Episode Transcript
Good day. It is all too often said that there are no miracles performed these days. Well, I'd like to challenge this idea with my story, From Drugs to God, Part 2. So welcome to Miracles in the 21st Century. I'm Sau Finau. In the previous episode, I talked about when I first came here to Australia, came from a background of a family, my family was a dysfunctional family. I became, I moved here to Australia, hooked up with the wrong crowd, ended up being a drug addict. For many years I have turned away from God and get to the point where I just don't believe in God. Until this one moment that I remembered growing up, things that we always do as a family was having worship together. And I thought to myself, well, I will pray and ask God to— I want to ask God for healing, from this addiction, but most importantly, prove that he has a purpose for my life and that he is real. And long story short, I find myself, had the best sleep that night, my wife and I. The next morning, I went down to the— we always look for a, you know, I went down to the car park to look for cigarette butts because by this time we were really broke. The sweeper has already come and cleaned up, so there were no cigarettes, no drugs. We didn't feel like having any on that day, but I was waiting for my friend who owns a tobacco shop so I can go in and see if I can borrow a packet of cigarettes. He reminded me how much I owed him, and I haven't paid him for the cigarettes, but he trusts me. I always I'll turn up and pay him when I can afford it, when I have the money. But while I was waiting for my cigarette, this was the interesting thing. I saw this was a souvenir shop. It's a cigarette and souvenir shop. There was a mug in there to seem like, you know, those little cups that says, "I love Sydney," or "I love New York," or just a little gift those gift cups. There was a cup there with a Bible verse that says Jeremiah 29:11 on it, and it says, "I know the purpose I have for you." And all, you know, that's basically what it was saying in the verse, but I didn't really take notice of it. My friend turned up and he gave me my cigarettes. I went home. While I was at home, I remembered what I saw at the shop. Then I came back, came back to my friend, to his shop, and I said, "Where's that cup?" He goes, "What cup?" "The cup that was on your shelf that had a Bible verse in it." And he reminded me that he's Muslim. He doesn't have Christian paraphernalia in his shop. I said, "But you had a cup there that says Jeremiah 29:11." 'For I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you.' And he said to me, 'There's something wrong with you.' And I said, 'Yeah, I know there's something wrong with me. I did saw that cup in there.' But anyway, I went home. I went home to my wife, and that's when it finally hit me, what we did the night before. And not long from that, I had some knocking on our front door. There was our friends coming to our house because our house was like a drugstore, our house. And they were coming so we can all, you know, all have our shoot-up for the day before we go out and see where we can find some money to get our next fix. Because when you become a drug addict, you know, like I said before, you don't take drugs just for the high or for the euphoria anymore. You just take it because once you know that once this feeling wears out, you got to have something to keep it going. So, but by this time I said, no, we are not interested. Our friends tried to accuse us saying that, oh, you guys have already had your shot without us. And I said, no, we didn't. We haven't had any. And by the way, We don't want anything. So, you know, and that was the last time I get to saw my friends, you know. And now I realize that if you want to move on with your life, sometimes we have to get away from the environment that we are in, you know, in order for us to move forward with our lives. And that's what happens. But for some reason, here we are. Sitting there not knowing what we gonna do. And when our friends left, within 5 minutes I have another knock on my door. And surprise, surprise, was one of my uncle that I haven't seen for over 30 years. He was— last time I saw him, he was the manager of the radio station back in Tonga before he moved to the United States. And he was a Pentecostal pastor and he married a Canadian woman in the United States and he has become a pastor, but he felt called by God to move here to Australia so he can start a church. And when he came to Australia, he was here for a while, But when I opened my front door and I saw him standing, he called me and said, "Sal, I've been praying that God will lead me to you." And I said, "What for?" And he says, "God has called me to come here to Australia to start a church, but I've been praying and I said to God, if you want me to start a church in Australia, lead me to someone to help me to start a church, and here I am. I'm at your front door. And they said, ah, okay. I have no choice at the time because first of all, I'm broke. Second of all, I have no job. Third of all, I had a wife and a daughter that the Department of Community Service are looking for. I had no choice but to just Accepted. Then he said, "Would you like to come for lunch with my wife and I, with my family, and, you know, like, would you like to come and meet my family?" I said, "Of course, but can my wife come too?" And he said, "Of course, your wife can