Tim Buxton - Founder of You Belong Australia & Justice Matters podcast

Transcript adapted from episode #02 of the Justice Matters podcast.

Ben: You're listening to Justice Matters. A podcast inspiring the fight for a world where everyone belongs. Tim Buxton - welcome to the Justice Matters podcast!

Tim: Hey [chuckles]. Yes, well, it's good to be on my own show. What can I say?

Ben: You're on the receiving end today of the questions and for those listening at home, or watching, as this is a video podcast as well, I am Ben and I'm the best mate that Tim has ever had.

Tim: Yes, I would say there probably isn't anyone else I would want introducing me, then you. We’re like brothers.

Ben: Mate, I really am looking forward to getting into talking about what this podcast is all about. I know personally who you are, because, we go way back to what? 12-year-olds we met and our journeys have intersected at different times and then taken great distances apart, worlds apart and then come back together and here we are. I know that the subject of this podcast is not just something you thought of during the COVID-19 pandemic, and when you're at home, twiddling your thumbs because Mr Tim Buxton, he is never bored. He is never not doing anything. He's never scratching his head thinking, "Jeez, what am I going to do today?" Never. This podcast has been quite a number of years in the making. I know it's particularly important to you because of what it enables, the conversations and stuff around social justice. Shall we get into why a podcast and why Justice Matters?

Tim: Why a podcast? Well, obviously, yes, this isn't something that's just come up last minute. I was thinking about doing a podcast a couple years ago when I first came back from Iraq when I was living with my family there for a few years and then we got pulled out of there pretty quickly, came here to Australia, and I wasn't really sure what was next for me and one of the things I really felt like I wanted to do was start talking to my friends that I've been so inspired with along the years doing incredible work around the world, and just talk to them and interviewing them.

More recently, it came down to what theme to put some flesh and bones to this idea of a podcast, and it was resounding, the whole issue of justice. It's been an issue for me, and I've been passionate about really fighting for those that are oppressed and loving them well and that’s how Justice Matters came about.

Tim at a refugee camp in northern Iraq

Ben: People can obviously read your story in different places on the Internet, but do you want to go into it a little-- and briefly touch on where it started for you, from your personal journey. You were born into a missionary family, grew up as a PK (pastor's kid) in a church, and that's where we met. Right from the very start, there was always a strong sense of purpose that you had, mission that you had, and it was just part of who you were. Can you just explain a little bit about that work there, and then how that led to living in Iraq.

Tim: Ok, yeah I moved to New York in 2014 to intern at a church called Times Square Church in the heart of New York City. They had a massive emphasis and focus on helping the gangs of New York back in its early days. For me growing up as a pastor's kid and my Christian faith being such an important motivator for me, I was really excited to have this opportunity to go and intern at this church in New York as it was an incredible opportunity. I ended up staying there for 10 years and it’s where I met my wife Sarah. The job was a dream job for me. I got to coordinate short term trips that would go around the world, whether it was doing medical trips, or construction trips, or working in slums, or in red light districts, or homeless and drug addicts in Colombia. I got to coordinate these trips, go and build and create, and train the team members on how to best serve in each context.

For me personally, that really was what Jesus was all about. Jesus was about going to those that are on ‘the out’ of society. In the Bible, these people would be known as sinners, which was really just a codeword for "you're just not good enough." Whether you’ve got leprosy and you smell, you're diseased and you've obviously brought that upon yourself somehow in some way, or whether you're--

Ben: You're cut off.

Tim: Cut off. Exactly. You were ostracised. Yet it seemed that all Jesus cared about was being with those kinds of people and telling them ‘you're in'. Telling them, in my books, ‘I've got this big circle called grace, and you're on the inside of that and you're welcomed, and you're loved’. In fact, it's quite often the people that were pointing the fingers and making everyone else feel like they weren't good enough that he was very frustrated and angry and passionately against.

Ben: That sounds like not really a religious concept but just a fundamental concept of how we work together best as humanity.

Tim: Yes, exactly. One of the verses in bible scripture that stood out to me over the years is where Jesus talks about his own approach to serving and loving people, he says ‘a bruised read he will not break and a flickering flame he will not snuff out’. In other words, those people that are bruised and broken and bent over like a reed, God - or anyone who's doing his work, these are the ones we should go after. The flickering flame. The flame that's ready to just snuff out. Instead, Jesus is like "No, these are the ones we need to help lift up, to breathe new life into until that flicker becomes a flame again." That's been really at the heart of who I am and really what I believe the heart of what it is to live out my faith.

Ben: I know your story, of course, but from New York you decide to move your family of three to Northern Iraq, and incidentally that was the same day that ISIS invaded a nearby city. What did that feel like? How did it happen? What did that feel like?

