The world at his doorstep

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, February 20th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: international missions work, from home.

Some people may think of overseas missions as the Gold Standard of gospel ministry. But it’s just one option to share the good news.

REICHARD: One man in Australia found opportunities right outside his door. WORLD correspondent Amy Lewis has the story.

MAN: I just met him but we already get off like we already knew each other.

AMY LEWIS: Two men sit on a low couch just inside the doors of Lygon Street Christian Chapel’s back hall. One is a man recently arrived from Papua New Guinea. He’s talking with Neil Hawthorn whose blue cane leans against the arm of the couch.

AUDIO: [People talking]

About 30 international university students and young adults straggle into the hall for a meeting of the Carlton Gospel Fellowship or CGF. They sit around tables where compact butane stoves heat pots of water. It’s to celebrate the beginning of the semester and Lunar New Year’s Eve.

STUDENT: This one is [Chinese words]. Good luck and great prosperity…Ok, now the spices. [Chinese words]

Even though he’s twice their age and then some, Hawthorn is a regular with this group of twenty-somethings. They come from places like Myanmar, Brunei, Singapore, and China. In fact, many of them came to this meeting because he invited them.

Like Abby Gill. She’s from Malaysia.

ABBY GILL: Neil did, he introduced me to this church. So I came. And then I also went for the Sunday service here as well.

In high school, Hawthorn wanted to go overseas as a missionary. He applied for a librarian position with an organization in South Korea. They asked if he had any medical situations.

NEIL HAWTHORN: And I said, “I've got epilepsy.” And with that they said, “I'm sorry, we don't take anybody with epilepsy. Interview has finished.”

Back in 1967, the doctor’s thought he would be stillborn after he suffered gross placental insufficiency in utero.

But he survived. Even when the NICU nurses needed his bed for a more viable infant and removed him from life support. His mother loved to remind him of his life’s mission.

HAWTHORN: Give you back to the Lord as Hannah did to Samuel because I wasn't supposed to survive. And all through my teenage years until her death she would tell me, “You must serve the Lord because God answered my prayer.”

Today, he’s resistant to his epilepsy medication. He wears a black magnetic snap on the left side of his head. It monitors his brain—and alerts him to upcoming seizures.

For decades Hawthorn lived with his aunt in the heart of Melbourne, near lots of colleges that attract overseas students.

HAWTHORN: See, you’ve got the world at your doorstep, like I’ve got RMIT and Melbourne Uni at my doorstep.

He and his aunt met and invited international students to their home for English tutoring sessions and weekly meals. But they gave the students more than pasta and sausages.

HAWTHORN: And once they're here, and finished, they're gonna go home most likely, and we can't get in there. We don't know their language. Get them to Lord, and build them up, then send them back.

One newly arrived Korean student told a waiter at a Japanese restaurant that he was lonely.

HAWTHORN: She wrote down this address and said, “You go down Thursday night. You'll have friends.” We don't know who the waiter was, or anything.

Back home, Hawthorn leafs through a full brown scrapbook. It’s just a snapshot of the decades of international student dinners that ended with COVID and his aunt’s death.

HAWTHORN: He's Vietnamese, Edward. He became a Christian here. And he is still in contact with me from Vietnam. Yeah, this was the one who went to the restaurant and didn't know anybody and brought his friends along.

Neil regularly prays through his phone’s contact list.

HAWTHORN: I keep in contact with all students who go back to their home countries, because I believed our ministry doesn't stop at the Melbourne airport.

Even though the missions group rejected him, he’s been to South Korea.

HAWTHORN: I’ve been to China seven times, I’ve been to Taiwan 3 or 4 times. Singapore and Malaysia many times. In fact, I’ve been more to Singapore and Malaysia than I’ve been to Sydney.

He visits students in their homes.

HAWTHORN: That's why I go overseas, visit them, their families, their church, see what the church is like. And I have found that has broken down many walls with later students. They go, “You have been to my city?” Then they accept me straight away.

One student asked Hawthorn to pray that he would know God’s guidance in how to serve him.

HATHORN: And when I go to Asia, I meet up with him to see how he's doing. He's now a deacon in his church. And I think that he might have had it in his mind that he had to go, like, go to Africa or off somewhere.

He was able to tell the student what his dad told him after the mission group rejected him.

HAWTHORN: Where you are. That's where God wants you.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Amy Lewis in Melbourne, Australia.

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