60 in 60 #29 Phil
I am reflecting on the last 60 years, and writing 60 blog posts. 30 about people and 30 about events, places, experiences and entities.
When I was directing RYLA and RYPEN (#27 of 60 in 60) I met a lot of people and made many friends. One who became a good mate was Phil Sparrow. He came to RYLA as a participant and made an immediate impression, he was confident and articulate and showed obvious leadership capabilities from the very first day. I directed six RYLA seminars in succession so the events and memories have tended to become mixed up in my mind, especially as it was in the early 90s. I don’t remember which year Phil came to RYLA but I sensed it would not be the last and when I was recruiting team members for the following year I invited him to join the team. It was the beginning of a connection and partnership that has spanned many events and places over the last 30 years.
Phil had outdoor skills which made him an asset when we took the RYLA crews to camp at Margaret River and go abseiling and caving at places like WI16, Brides Cave and the Willyabrup sea cliffs. He also had a strong interest in social justice issues and geopolitical ideas. We had run the One World Dinner each year and it was Phil who suggested another activity, “The Money Game” (#25) that we could try. The first iteration didn’t have the same impact as the OWD but I loved the idea and over the next ten years I used it at both RYPEN and the Year 10 Leadership Camp, developing and refining it to the point where it was a highlight of the program and left an enduring impact on the participants. When I first met him Phil was exploring questions of faith and belief. He was going out with a girl I knew through youthwork circles, Franca, and I remember him mailing a coconut back to her from somewhere overseas, with the address written directly on the husk.
Phil joined my team for RYPEN as well and I have vivid memories of us running around the Araluen campsite playing “Capture the Watermelon” a more challenging variation of the popular wide game, “Capture the Flag”.
Around this time I was working as the Coordinator of the Chip-Inn drop in centre at Warwick Church of Christ, a long-standing youth project. Chip Inn was started by a bloke called Jeff Pope and used the latest in whiz-bang computers at the time, Commodore 64s, to attract local kids on a Thursday night. I had heard of Chip Inn when I was working at the Rockingham Youth Centre in the late 80s and met Jeff at a youthwork conference.
Carolyn and I spent eight months in the eastern states in 1988. We went to the National Gathering in Canberra, World Expo and The Pavilion of Promise in Brisbane and then six months at Kilmany Park in Sale doing a diploma in youth and community work with Fusion before returning to Perth. I started a twelve month placement with Fusion Perth doing school seminars, day trips and youth outreach. Around this time I was invited to apply for the position at Chip Inn by the senior minister Geoff Carslake. Initially it was just one day a week but the role grew over the next few years and I worked closely with the ministry team: Bruce Eagles, Lyn Devlin and youth minister Rob Mason.
Chip Inn was mostly staffed by volunteers and each Thursday night we would set up the ageing 64s and open the doors to local teenagers. I asked Phil to join the team and before long he was so effective that I was able to get him on the payroll and he became my 2ic, co-worker and partner-in-crime. We developed a great partnership and I loved working with him at Chip Inn. As the computers became more antiquated and unserviceable the focus of Chip Inn switched from them to other activities. Many of the kids preferred to hang around outside and the team concentrated more on relationship-building and making connections. At its peak Chip Inn attracted over 100 kids a night. It needs to be said that there were other reasons they came. The nearby bush that separated the church from the Warwick Grove shopping centre provided perfect cover for them to go and smoke dope and bucket bongs. We didn’t condone this but nor did we condemn it. We were there to offer friendship, support and a safe place and to demonstrate our faith through love in action. The fact that so many kids came so regularly was proof that we were doing something right and we gradually expanded the range of activities to offer alternatives to our clientele.