come as well." So we went there and met with them, and he told me what he's been doing. He's been in the country for I think just over a year struggling to start this church and telling me about this radio ministry that he was doing. And he believes that I'll be the right person to serve with, to work with him. I have no idea what God has in store. But anyway, I said, "Yeah, I'm happy to do that as long as there's food and—" 'As long as my wife can come along?' And he said, 'Of course you can.' And here I am working with him. And on that, this was, I remember vividly, this was on a Wednesday. Then on a Thursday he said, 'How about you and your wife come over Thursday afternoon and we have dinner together, you know. And of course we went, we had dinner together because that was the only meal that we had. And, you know, forget about all the other reasons why, you know, that he was proposing to me. I was more interested as long as we had something to eat, right? Then on Friday, for some reason, usually I remember that Friday night is Sabbath, and my wife, she didn't grow up in a Christian home either, so she had no idea. But I said, we used to love watching the games on Friday night, and for this time I said, just turn that TV off, turn the music off. We usually go out on Friday night and say, I don't feel like going out, we just want to stay home. And we stayed at home. And my wife, I remember my wife said to me, "Man, this is so peaceful." And I said, this is when I first talked to my wife about the Sabbath. And like, I just talked to her about how we used to keep the Sabbath back at home, back in the islands. And we keep it from sunset to sunset. And come Saturday, my uncle runs a radio station and he said he will come and take me to the radio station and so I can, you know, he already given me some responsibilities. I play the music for the radio station. I said, "Yes, I would agree," because I know every time he comes, we gonna have food. He's gonna take us for lunch and all that kind of stuff. So I start going with him and help him with the radio station. I play, he handed me this briefcase of cassette tapes, for those of you who remember the cassette tapes, and they were all gospel music, all different gospel music, and I really enjoyed it, really enjoyed doing that. The first hour and a half of our program is just Tongan news and updates and all those things, different announcements, and the last half an hour he do a spiritual talk. And for me, I just felt like that message of the gospel was just for me. And sometimes I was just so overwhelmed with the message that he was sharing that I forget to play the music at the end, that he had to keep reminding me, "Oh, play the music." Because here I'm just sitting there just listening to the gospel of Jesus. But anyway, long story short, one day, and of course we always have some guest speakers, we always invite some guests who travel from the Tongan government here to Australia to be, to present in our radio as well. But this Saturday we didn't have any guests. This is after about a couple of months. We didn't have any guests, and he just— I just thought that we won't have any guests for that day. But after the announcement, after all the news and all those things, just before the— usually the time when the guest speaks, he announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for tuning in. We are so grateful that we have Salvin now here on the radio, in the radio station." Who will be willing to share his testimony? He just throw me in the deep end, threw me in at the deep end. And I was so shocked that he put me right there on the spot so I can share my story of, you know, look, like I haven't really felt to myself that I deserve any acknowledgement of the transformation that I think I was still in the process because by this time, believe it or not, I've been 2 months clean. I haven't touched drugs for over 2 months because the healing happened instantly, that all these things were happening that I forgot about having a shot, not only for myself, but for my wife. But remember, I prayed. And I asked God, "Don't only heal me, but prove to me that You exist. Prove to me that You have a purpose for my life." And I was so blind to all these things. I can only reflect on it now. But here, after sharing, my uncle prayed. Then he said, "Do you mind if I come and pick you on Sunday to church?" I said, "On Sunday to church? Okay, I will come. As long as we have food there, I'll come." And he said, "But this time I want you," because his church was a bilingual church, he said, "I will preach in English. I want you to translate in Tongan." So every Sunday, every Sunday he was preaching and I was translating. And this happened for about You know, almost 2 years of me doing this, you know, and by this time I was really fully committed. But for some reason, I know the Sabbath. I know the Sabbath that from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, I was waiting. I didn't go to church. But I was waiting for my uncle to come so we can go and do our radio program. But what I want you to, at the point, I want you to understand, friends, that yes, God too has, you know, not only did God answer prayers, He also proves Himself to us that He exists, and He also wants us to know that he has a purpose for each and every one of us. So friends, I will tell you the rest of the story. Stay tuned, join us in the next episode.
