Salt Podcast

4 April 2022    Episode 63 - Big Animals, A Bigger God - Janet

Tune in to hear Jenny Salt interview Janet Riley - a city girl with a country heart. 

As a vet, Janet loved the big animals, and as a Christian, she knew the love of an even bigger God.

And it was this love that took her from regional NSW to Africa and on as she journeyed through cancer.

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28 March 2022    Episode 62 - The Deaf Hear - Andrew

Andrew Miller is the international operations coordinator for Deaf Ministries International. He tells Jenny Salt how an interest in Japanese culture led to 25 years of lay leadership in an international church in Osaka.
Since then he has transitioned into ministry to the silent world of the deaf community. Travelling all over the world to support DMI's ministries, he has discovered that the Gospel can still be heard powerfully by those who can hear nothing at all.
Learn about Deaf Ministries International's work.
Read Andrew's blog and the many more fascinating stories his work has brought him in touch with.

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21 March 2022    Episode 61 - The Country Life - Ruth

Jenny Salt welcomes Ruth France on to the show and talks to her about what brought a suburban girl to choose a life of ministry in the country.

As a young adult Ruth experienced a number of life-changing moments, including a literal bolt from the blue. But the biggest lightning strike to connect with her life was the call to mission.

What began as an interest in overseas work, though, transformed into a call to the country where she has ministered alongside her husband through fire, drought, and the scourge of COVID.

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15 March 2022    Episode 60 - Onward We Stumble - Adam

Join Jenny Salt as she ascends the heights and plumbs the depths of church planting with veteran Adam Ramsey.

Adam has been involved in church planting for 15 years, including working in Seattle in the Mars Hill church alongside Mark Driscoll.

He is also a pastor of a church that was planted on the Gold Coast in QLD, and he is the Network Director of Acts 29 for Asia Pacific - and he hasn’t hit 40 yet!

In his 'spare time', he's also written a book titled Truth on Fire: Gazing At God Until Your Heart Sings.

Jenny discovers, though, that some of Adam's deepest lessons have come from processing failure rather than celebrating success.

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23 November 2021    Episode 59 - America’s Jesus - Graham

Graham Cole, together with his wife Jules, has been involved in Christian ministry for more than 40 years.

Jenny Salt hears how it has taken them to many places around the world, and for 20 of those years, to the Midwest of the United States.

There, they discovered a perspective on life and the love of God that reveals the future for both America and Australia.

They’re back at home now, but still feel very connected to the country, the culture, and the Christians they left behind.

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16 November 2021    Episode 58 - My best ‘worst year’ - Scott

Like most of us, Scott Lavender and his family will have reflections on 2020 and 2021 – some good, some hard. Covid has changed so much in our world.

But for Scott, the last two years have contained the most excruciating pain he could imagine, alongside a host of other struggles.

But as doctors struggled to understand what was happening to him, Scott discovered that God was carrying out his own surgery. 

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9 November 2021    Episode 57 - Life to death to life - David

Jenny Salt's guest today is David Luxford.

To meet David is to meet a man who in many ways just quietly gets on with things.  No fanfare. No profile, megachurch, or fame. 

But to know David is to know someone who has faithfully got on with serving the Lord for more than 50 years - through long, difficult tasks and the tragedy of death in the family - because he was challenged as a young Christian to be an ambassador for Christ.

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2 November 2021    Episode 56 - Puppets who speak for God - Kay

In this episode Jenny Salt speaks to Kay Yasugi, a talented performer letting her light shine in the international world of puppetry.

Kay was born in Japan to a Japanese dad and a Korean mum. Along with her older brother they came and settled in Sydney via Melbourne.

Kay was brought up in a very multi-cultural home – private girl’s school during the week, Japanese school on Saturdays, and a home life filled with Korean food - but becoming a Christian and doing summer missions in Bathurst changed the direction of Kay’s life.

It all started with a mascot for the mission week – a monkey called “Chee Chee”. This unassuming creature was the beginning of Kay’s life-long love of puppetry, and the development of a talent that's taken her all over the world.

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26 October 2021    Episode 55 - God’s plan for a plumber - Ben

Ben Hunter tells Jenny Salt he didn't set out to be a plumber - that was God's plan.

Because of difficulties on the home front and at school, straight out of High School he decided to take up the offer of an apprenticeship.

Consequently he worked as a plumber for many years - a blue-collar industry in which he laboured to show friends another way of life.

But for Ben, it wasn’t really what made his heart sing. Rather, it’s always been wanting to tell young people about Jesus – something he had to wait many years to do.

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19 October 2021    Episode 54 - Christ on COVID’s front line - Tamara

Jenny Salt speaks to Tamara Flinders, a minister’s wife, a mum to 3 daughters, and an Emergency Physician – working on the frontline of Covid in a busy Sydney hospital emergency department.

