Angel Unawares No 6 - Graeme Reddel

Chairman of Well-Being Australia Mark Tronson says it has been his privilege to have been a receiptent of many 'Angels Unawares' leading up to and during his 18 years of founding the Sports and Leisure Ministry, 17 years as the Australian cricket team chaplain, and now 29 years of faith financial living.

One of these Angels Unawares was Graeme Reddel.

Mark Tronson picks up the story: My 1977-80 theological training as a Baptist ordination student in my first and second year at Morling College was that I was assigned as a 'Pastoral Student Observer' in 1977 with the Reverend Frank Coan at Manly Baptist Church and in 1978 with the Reverend Bryan Hoar at Pymble Baptist Chuch (now Gordon).

My third and fourth years I was appointed the student Minister to Croydon Park Baptist Church in Sydney's inner west.

After the four years of theological study I was sent as Minister to the "Warragamba Baptist Church" a Home Mission Church appointment for three years after which I was free to move in any other Ministry direction.

The first pastoral care thing my wife Delma and I did at Warragamba Baptist Church was that when a Church contact family had a baby or there was family illness, Delma would make a cake or a casserole and I'd take it to the family.

Graeme & Jan Reddel was a Church contact family, they had their second baby, their first son, and I took them a 'Delma baked cake'. The consequence of that 'cake' was that it initiated the Reddel family to return to their previous church where they had grown up and given their lives to Jesus Christ as teenagers.

In 1984 we went into faith mission in Sports Ministry, and the Reddel's headed off to New Tribes Bible College for two years. They had also helped us initiate a Wallacia Christian fellowship, where Graeme played his Double Base and encouraged every one he met.

Soon after completing bible college he and Jan then went to PNG for almost two years, as a plumber he maintained the various mission water supplies.

Soon after their return from PNG we initiated 'Timeout in Moruya' (Basil Sellers House – athlete respite facility) and Graeme made many trips with me during its construction 1989-92 doing all the plumbing at no cost.

Two years later he did the athlete swimming pool and four years later the manager's residence, all as a gift to the Lord. Then in 2003 Graeme Reddel did the taps and fire hose reel to newly constructed 'The Basil Sellers Art Centre'.

Graeme Reddel came through a cancer scare, family trauma, and personal heartache, he'd been very ill for many months and still he visited us at 'Tweed Heads' in December 2005 to do some plumbing work. During his stay we rushed him to Tweed Heads Hospital due to his inoperable cancer and passed into Glory some months later.

Almost every week and towards the last, several times a week we spoke on the phone. The Lord called him to Glory on August 3 2006. Graeme Reddel was gracious and humble, indeed an angel unawares!