We ran a basic canteen each week selling soft drink and chocolate bars, which gave us a good way to meet new kids, ask their names and get to know them a little bit. Around this time I had established a relationship with the local bakers, John and Rose Knight, and several afternoons a week I would go and collect their leftover bread, cakes, rolls and donuts and then distribute it to a range of charities and people. I always had boxes of bread and goodies in the car and was known by reputation as the guy with all the bread! We saved the jam and cream donuts, cakes and goodies for the Chip Inn canteen and the kids were so eager to get their hands on them that Phil and I created “The Corridor of Death” as a right of passage in order to score a prized donut or cake. We would take up position in the narrow corridor between the auditorium and the back door. Any kid wanting a donut had to run the gamut of the Corridor of Death. That simply meant they had to get past us. It was a brutal physical game and Phil I spared no effort and took no prisoners as we blocked, bashed, bounced and rebuffed waves of clamouring teens trying to get to the holy grail of sweet treats! Many a kid got squashed between us and the brick walls. As the Corridor of Death grew in intensity we started wearing skate helmets and elbow pads for protection/effective combat! It was hot sweaty and hilarious, the kids loved it and came back for more each week.
Another game that was a big hit was Bush Hockey. Two teams wielding rolled up newspapers bound with masking tape chased and belted a soft bouncy rubber ball up and down the auditorium scoring goals against tables turned on their sides. The regular church members would have been stunned to see their place of worship turned into a sporting battlefield for 20-30 boisterous teenagers each Thursday night.
We started running outings and camps to places like Nanga and Margaret River. Many of the kids had never been camping, let alone caving and abseiling so they jumped at the chance to try some adventure activities. We would camp at Contos Field, swim at Contos beach and wash in the fresh water spring that runs out of the rocks at the bottom of the hill. I taught them an old schoolyard game, “Rule the World” on the beach and they played it for hours. At night time we’d cook camp food and sit around the campfire telling stories or sharing our faith, go looking for possums or play “Capture the Flag” across the wide expanse of Contos Field. Exploring Giants Cave, swinging across the sunken floor of Brides Cave and doing run downs at Willyabrup were fantastic and memorable experiences for the kids. On a camp at Nanga we spent hours swimming in the river and wrestling kids in rubber tyre tubes. It was on that camp that the cheeky Michael Bregman nicknamed me “Burgertron”!
The debrief at the end of the night at Chip Inn.
We had a Coaster Bus, painted in the colours of the Aboriginal flag, which made all of these trips and camps possible. Before Phil joined the team I had taken a group of eleven kids and three leaders on a trip across the country in it to the Blackstump Christian Music and Arts Festival at Cataract Park, about an hour outside of Sydney. I had been to Blackstump the year before while we were still at Sale, making some money selling screen printed T-shirts under my label, “Printz of Peace”. It was a fantastic three day event and I was keen to take a group of West Aussie kids from Chip Inn. It was an “eventful” trip to put it mildly! The roof rack struts, straining under the weight of all the gear, started popping off with a bang as we climbed Greenmount hill just out of Perth! Plan B was called for and a covered trailer from YWAM was delivered so we could set off again. Six flat tyres! Yes, 6! Three on the bus and three on the trailer. We quickly ran out of spares and had to wait while getting them repaired, one on a dirt road “shortcut” out of Port Augusta.
The Blackstump Trip, 1989
Perth kids in the big city
We limped into Blackstump after three and a half days on the road , the last leg of the journey punctuated by intermittent broadcasts of the 1989 Grand Final as the radio signal dropped in and out every time we descended or climbed a hill. The kids became celebrities at Blackstump when it was discovered they had come “All the way from Perth”. Jeff, who was now living and working in Sydney, revisited his Chip Inn roots and generously offered to have us stay at their place for a couple of days in Sydney before we headed back west across the Nullarbor. The only other driver was a team member, Terry so driving stints were interspersed with “sleep” on the floor behind the driver’s seat. It was a tough trip for all sorts of reasons, which of course made it all the more memorable.
Another Chip Inn excursion involved dragging the kids up very early on a Saturday morning and driving up to Toodyay to watch the start of the Avon Descent. The powerboats and kayaks shooting the rapids at Extracts Weir were spectacular but not as crazy and engrossing as the hour-long mud fight we had with the kids up and down the river bank!
In 1992 I was selected to attend an international youth leadership conference in Montreal and in my absence Phil took over managing the drop in centre for the six weeks I was away. I knew it was in safe hands while I spent a week in London, a week at the conference in Canada and a month in the States, culminating at a Calvary Chapel conference in Costa Mesa California with Skip Joannes and Mike Klenner.
Atop Observation City
By the time I left Chip Inn to work as chaplain at Carine, Phil had moved on to a youth project based in Scarborough. He was able to arrange access to Observation City and permission for me to take a group of teachers abseiling off the roof.