Every shift brings very sick patients into her orbit – many with Covid.

But through it all, what keeps her grounded is her relationship with God, her daily walk with the Lord, and the desire to be an ambassador for Christ whatever the context.

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12 October 2021    Episode 53 - A Christian in a Muslim world - Roy

Roy grew up in a poor town in a Southeast Asian country. On one level, his family identified as Christians.

But Jenny Salt discovers his childhood was far more impacted by a father with a criminal history and an addiction to gambling.

And it wasn’t until Roy left to live and study in another part of the country, that he came to really understand what it meant to follow Jesus.

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5 October 2021    Episode 52 - Faith that informs grief - Pete

Join Jenny Salt as she interviews Pete Stacey, a Christian since a young boy, who has known the joy of telling others about Jesus for most of his life. 

Pete has done that through music, and through teaching and preaching in the local church.

He has also known the sorrow of losing his beloved wife to cancer and preaching Jesus through his grief and loss.

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28 September 2021    Episode 51 - Setting Sail With God - Kathy

Join Jenny Salt as she speaks with Kathy Rossiter, a medical professional and a member of the Mercy Ships ministry.

Kathy tested blood samples for a living, but rather than retire she and her husband decided to put their years of leisure to a Kingdom use.

Instead of heading for some sunny island, she took up a position in the labs onboard a floating hospital, showing Gospel love in action to some of the neediest people in Africa.

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21 September 2021    Episode 50 - God and government - Mike

Mike Baird is one of those high-profile Christians, having been a politician for some years. His relationship with power culminated in him taking on the top job as premier in New South Wales from 2014 to 2017.

Jenny Salt asks Mike what it means to be a public Christian. How do you live out your life as a follower of Christ in front of a watching, often critical, world?

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13 September 2021    Episode 49 - Domestic violence, depression and hope - Helen

Jenny Salt introduces us to Helen, a woman who has suffered much in her journey towards God.

Like most of us, Helen has a busy work life, a loving family, a close church community, and a lot of people who know and love her as a friend and sister in Christ.

Helen’s story also includes heartache and pain in the context of domestic violence and living with a major depressive disorder for most of her life.

But ultimately, hers is a story of hope in God.

Trigger alert: This episode contains some distressing details of assault.

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7 September 2021    Episode 48 - Loving Pakistan - Sarah

Sarah Raiter is a wife, mum, grandmother, author, artist… and grew up in a country considered extremely dangerous from a western perspective - especially for Christians.

But for Sarah, life in Pakistan meant a childhood filled with stories of adventure, beautiful sunsets, villages, compounds, and high walls. As an adult, though, it was also the place where she both lost and found her faith.

In the end, she loved Pakistan so much that she went back and lived there with her husband and children.

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18 May 2021    Episode 43 - Gospel Power for a Needy World – Tim

Jenny Salt introduces us to Tim Costello, the former CEO of World Vision and one of Australian Christianity's most prominent advocates for the suffering, the poor, and the disadvantaged.

You might think there's nothing more to know than that, but Jenny takes us on a journey into Tim's back story - the town in which he grew up, the parents who so powerfully influenced his faith, and the legal career that led him to serve Australia's most vulnerable citizens.

Then, when we arrive at Tim's service to the world's struggling masses, we come to understand how the image of God in every single person has powered everything he's done.

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11 May 2021    Episode 42 - With God On The Wharfs - Barrie

Jenny Salt introduces us to Barrie Hadley, a man who has spent more than 80 years in the same town, and more than 40 years in the same job.

'Bloomin' Barrie' is the definition of a blue-collar worker, growing up in the smallest of towns, becoming the local butcher, and then working for half a lifetime unloading ships.

His Christian journey is an understated one but undergirded by a simple truth: if you want people to listen to what you have to say about Jesus, you have to begin by being a man of your word.

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4 May 2021    Episode 41 - Arnhem’s Grace-Filled God - Red

Red Fulton grew up in the heart of Sydney but God gave her a heart to see the Gospel proclaimed wherever it would take her - even to the ends of the earth.

And that is exactly what it felt like when Red and her husband answered the call to work in Arnhem Land.

But in Australia's far north she discovered a people with hearts as big as this great brown land.

Not only did Red meet sisters thoroughly transformed by the Gospel, but she's been able to see Christian love take on the worst expressions of domestic violence.

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27 April 2021    Episode 40 - Mentoring And Ministering To Minds - Tim

Jenny Salt introduces us to Tim Dyer, a much sought-after man in the context of mentoring Christian leaders and getting alongside churches in conflict.

From an early age, Tim was gripped by the Gospel and this spurred him on to a ministry that aims to encourage and equip others to lead and teach Christian workers all over the world.

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