About Us
Early Pilgrimage
I am an Australian evangelical Christian of pre-millennialist persuasion. I grew up and received my schooling back and forth from Australia, Canada, and the USA. My salvation came at the age of 14 at a Bible Camp organized by men from Highlands Community Church in Renton, Washington near Seattle. It was one of the Independent Fundamentalist Churches of America. Pastor Wallace Wilson and a wonderful circle of friends at the church were all a great influence in our lives. We still keep in touch with some of our friends there 40 years later.
I returned to Australia in 1965 and studied at Trinity Grammar School and Balwyn High School in Melbourne.
My studies then took me on to the University of Melbourne Medical School on a Commonwealth Scholarship. I graduated in Medicine in 1973. During those years our family was part of the East Kew Baptist Church in Melbourne. I was also a member of the Evangelical Union at Melbourne Uni.
It was during the early 70's when I was in medical school that my pilgrimage took me into the Holy Spirit renewal. This revival had come across to Melbourne from New Zealand. A dental student friend, Judy Brabham, invited me to a Tuesday night meeting held in an Anglican Church. It was called Melbourne Outreach Crusade. I had never seen anything like it. The movement gathered in many seeking hearts during those early days. God called out His people and filled them with His Presence in many wonderful ways. The Charismatic Renewal was a genuine move of God back in those days. Unfortunately the movement has subsequently been taken over by Mammon and seriously compromised. But back in the early 70's it was like spring rain falling on a dry and thirsty land. I saw many people wonderfully saved and blessed. These were exciting times. Many hard bitten evangelicals, grimly hanging onto their faith, as I myself was, found ourselves swept up into this Holy Spirit renewal. And it came just in time. In my case I had been on the verge of spiritual burnout. Suddenly we found ourselves in a serendipity, even an Emmaus experience. Somebody was walking alongside us. He brought us His encouragement and His cheer. He provided us with some fresh oil for our dim and flaring lamps. The Holy Spirit was present with us, recharging our flagging spirits. What a joy that was! Through it all I found myself infused with a new level of faith in Jesus Christ I had never experienced before. In spite of my many shortcomings and failures I found myself drawn into a deeper walk with God.
In 1975 after a year of internship at the Repatriation Hospital in Melbourne I took off on a round the world trip. The first leg of that trip took me back for a visit to the USA. That was quite a memorable segment of the journey. I visited old friends from the church in Renton, Washington I had not seen in over ten years. It was also memorable for another reason which I will explain shortly.
Walkabout in England and Europe and a Stint as Missionary Doctor in the Himalayan Foothills of India.
From the USA I went on to England where I worked at the Royal Northern Hospital in London for a while. After some travels in Europe I contacted the Bible and Medical Missionary Fellowship in London. Soon afterwards I was on my way to India. I spent a few months serving as a missionary doctor in Mussorie, U.P. up in the Himalayan foothills. During the mornings I did rounds and assisted in surgery. In the afternoons I worked in the TB clinic. Most of the TB patients were Tibetan refugees from a place called "Happy Valley". They had come across the mountains into India to escape the ravages of Mao Tse Tung's Communist Cultural Revolution.
I had some memorable experiences in India and then later up in Nepal. On one occasion a few of the missionary kids from the local Christian high school decided that they would collar me and that we would take a little backpacking trek together up into the Himalayan mountains. We loaded up with some medical instruments and medical supplies and set out.
I had trouble keeping up with them. We went into remote areas where there was no road access at all. As soon as we entered a village the word would get out and hundreds of people would gather around. They would bring us their sick. We stopped and gave whatever sort of treatment we could provide. We saw a lot of people and did what we could with what we had. One of them was a little boy who had fallen over a cliff two days before. His little head was covered with old dried blood and he had a high fever. The flies swarmed around him. We bathed and dressed his head wound as best we could, gave him an injection of penicillin and left his father some antibiotics to give him. Then we hiked on to the next village.
On that little excursion I came to understand Eastern Mysticism (or pantheism), and "Karma" in a way that I won't forget. At that time the Maharishi Yogi was wowing the Beatles and millions of westerners with the alleged virtues of Eastern Mysticism. It may well have sounded real good in California, and especially after a couple of puffs of marijuana and some oriental music. But I was here in the Himalayan mountains. I was seeing Eastern Mysticism, Buddhism, and Hinduism right at the very source. The picture I was seeing up here was anything but good.
Here is an example. We came to one village and heard some disturbing news. A young woman had just died. Apparently she had endured a complicated childbirth a couple of days before. The newborn baby was ok. But the childbirth had been complicated by a 'retained placenta'.
The relatives could have done something about this. After such an event the natives of Africa will put their family member on a litter and carry them a hundred miles if need be. They will take them straight to the nearest mission or government hospital. But here in this land beyond the Indus River a great spiritual darkness brooded over the people. The young woman was judged to have 'bad karma'. The spell of death had been cast. Nothing could be done. And she was going to die.
Eastern mysticism has within it a spiritual poison that cripples the will. (A trip to Calcutta will drive this lesson home in a hurry.) A spirit of inevitability hangs over the land. So in the case of this young woman with her retained placenta nothing was done.
Of course she went on to develop sepsis. She died a couple of days after her baby was born. This woman, hidden in the folds of the Himalayan Mountains, had in effect been judged by the spirits of the area. She was considered to have "bad Karma". Now she was paying for her sins in a previous incarnation. Nothing that anyone did was going to change that. So she was left to die.
I shall never forget that woman. Even today when I hear the familiar strains of eastern mysticism which says in effect "everything is relative" and "Que Sera, Sera, Whatever will be." I stop. And I remember that woman.
More content coming soon.