Tim: The process of getting to Iraq as you can imaging wasn't just something like "Oh hey Sarah, let's go to Northern Iraq." Obviously, it's a place where not many people wanted to go, this was back in 2010, 10 years ago. It took a while for Sarah to warm to the idea and it was always a decision that we made together, and three years later we ended up moving there. On the day we arrived, ISIS invaded the city of Mosul, just a 45-minute drive away from the airport that we’d flew into. At that time, no one had heard of ‘ISIS’. They were just a ragtag rebel group in Syria at the time, and then suddenly, they rise to notoriety through their blitzkrieg into Iraq and capturing so much huge amounts of land there, and in particular, the city of Mosul, which was second largest city in Iraq and had weapons and they kept oil fields. It was just a time where I think overnight 1.5 million people have fled essentially into the region that we've moved to.

We arrived intending to do some community development work, but overnight our mission changed to 'how are we going to help and serve refugees that are coming onto our doorstep and are currently going through attempted genocide and other sufferings.'

Tim with wife Sarah, and three of their children who lived in Kurdistan, Iraq

There was a sense of 'maybe this is why we're here and God's got us here for this reason' and we went through some highs and some lows. There were some incredible challenges, one time we had to evacuate the country and then coming back in and really then launching into the work which was called the Refuge Initiative and really dealt with providing housing and education, and trauma care to these displaced families that were in desperate need. It was probably the most wonderful years of my life as well as the most difficult years.

Ben: Now, here in Australia obviously after up and life there for different circumstances, different situations but the reasons I should say. How did that then lead to you and starting You Belong over here?

Tim: It was a very difficult decision to leave. We didn't even have a lot of time to make up our minds to leave when we did. We got one of the last flights out of Iraq before the airports all shut down in their country for, I think it was almost six months.

Ben: Why was that? Because of unrest?

Tim: So, what had happened was the Northern region where we were in Kurdistan had voted for independence and that really didn't make Southern Iraq very happy because that'd be breaking away if they followed through with that. Syria and Turkey and Iran were very nervous because if that went through, then the Kurdish population which lived, almost 50 million of them-- There's 50 million Kurds, they don't have their own state. They're scattered predominantly within those four countries, would have made all those countries feel nervous that an uprising and breaking away, of wanting independence in those regions would follow suit.

So basically, all borders into our region were shut with all these nations. They kind of put the squeeze and said, "Look, if this is what you're going to vote for, then we're going to all make it very difficult for you." My wife, Sarah, was pregnant with baby number four, and there was a real-- There was a progression in our work that we were hoping to hand it over to locals. There was a plan that within a couple of years we would be able to leave and just leave the flourishing work over to the locals that were already doing that. So, I guess with everything that went on, it was like-- I guess we're just, now is a good time to leave and it was the hardest.

I never wept so much and even memories of it still kind of go a bit deep there. So we ended up coming back to Australia and quite honestly, I was depressed, I was a bit of at a loss. I felt like I was just in my element serving there, but I found out that Yazidi family, families from Iraq and Syria that had now been granted refugee visas to come and live in Australia. There was a town nearby three hours of where I was living at the time, I just got in my car soon as I could drive up to see and try and meet with some of these families and meet with the community members that were trying to help them.

I just wanted to somehow be a part of that. So that really was the beginnings of starting You Belong and what it's become today which I look back on now. I think in the couple of short years it's been going as just thriving and I've got an incredible team that I'm really kind of in the background just cheering them on as they do wonderful things to help these families just feel loved and really empower them. There are just-- This is wonderful.

Ben: One of the things about your team that really inspires me, warms my heart to see how you embrace others and different people, different cultures. I've certainly seen you do that for these Yazidi people and the Kurds and-- What are some of the things like-- You have picnics out there in Toowoomba, celebrations and family barbecues.

Tim: Welcome Picnics are copious amounts of food. We make sure that everyone feels like, "Of course, there's a room at the table for you. Of course--" The table is a long sheet on the ground. There's always room for anybody to sit at it. There's no set number of chairs at the table. It's whoever wants to, can come. There’s always loud music and dancing too - they love joining pinkies together, shuffling their feet and jiggling their shoulders in rhythm to the music.

Ben: Hearing their stories and getting a sense of their culture - it enriches who we are. We've got so much to learn from each other. We do some things good here and some things not so good in our culture. It's beautiful when we can be welcoming, but we can also listen and learn, and live together and appreciate each other's beauty.

Tim: Well, you made it to the end of this episode of the Justice Matters Podcast brought to you by You Belong Australia. I had a great time catching up with my best mate, Ben, talking about my own personal journey, my own passion for justice, and a bit about the purpose of season one of this podcast. To learn more click the image below or visit Justice Matters podcast