Missionary doctor: Wayne’s journey back to the field

After an initial period of time studying at Trinity, Wayne and his wife Tanuja spent nine years overseas as missionaries. After serving as medical doctors in South Asia for that time, and then living in Australia for the past 12 years, Wayne is now working his way through a Graduate Diploma of Divinity in preparation for heading overseas again.

A calling to cross-cultural mission

Cross-cultural mission is something Wayne has been convicted about since shortly after he became a Christian. Having grown up in a non-Christian home, Wayne first heard the gospel preached clearly when he started attending youth group as a teenager. He was 15 years old when he gave his life to Christ, and it was about 12 months later that he became challenged by the need for cross-cultural mission workers.

“I laid it before God that if he wanted me to do this, he was going to have to make it possible,” Wayne explains. “So following that, I got into medical school. And during that time I read as much about mission as I could. I did an elective in South India, and that helped to confirm God’s calling for me to work cross-culturally.”

Wayne met Tanuja during this time, and he refers to their marriage as one that was “arranged”.

“Arranged because she was the only other person in my class who had a similar interest in missions,” Wayne laughs. “And so we just got along like a house on fire. It was very much God putting two people in the right place to meet each other who had that same interest in missions.”

The first stint at Trinity

While Wayne and Tanuja were undertaking their postgraduate medical studies, they also completed some training at Trinity in preparation for the mission field. The six months they had spent in Tanzania and Zambia prior to this point had revealed just how much they needed to be equipped theologically.

Wayne is deeply grateful for the relationships they built during their first stint at Trinity. During the nine years they served in South Asia, they felt enormously encouraged by people back in Perth.

“Many of the people that we met during our time at Trinity doing the certificate continued to support and pray for us while we were away,” Wayne reflects. “People like Allan Chapple, Don West and other people were influential in their teaching, but they also encouraged us and prayed for us while we were overseas.”

Serving in South Asia

Wayne says the first three years of their time as medical missionaries at a mission hospital were challenging. The main challenge was getting his head around the local culture.

“My focus was on teaching. And their focus was on getting to know me,” Wayne explains. “And this different way of thinking, my activity-based thinking or goal-directed thinking versus their relationship-based thinking was a big cross-cultural learning process for me.”

Once Wayne realised this huge difference, things started to shift. As his language ability improved, and his communication skills improved, he started becoming more effective in sharing the gospel. Now that Wayne and Tanuja are planning to return to South Asia, Wayne is back at Trinity to get even further trained.

A deeper theological journey

“I really wanted to spend some more time before going back overseas just helping to assimilate my own understanding of the Bible and all the books that I’ve read over the years and the learning that you get from different people and experiences,” Wayne shares. “But I also wanted to put that together with some of the wisdom that comes from the teaching of people who’ve really spent extended periods of time digging deeply into the truths of Scripture.”

Wayne says that he has already started benefiting from this second round of theological study. The lecturers are certainly a big part of it, but his fellow students have also been a source of encouragement to him.

“It’s people from a fairly diverse variety of backgrounds who have a similar interest in wanting to understand and know more about God, and I think that’s probably one of the key things that caused me to go to Trinity,” Wayne says. “I realised that it was the ability to interact in class with both other students as well as the teachers that was an important part of this for me.”

The difference between his undergraduate studies and his postgraduate studies is quite significant for Wayne. This time round he is enjoying delving deeper into his readings, and he particularly loves meeting different people and being encouraged by the way God is at work in their lives.

One thing God has been reminding Wayne is that knowledge is not the same thing as relationship.

“God wants our hearts as well as our minds,” Wayne explains. “And so as I learn more about God, I also realise that I need to keep growing in my relationship with God. It’s not just one at the expense of the other.”

Wayne highly recommends Trinity for anyone considering theological study. He feels certain that nothing is wasted in God’s economy.

“It’s important to deepen our knowledge of God so that we can grow in love for God,  and in turn, that can result in us being more fruitful for God,” he says.