Chairman of Well-Being Australia Mark Tronson says it has been his privilege to have been a receiptent of wisdom from numerous such people leading up to and during his 18 years of founding the Sports and Leisure Ministry, 17 years as the Australian cricket team chaplain, and 29 years in faith financed mission.
One of these people was Ron Ross.
In 1971 the Illawarra Hockey Association (Wollongong) elected Mark Tronson the Publicity Officer: he was in the Illawarra Seniors representative team, training with the NSW squad, and in Track & Field, he won the triple jump in Qld.
At this same time, Ron Ross was the highly visible WIN4 TV Sports Editor. Mark Tronson made an appointment to visit his office. Ron explained publicity officer's of amateur sports came with good intentions but couldn't keep up the effort, particularly when air time didn't permit their sport's news more regularly than not.
Mark Tronson continues the story: I determined to hand deliver a written report to Ron personally every week regardless. After three months of dedicated commitment, Ron Ross was giving Hockey some air time on WIN4.
By the mid 1970's Ron had become a Christian and developed a drop-in-centre ministry at Fairy Meadow Anglican Church. Meantime, I was enjoying playing saxophone, I was a part-time mature-aged student university student, then I married in 1977, and off to to Sydney for Baptist theological studies.
Meanwhile, Ron Ross had become a missionary with YWAM, mainly in the Philippines. Our lives had taken different ministry paths.
In 1985, a year after becoming the Australian cricket team chaplain I caught up with Ron Ross, who was then head of YWAM Melbourne.
Over the following eight years Ron Ross became a confidant of mine, helping develop the Christian athlete ministry.
Ron and I spoke at international & national sports ministry conferences, as a Sports Evangelist Ron was in high demand preaching Jesus.
Ron was the key note speaker at the highly acclaimed 1990 Christian Athlete Conference in Melbourne based on the 1989 US Pro Athletes Outreach conference I'd attended in Miami, Florida, the year before.
In the early '90s Ron & Yvonne Ross moved to Noosa Heads to help in the ministry of their son-in-law, singer Steve Grace. Not long after he became Minister at Noosa Baptist Church and then years later Ron & Yvonne served as missionaries with Bridges for Peace and then relocated to Jerusalem for seven years to develop their international media ministry department.
Now, Ron and Yvonne are back home in Australia having established the 'Ron Ross Ministries'.
Ron's article dated 10 December 1993 in the Noosa Times, his regular weekly column, was titled "Aussie cricketers turn to chaplain." It's last sentence highlights the essence of all Christian ministry –
"Dr Mark Tronson may not be a well known hero in Noosa. But in heaven lies his achievements where they are written in capital letters. "