Paul is the Director of Programs, Baptist World Aid Australia. As such, he supervises entire overseas aid projects, linking in with the Australian Government and AusAid and he is also responsible for the education within Australian Churches and theological colleges.
Raised in Sydney and in Baptist church life, the budding footballer Paul Weekley became a drop-out from university and headed west to work on the land where he made a real go of it, both socially and financially.
"My father wrote me several letters regarding completing my education. Feeling safe, I said that if he could get me into the Hawkesbury Agricultural College to complete the degree in two years rather than three, I'd think about it," Paul explained.
To his amazement it happened, and it shocked him into trooping back to Sydney. In order to keep peace within the family, he agreed to attend church.
"On one Sunday an older interim preacher from Adelaide was speaking and his words impacted me so greatly that I sat in the pew praying for some time and thought very deeply about what was said," Paul Weekley recalled.
Paul Weekley was the Baptist World Aid Australia delegate 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.
http://tv.bushorchestra.com/
"I sought out this older pastor. He looked at me, took hold of his bible full of notes and threw it across the room to my shock, and turned to me and said, 'This is what you have been doing with Christ, throwing Him away," Paul Weekley told Mark Tronson of the Australian Missionary News IPTV.
It was at that time Paul had his first real experience of Christ in his life. This eventually led to Bible College, at which he was the butt of some of his mates' jokes. He found the Christian culture at bible college difficult to adjust to, but in the end it was where he met his future wife.
"After graduation and language school, we headed for West Africa 200 miles south of Timbuktu, into an area where there had been no previous Christian work," Paul Weekley said.
By this time, he had with him his wife and two children aged two and 6 weeks' old. The family served there for 15 years with semi-nomadic people, and developed a food program responding to famine. Amazingly, they saw development of a church of 40 people.
"As a result of my work in West Africa, I was invited into a doctoral program on this whole areas of the needs relating to famine," Paul Weekley explained. "That extra study, and the confidence I gained as a result, has stood me in good stead for my current work."
One of the things Paul Weekley has learned from his wide experiences is not to be taken aback by the unexpected, as the Lord is the Lord of the unexpected, and out of the unexpected so many other wonderful things follow.