Ron de Gray Birch saw a notice for a pastor at this church and sent off an application. It was several months before a message came, inquiring about his interest.
So Ron de Gray Birch set off with video camera on hand. He met the church leaders and ensured that he videoed the very worst of Port Moresby to take back to show his wife Mau.
"The only thing Mau seemed to be interested in from the videos I bought back to South Africa were the magnificent botanical gardens," Ron de Gray Birch explained. "And so the die was cast."
He had a two year contract with the possibility of it being extended to four years. In order to make this move, he required some funding for the relocation. He had some pre-paid insurance entitlements, and under the system in South Africa, he found found a way to extradite this money.
"The value of the insurance was more valuable than our home, so we gave our home to a friend, I even paid the fees and taxes for the transfer, and we ensured we also got our entitlement," Ron de Gray Birch explained. "So off we set on this new adventure."
Ron had come a long way from his early life where he left Mau and his children in 1976, got into serious trouble with the law and, having been shot by police, spent two weeks in a coma in hospital (the bullet went through his stomach and out his back causing much damage to his liver and other internal organs).
Ron de Gray Birch was one of the Papua New Guinea delegates at the recent Baptist World Alliance Living Water Australasian-South Pacific conference held in Cairns where he gave a video testimony for Australian Missionary News IPTV.
This IPTV channel is a courtesy of SafeWorlds IPTV, which provides a Christian channel within their commercial IPTV network. It is run by Well-Being Australia's 'Basil Sellers Press Service International'.
"My life had become one of horrific hedonism, with which I filled my life relentlessly, but which God reconstructed. He looked for me and brought healing into my life," Ron de Gray Birch told Mark Tronson of the Australian Missionary News IPTV.
It was in hospital that he finally surrendered to God's will; finally grasping that He loves sinners; finally exclaiming in his heart to the Almighty, 'Do with me as you will' as he was looking down the barrel of a long prison sentence which eventually failed to materialise.
"The Lord took control of my life, He restored to me my wife Mau and our children and gave hope and value to my life," Ron de Gray Birch noted.
He worked for 10 years getting his life back together and found himself going back to school in his late 30's where he earned a theology degree which was followed by a Masters degree in Divinity and from there was propelled into full time ministry.
"I'm now in my 60s and have had quite a journey from the gutter to the Lord's uttermost," Ron de Gray Birch said with humility. "I have been so remarkably honoured in these later years, that I look back upon my disgusting behaviour of my early years and am in awe of God's Grace."
A wonderful verse from Scripture which he says applies to him comes from 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 24, "The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it."