November 10, 1999
TIM PARKER (center), a lay envoy with Texas Partnerships, takes youth from Dubbo Baptist Church in New South Wales, Australia, on a retreat in the mountains.
'Call of discomfort' carries
layman to work in Australia
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___After Tim Parker completed his graduate studies in civil and environmental engineering at Texas Tech, he seemed prepared to settle into a comfortable lifestyle and a high-paying job.
___Then he received a "call of discomfort" that ultimately took him halfway around the globe as a lay envoy in the Texas Partnerships missions program.
___"Six months into work, there started a tugging at my heart--a boredom with almostevery facet of my life, a yearning for something bigger than myself, something uncomfortable," Parker recalled.
TIM PARKER treks in the bush country with youth from the church, where he served as youth minister.
___Three new job opportunities developed. One was in Dallas. "Too comfortable," he thought.
___Another was in Dubbo, Australia. "Too far away," he said, ruling it out quickly.
___The third was in his hometown of Roswell, N.M., where he not only had an engineering job waiting for him, but also a youth ministry leadership post at his home church. "Whoa, what a fit!" he said.
___Just to make sure, he asked the pastor of Indiana Avenue Baptist Church in Lubbock to pray with him about the decision. After they prayed together, the pastor casually offered him a brochure about what was then called the Partnership Missions program of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___Through the brochure, Parker learned about the Lay Envoy program. It helps Christians who live abroad as a result of their jobs to become involved in intentional and strategic missions opportunities on a volunteer basis.
___Parker continued to pray and asked others to pray. Then he asked himself, "What would be the most uncomfortable thing I could do?"
___"I got on the Internet and looked up Dubbo. All it said was population 38,000 and a big zoo and nothing else. Decision made. A job offer was finalized with the company in Dubbo."
___Don Sewell, director of Texas Partnerships, met Parker at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Sewell gave him an orientation manual about Australian culture and customs and helped him make contacts with churches in the Dubbo area, about five hours northwest of Sydney, New South Wales.
___The contacts Sewell provided were fruitful. Within two weeks of his arrival in Australia, Parker was living in a bed and breakfast operated by a senior adult at Dubbo Baptist Church and meeting at lunch with the church's pastor and elders.
___He discovered Dubbo Baptist had a large youth group--at least by Australian Baptist standards--and church leaders had been praying for years God would send them a youth pastor. Unfortunately, they lacked the funds to employ one full time.
___Parker explained he had come to Australia out of a sense of divine calling, to fill a leadership need in some church as a mission volunteer. Astonished, the church leaders offered Parker the youth minister's position.
___He worked with the young people in grades seven through 12, as well as coordinating the ministry of their adult leaders. While his work at the church flourished, his secular employment took a different turn.
___"My contract ended prematurely. All of a sudden--boom --I didn't have employment," Parker recalled. "That's when the body of Christ came rallying around me."
___The church at Dubbo provided for his needs and united in prayer for him. Within a short time, he had three contract jobs.
___Even so, due to problems with his work visa, Parker had to return to the United States after 14 months in Australia, rather than the 18 months he had planned. Since coming home to Texas, he has found a good job with a Dallas-based engineering firm. His focus is to retire all of his school loans. Once he reaches that goal, he hopes to return to Australia.
___Though Parker felt without question that God called him to serve as a volunteer minister on the Australian church staff, he has no plans to give up engineering and enter the ministry as a paying vocation. He believes having a secular job and working in a volunteer capacity offers an instant credibility he does not want to surrender.
___"There's just too much I could do by not being in full-time vocational Christian ministry," he said.
___For more information on the lay envoy program of Texas Baptist Partnerships, call Don Sewell at (214) 828-5183
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