Interview with Heather Reid

1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself, your husband and ministry etc?

I am a 3rd culture kid. Although an Australian, I spent most of my formative years outside of Australia: primarily in Papua New Guinea. I moved back to Australia to go to university where I studied Physiotherapy.

I met Andrew, my husband, while at uni, just as he began studying for the ministry and we married a few years later. We have now been married for 30 years.

Andrew is also a 3rd culture kid. He was born in Vanuatu and spent most of his early years in Papua New Guinea.

One of the side effects of both of us being 3rd culture kids is that we adjust well to moving and crossing cultures, and this is what we have been doing most of our lives. In our 30 years of marriage we have now lived in 13 different houses in 3 different Australian states: NSW, WA & Victoria.

In part, this has been linked to Andrew’s ministry moves, which range from Anglican curate to AFES staffworker and National Director back to University chaplain, parish minister, church planter and, for the last 5 years, theological lecturer at Ridley Melbourne. Our most recent move was on just over a week ago, with a shift back to parish ministry at Holy Trinity Doncaster (Melbourne).

We have 2 sons in their late 20s: Joel, married to Sam, and currently living and working in Tom Price in WA and Dan, married to Jo, who, until our most recent move, shared our house in Melbourne along with their beautiful son, our grandson, Sean. They are expecting another child in late September this year.

At heart I am an evangelist, and living with Andrew has given me plenty of scope to explore this gift in a variety of contexts. His early shift into student work highlighted our love ministry amongst uni students and my 3rd culture background has given me a special love of ministry to international students.

Many of Andrew’s jobs have been in young or underfunded ministries so most of my married life I have worked part-time to help out with the breadwinning. Despite this, my ongoing passion has been university ministry and over the years, I have almost continuously worked voluntarily 1 - 2 days a week, with Christian groups on various campuses: Cumberland College of Health Sciences (NSW), Macquarie Uni (NSW), and Curtin Uni (WA). In 2005, when we moved to Melbourne, I finally took a paid ‘ministry job’ when I gave up physio and became an AFES senior staff worker at RMIT University.


2. What have been some of the joys of being in ministry?

Nothing can beat the joy of sharing in the birth of a new child of God: no wonder I am addicted to evangelism! But there is great joy too to be found in the growth in maturity that follows. For this reason I also love mentoring and discipling new Christians into ‘holiness & wholeness’.

Now that I am older, another great joy is to see the longitudinal effect of both my ministry and the ministry of my husband, in the lives of those we have ministered among. It is a special joy to see them now impact others for the gospel.


3. What have been some of the challenges?

The apostle Paul comments in 1 Thess 2:8 We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. This sort of relationship with those we minister amongst is one of the gifts of ministry, but can also be one of the challenges, as such closeness can at times lead to physical and emotional drain. For me one of the biggest challenges is learning to leave enough space in my life so that I do not end up over committing and burning out.

As an evangelist, I live life in the light of Matt 9: 37, knowing that ‘the harvest is plentiful and the labourers are few’ but sometimes I forget the rest of Jesus’ teaching in verse 38: ‘therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’ Learning to trust the Lord of the harvest to control his own work rather than trying to do everything that needs doing myself has been another real challenge for me.


4. How does partnership in serving God with your husband work out in practice for you?

Andrew is a great teacher and preacher and I love evangelism, mentoring and small group ministry. Early on in our marriage we recognised each others gifts and sought to encourage each other in them. He did this by encouraging me to actively engage in a variety of ministries by helping me ‘make time’ for them in my life: sharing the routine household duties and minding the children while I prepared for or engaged in such activities. I supported him by accommodating some aspects of my life to his ministry responsibilities – eg solo parenting for the weeks when he travelled as National Director of AFES or practicing hospitality at various times as we hosted visitors for ministry reasons. Although we both are employed in different ministries at the moment, we both make time in our life to contribute to each other’s ministry. For Andrew this means being actively involved with AFES Victoria. For me it over the past few years, this has meant being actively involved in Andrew’s ministry at Ridley, and now will mean discovering how I can actively engage in supporting his ministry at Holy Trinity, Doncaster.


5. What's the one piece of advice you would give to a younger woman about to become a 'ministry' wife?

Plan to be a ministry ‘plus’ wife for your husband. This will look different for everyone.

Many women feel pressure to live up to some imaginary image of a ministry wife while others just try to disassociate from their husband’s ministry, using as an excuse the fact that ‘they only employ one of you’ Paul tell us in 1 Corinthians 12:7 that all of us have been given spiritual gifts ‘for the common good.’ Stretch yourself in the areas in which God has gifted you no matter how unexpected they are, and explore how these gifts can be used to serve God and to complement your husband’s ministry in each context you find yourself in. Above all remember that your husband chose you as his partner not some other ‘ministry wife’; seek to explore how you can best be a ‘suitable helper’ for him (Genesis 2:20) as you seek to ‘serve the Lord’ (Romans 12:9-18)