While at UWA working towards his Masters degree he met a girl called Julie and not too long after they got engaged.
I was honoured when Phil asked me to be one of his groomsmen although a misread on my part almost scuttled my place in the wedding party! Phil asked me to organise a buck’s night for him and, never having been to one, I relied on the stories and legends of buck’s nights for guidance. Given our faith and values it was never going to degenerate into booze and strippers so we opted for some thrills bridge swinging and a BBQ. So far so good. It seemed however that some sort of prank was a necessary part of the right of passage so a few of us grabbed Phil at the end of the night, held him down and I shaved a cross in his chest hair. I feel embarrassed writing about it because it backfired badly. Phil was horrified, to the extent that he seriously considered excluding me from the wedding party! His idea of a buck’s night was something very different to mine and he was not happy at all. I am grateful for two things, one, that he forgave me enough not to boot me as groomsman, and two, that it is the only time we’ve had a serious falling-out. The wedding was a lovely occasion, held at the Stoneville Children’s home where Julie worked.
A few years later when Phil and Julie chose to re-declare their marriage vows they asked me to conduct the “service” on the banks of the Swan River in Nedlands.
Phil and Julie's wedding, easy to see who the cool one is.
We were both very involved with Scripture Union-SU- as camp leaders and directors around this time. We were part of the leadership team for the newly created MAD Camp (Make A Difference Camp) aimed at developing young people in their faith and discipleship. The camp was held at Eagle’s Nest retreat centre in the Avon valley and another team member was Andrew Broadbent. Broady has many talents but chief amongst them was the ability to get me into trouble, or to be present when I did so myself! There will be more to say about Broady in a future chapter but this story needs to be told here.
MAD Camp was typical of most SU camps in that there was a lot of time spent having fun, playing games and enjoying the company of teenagers. It had an aim of teaching and encouraging young Christians in their walk with Jesus. The combination of fun and faith and the influence and role-modelling of leaders they could relate to always created a positive and powerful environment. Each night there would be music and worship followed by one of the team leading a teaching session on some aspect of Christian faith.
Broady, Phil and I are all good mates but it’s fair to say that of the three, Broady is the funny one and Phil is the serious one. On this particular night, Phil was doing the teaching and while I don’t remember the theme (for reasons that will soon become obvious) I know he had spent a lot of time and effort preparing for it and was intent on delivering it in such a way as to make an impact on the campers and challenge them in their growth.
We were all sitting around on the floor of the cosy meeting room when disaster struck, in the shape of Broady! Turning to me he asked in a whisper, “Do you smell petrol?”. Immature as it may be, I knew this was code for him having just farted! I burst out laughing and then tried to quickly stifle my laughter, knowing it was inappropriate and inopportune to be laughing while Phil was teaching. The problem was that with subtle but meaning-laden looks from Broady he kept provoking me and I soon collapsed into that helpless state of uncontrollable laughter! By now Phil was again horrified! What was I doing wrecking his presentation? I tried desperately to stop, and apologised repeatedly but if you’ve ever been in that state you know it is almost impossible to escape from and with Broady acting innocent and looking at me with mock disdain I was gone! I think I had to leave the room but by then the magic was broken and the session had been well and truly sabotaged! That would have been bad enough but in the true spirit of youthwork praxis/action-reflection, once the kids had all gone to bed came the “debrief”, a one-to-one dissection of the night’s events in which Phil took me to town and expressed in no uncertain manner how disappointed and unhappy he was with my actions. I tried to explain but he wasn’t having any of my pitiful excuses that “Broady had farted” and just kept hammering me for the way I had ruined the session and the harm I had done to the cause of the gospel. It went on for a long time and I had no leg to stand on, I was guilty as charged and just had to grit my teeth and bear it. To add a final Machiavellian twist, all the while, Broady was in the bed next door pretending to be asleep to avoid any of Phil’s wrath. He delighted in telling me later he had heard the whole thing and had dared not move, in order to escape any recrimination or guilt by association! Even now, years later, Broady can reduce me to fits of guilty laughter with those four words, “Can you smell petrol?”
NB. I don’t consider this episode to have been a falling-out, more a clash of cultures and ideas!
