sessions of Alpha, one of the things we do on Alpha is hold a retreat. Now sometimes it’s a retreat day, as we’ve done here in the last couple of years, sometimes it’s a weekend. In this instance it was a weekend. And they were walking along the Brid River foreshore in Bridport in Northern Tasmania and he was still asking questions, he said, ‘I can’t believe, I can’t see this God you’re talking about’ and then all of a sudden the tide turned, and the tide up there comes in very, very quickly. And suddenly he screamed out and said ‘I believe, I believe’ because he could see God working through time, tide, and obviously just the turning.

And he experienced God in miraculous ways.

There have been so many others that we’ve seen have other experiences that really have been transforming. Some of them have gone back in to China, and are possibly part of the house church movement over there.

Do you keep in touch with many of them?

We’ve got probably loose contact with a couple of hundred.

Wow, that’s amazing.

We’re good friends with a Singaporean woman who is probably a better contact person than what I am in that area, but we were just part of a group, part of a house church, there was a group of about six leaders and their families who were part of the house church and it just all went from there.

Over the twenty years …

That’s a lot of people.

I remember hearing about Mao Zedong coming to America I think and not feeling accepted or cared for by Christians. And going back and doing what he did. And you wonder whether, if he was accepted as part of a group and if he felt welcomed and cared for by Christians whether the whole of Chinese history would be different.

It’s an interesting concept.

So I just think this is an amazing outreach that we can be a part of.

So a final couple of questions that I ask everybody; when do you feel most close to God?

That’s a deep question.

It’s a hard question.

I guess there’s been a couple of times that we’ve had incredible God experiences. We’ve been very privileged in certain areas. One of them was a trip I had to South Korea one Easter. Going back, 1986 I think it was, and at that stage I was also involved with a group that used to import musical equipment from Korea, as in pianos. There was a group of about 8 or 10 of us that used to import this equipment and distribute it all the way around Australia. And the profits would go to Christian work.

Oh wonderful.

So we needed to go back and talk to the factory supplier over there and we decided to take a group across with us. And we had the opportunity to do it over Easter and we went into one of the big churches over there which at that stage was Paul Yonggi Cho’s.

I can remember going to the Friday night prayer meeting, we’d just flown in from Australia at that stage. Before we left for Korea Wendy said to me, ‘Bruce, don’t allow your prejudices for God in terms of any working [get in the way]’ (as we would now call it the working of the Holy Spirit through gifts). Because I was a little bit myopic as far as things called tongues and other bits and pieces, and that came from my upbringing because I had a fairly strict upbringing in terms of Christian faith. So I said, ‘Yep Lord, what are you going to teach me?’

That’s a scary question!

Oh yeah, and it was during that prayer night, and we were in this big auditorium, there might have been close to fifty thousand people in that auditorium, and another forty or fifty thousand listening in other auditoriums around this big church which they had. And the service was being conducted in Korean, there was a certain amount of English translation but it was very limited. And when it came to the prayer time, the English translation ceased.

God, through his Holy Spirit, gave me a very special privilege. I could understand the prayers that were being spoken in Korean, in English.

Wow. That’s fantastic.

It’s just mind-blowing to understand that.

OK it’s something that hasn’t happened since, it was a special thing for a special period of time, and I guess it just opened my eyes.

So that was one particular time.

I had an incredible privilege to go with a group to John Wimber. A video conference in Sydney. And that was an eye-opener back in 1993. At that stage there was a prophecy given by John White who I think was colloquially known at that stage as ‘the gentle doctor’ because he wrote the gentle doctor books, and John Wimber and another guy called Paul Cain. But they delivered a prophecy of sexual abuse amongst churches and people. We saw in that afternoon between two and a half, and three thousand people move forward for healing.

So, yeah, I guess that sort of was a background. Jump forward then to, well a whole heap of issues all the way through there in terms of feeling close to God. One of the other key things, I had a fairly major heart surgery back in 2009, and I’d had a 95% blockage of the main right hand artery, so praise God he hadn’t finished with me yet. That was able to be stented successfully.

I often wonder what are going to be our first words when we meet God, what’s going to be our first action. What are we going to say to him? It’s sort of a bit of a salient reminder in terms of being pulled up in terms of your life ambitions and what you had hoped to do and what you planned when you face those sort of challenges.

But praise the Lord, we’re back on top, we’re healed through huge amounts of prayer and here we are.

So yes, we’re in Hobart, we are part of St Clements, and it’s been a thrilling journey.

It’s amazing to hear all those stories, that’s what’s so wonderful about talking to people like this.

Yes, OK, it’s not Bruce we’re talking about here, it’s God, working through for His glory. And with Alpha particularly, we’re seeing, even earlier this year with our church we had close on 45 to Alpha and I think about 8 or 9 that came to a saving knowledge. Which is fantastic.

God has the glory.

What is one thing that you wish everybody knew about God and Christianity?

I wish they realised that they have a huge privilege of being able to talk and form a relationship with a God who is alive. I mean that, to me that’s one of the key things. If you can have that relationship with God who’s alive it’s a thrill, it’s a privilege, and yes it’s there, we’ve just got to ask Jesus for forgiveness, confess our sins, the bible says and ask him for forgiveness. And once we’ve done that, our sins need not be remembered. Finished. Done. God has dealt with that through Jesus’ death on the cross for each one of us. And his resurrection, which obviously has given us … I guess through his resurrection he’s defeated sin and death and Satan forever.

It’s real simple, it’s not any great science to do that. It’s just a matter of just being prepared to humble yourself before God and acknowledge him for who he is.

And then you get a relationship with him.

You then develop a relationship with Jesus or God, and obviously that comes through being prepared to read his word, being prepared to listen to what God is saying in your life through his word, through people that are talking to you.

Fantastic. Thank you so much Bruce for sharing with us.

A pleasure.