It was often said when I was young that I was conceived in luxury but born into abject poverty. The circumstances my family were then living in must have been very humbling, especially to dad. I can’t imagine how mum felt either, let alone coped with her small family in such reduced circumstances, but through her solid faith, fortitude and shear hard work, she not only coped but was also determined that her little family should be built on foundations that neither circumstance nor money could buy.
Dad never seemed to recover from losing everything he had worked for and built up, in spite of the fact that he eventually was able to clear his debts and obtain his discharge, all ambition seemed to have been squeezed out of him. But he did work hard to support his family with the help of mum, who had at various times three part-time jobs simultaneously, and between them they managed to keep the family together. Notwithstanding all this, mum taught me the value of money and saving in particular.
I had my own Post Office savings account from a very early age and although the balance was quite small it did attract meagre amounts of money called ‘Interest’. This was something I did not quite understand being so young, but it struck me as being an interesting phenomenon in that I did not have to do any chores for it, it simply appeared. Then one day I asked mum for my passbook and there, in capital letters, stamped into my passbook was the word ‘Withdrawal’ and a balance of zero. Mum explained what ‘Withdrawal’ meant, what had happened, and why she had had to take such a drastic step; I was heartbroken. Nevertheless, I continued to save and became quite unhealthily absorbed with money, so much so that I refused birthday presents and the like preferring cash. In my late teens I came to the realisation that money, or more specifically the love of money, was potentially destructive, so I resolved to put all thoughts of ‘making money’ out of my mind, including engaging in electrical contracting work on my own account, which I was wont to do, in spite of the fact that I was still in the middle of an apprenticeship. Even now I feel that, for me at least, I made the correct decision although at times I wonder what might have been if I had continued to develop my own business.
I mentioned earlier that the Lord still had a lesson for me to learn. The money I had ‘added’ to our potential three-month support through working the currency market, together with the rest of the support was eventually stolen, but that is another story which I will come too in due course.
Eventually we were offered two potential assignments. It was customarily for husband and wife to both have a separate assignment. The assignment my wife preferred was in one country and my preference was in another. Obviously, this was not a working, not to mention healthy, proposition so we decided that we would both independently ‘wait on the Lord’ and after three days we would discuss the matter. It became clear to us individually that we were putting our own preferences before what the Lord had in mind and that settled the matter, we were now of one mind and felt that our destination was to be Papua New Guinea, north of Australia and from then onwards that became our focus. Even at this late stage my independent streak surfaced when an offer of paid employment was mooted by a previous employer. The offer was an attractive one. I would be able to work for approximately six months throughout the year visiting various universities in the pacific and earning sufficient money to allow me to carry out my own assignments, freelance, and without relying on anyone else for financial support; I would be totally independent and self-sufficient. Tempting though this was I decided to humbly submit to what I believed was the Lord’s will. I must confess that I still struggle with independence or, more to the point, dependency upon the Lord.