It all started way back in 1982 when as a Baptist minister and hockey writer for The Australian, I was invited to Hong Kong by members of the Sydney Christian Sports Fellowship for an international sports missions conference. The Baptists and the InterChurch Trade and Industry Mission (ITIM) endorsed my attendance (industrial padre at Shell Australia).
The rest is history, ITIM bought this ministry to 'professional sport' under it's wing so as to give it a leg up (as it were), I was appointed the Australian cricket team chaplain in 1984 and then initiated a nation wide blitz of negotiating chaplaincy appointments in Australia's professional sports, the Australian Institute of Sport and the Olympics.
The late Reverend Kenneth L McDowell the Director of ITIM coined the phrase 'The Sports and Leisure Ministry' (SLM) and ITIM released SLM to its own ministry in 1985 as a faith financed missionary endeavour. My wife Delma and me served in this manner from 1982-2000 (18 years).
ITIM's Reverend Roger Reid became it's first chairman of board and in 1988 Ross Clifford followed seeing the ministry to incorporation (tax deductibility) followed in 1991 by the Reverend Peter Thomson who saw the ministry through its development years. Peter Thomson was the head of Timbertop and served as UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's chaplain. In 2005 this ministry was re-badged 'Sports Chaplaincy Australia'.
That's this ministries' history in a nut shell (as it were). A solid foundation.
Athlete respite – first person
It was at that 1982 Hong Kong conference was the late Gernot Kunzelman the Austrian ski champion and celebrated Canadian Winter Olympic coach. A committed Christian, he envisioned the need for a lodge in the Austrian alps as an athlete respite and as part of the international Capernwray missions network.
Instinctively I recognised this as a respite mission model for Australian elite athletes and in faith in 1989 (7 years after Hong Kong) secured a 10 acre parcel of land in Moruya a stone's throw from the beach with tall ironbarks and a cacophony of bird song (bell miners).
I shared my idea with Mr Basil Sellers AM who I met as the Australian cricket team chaplain. He supported the philosophy with a donation that met the building costs, and on request, major companies provided the product – no requests for money.
'Basil Sellers House' was opened in 1992 by Nick Farr-Jones World Cup Rugby Captain and Janine Treharne Yachting world chaplain (husband Hugh the tactician on Australia II that won the America's Cup in 1982). Australian Institute of Sport officials came to the opening and thus was initiated the AIS elite athlete respite ministry.
In 2006 when, after 14 years in Moruya, we relocated to Tweed Heads, serving in the same manner the AIS Sport Units based in SE Qld with the nearby Surfing High Performance Centre as the 'respite facility' with numerous AIS athlete visits.
Whitsundays Laguna Quays Respite
By the end of 2010 I had worn myself to a frazzle and my medical people insisted I drop some of my ministry load and limit myself to very specialised portfolio ministries – I selected to retain the Christian Today daily article, the young writers, art ministry, Life After Cricket and an occasional Country Town Tour.
The outcome of all this was that I was able to secure my Baptist superannuation and with those monies purchased a small beach house at Laguna Quays (Midge Point) on the Whitsundays and to in turn, invite missionaries for respite - having had all these years of experience in elite athlete respite ministry.
Opened in 2011, this has had phenomenal outcomes with so many double bookings, there is no cost, it is a gifting from our faith support network. There is now a 2 min video. Mr Basil Sellers visited and asked me to send him several mission executives and as a result he has now funded a second missionary respite cottage at Aldinga Beach (Adelaide) and run by MissionLink.
Tweed Heads
Our home is in Tweed Heads. We have hosted at Laguna Quays Respite at least three New Zealand missionary visits, and with the Gold Coast airport (adjacent to Tweed Heads) – and 4 flights each day to and from New Zealand, it seemed obvious we might open our home as a further missions respite facility for Kiwi missions.
We shared this idea to our support network and asked Mr Basil Sellers' wisdom. His response was in effect, look how difficult it is for ordinary Australian families to fund one house, yet your faith financed network fund two houses – Tweed Heads and Laguna Quays. Why not think more laterally.
As Delma my wife and I travel so much (our children are all adults and we're grand-parents), how about those travel dates for mission respite visits to Tweed Heads. As we are away 1-17 November and praying to this effect, a phone call came in from Ken and Ros Myer from what was 'Helping Hands International' now re-badged 'Refugee Connect' asking about Tweed Heads for 1-14 November.
This was not scripted. They knew nothing that we'd be away from Tweed Heads on those dates. We had been praying. They are taking time off after many years in ministry to recoup and are scheduled to be at their daughter's graduation on Monday evening 14 November, giving them two weeks rest and recuperation in Tweed Heads.
Our motif now is to communicate with New Zealand missions with some of our set travel dates when away from the Tweed Heads house so as to make it available as a house-sit mission respite facility.
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He mentors young writers and has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children. Dr Tronson writes a daily article for Christian Today Australia (since 2008) and in November 2016 established Christian Today New Zealand.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.html