Once I started working at Carine I knew I needed a support group of peers and like-minded people to stand with me and pray for me through the challenges of chaplaincy. I asked Phil and Broady to be part of it, along with another mate, Hugh Francis and thus The Breakfast Club was born. Some members came and went. Khristo Newall was part of it for a few years, including the memorable day when we decided to play tennis before breakfast and he wore a tennis skirt for the occasion. Another who shall not be named came for a few months before being unofficially expelled for his careless treatment of Hugh’s beloved cat Matilda. We met one Saturday morning a month for breakfast at Hugh’s, each person bringing something to share. I always had bread of course, while Phil expressed his individuality by bringing random items, not always known for their breakfast qualities. I seem to recall some quinces on one occasion. From humble beginnings The Breakfast Club became an institution that continued to meet together for over twenty years. When we moved to Busselton the meetings were less frequent but just as eagerly looked forward to and even now that I’ve been in Victoria for ten years, we still get together for Breakfast Club whenever I go back to Perth, usually at a café or restaurant where we share a meal and catch up. There was no set agenda other than to talk about how we were going in various aspects of our lives and to pray together. While it started out as a support group for me it quickly transitioned into a mutual support group where we could share openly and honestly and a great bond grew between the four of us, Hugh, Broady, Phil and I.
Phil, Broady, Hugh, Me
Phil and Julie were blessed with the birth of a daughter, Pieta, but quickly discovered that she had a serious and potentially fatal heart condition soon after the birth, requiring emergency surgery in Melbourne. Thankfully the surgery was successful. I again had the privilege of conducting a child dedication service for Pieta when she was a baby. She has now grown into a lovely young woman, and is currently studying at ANU in Canberra.
Phil will need to afford me some grace in this part of the story because I can’t remember the specific timelines of the following events. He and Julie were both committed to doing community development work in other parts of the world and they set their path for Afghanistan soon after they were married. They moved to the northern city of Mazar-el-sharif, learnt Farzi, the local language, and became immersed in the Afghan culture. When the September 11 attacks occurred they had to evacuate and return to Australia, leaving behind resources, friends and unfinished work as the world’s attention was turned to fighting terrorism in that region. They have worked with TEAR, IAM and the UN in several tours of duty in Afghanistan and their two eldest children, Pieta and Elijah were raised there. On and off they spent many years working and living in difficult and dangerous conditions in that troubled country. Phil and Julie have a deep love for Afghanistan and have always hoped to be able to go back and continue their work there. Phil has been back for short-term projects over the years but no opportunities have arisen for them to return fully.
There has been a hole and an ache in Phil’s heart for Afghanistan which may never go away and he has found it very difficult to find meaningful and fulfilling work back here in Australia over the last several years.
Phil and I have a lot in common, but just as many things that make us different. He is highly educated, an intellectual with a passion for community development and international mission. He is a deep thinker but with his feet firmly on the ground. Phil has an amazing skill-set, he’s an improviser with brilliant practical skills, a bush engineer for whom no task is too challenging or too difficult. He maintains the family property at Margaret River, is mechanically minded and intensely resourceful. Unlike me he has zero interest in football, often mocking me with tales of how well “Buzzy Franklin” played on the weekend. We share one sporting memory, the battles for “The Golden Racquet” fought out on the squash court each month or so for a few years. He surfs and has recently restarted Christian Surfers events for kids in Perth.
Phil has written two books, one about life and work in Afghanistan and the other about fatherhood in which he compiled stories, anecdotes and insights from a group of men reflecting on how they experienced being Dads. I was rapt to be able to contribute some stories for the book.
A few years ago Phil went through a very hard time that caused him a great deal of trauma and anguish and resulted in the loss of a job he loved. While I was not living there in person, I was glad to be able to provide a level of support for him through regular phone calls and messages. It reinforced for me the value of true friendship, the importance of connection and the absolute worth of having people you love and trust to turn to when the shit hits the fan.
I love Phil. He is one of my closest mates and I greatly value his friendship. I know I say this about a lot of people but in every instance it is genuine and true. I am fortunate to have a number of very very good friends, people I love, respect and care about and who I believe feel the same way towards me. Friendships such as the one Phil and I share are a rich blessing for which I am immensely grateful.
I love you mate.
