What It Means To Truly Love Unconditionally

Our nineteen year old says, I want to do exactly what your mum did, just from a psychologically much healthier place than you two.

Okay, explain man, what do they look? What have they seen that we're not what your record? Hello, and welcome to separate bathrooms.

We would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, the traditional custodians of this land, and pay our respects to the elders, both past and present.

My name's Cam Daddo.

I'm Ali Daddo.

The Sydney Morning Herald said about the couple we are speaking with today, it's a fair bet that if Jesus Christ were around today, he'd be doing what the Owens are doing in Mount Druitt. They feed the poor and how's the homeless. They lead the lost and counsel the conflicted.

They're experts at unconditional love, alcoholic moms, runaway kids, petty thieves. Everyone has been welcomed at the Owens home. It was they're now out of it, but they lived in a four bedroom brick house that for well over a decade has been equal parts street kitchen and safehouse, as well as a home to their three children.

Yeah, these words were written or over a decade ago. They haven't changed. Evidently they are still doing amazing work. We're going to meet the Owens. John is a pastor and the current CEO of the Wayside Chapel in Sydney.

And Lisa has a PhD in pharmacology and worked as a research scientist at Melbourne's Baker Institute. She's also worked as a chapelain herself at EMU Planes Jail and she also now works at Wayside Chapel as well.

Exactly, we have a feeling the Owens are going to provide us with a perspective of life and relationship that we don't usually hear. Let's welcome John and Lisa to the bathroom. Lisa and John, this is not the first time that John and I have met. John, just take us through that. And what was your first impression of Cameron Daddo?

Where did I remember walking out?

So I had the front of the chapel on a cold winter's evening.

It's the Wayside at the Wayside Chapel. Yes, and there was this very.

Disheveled and deer in the headlights, little puppy dog sitting there in the in the horseshoe, wrapped up in a beanie and too many layers, and just kind of had no idea what was going on. And I realized later it was Cameron in the middle of his filthy, rich and homeless. You should have seen this guy's face, right, it was you know, you were responding appropriately to the

And really immersing myself with the people who were living.

There as well, who were doing it tough.

Yeah. Look, I really appreciated the way you just dived into that whole world, right. It wasn't you know, how do I get my creature comforts in? You're saying I'm in, I'm all in, and you were all in, you know, and you know it was I had to chuckle afterwards.

Of course you didficate and I and the thing was about that too.

I knew that in however many days, I was going to have a front door of my own and fruit in the bowl, and Ali was going to be there with me, and our kids were going to be there, and I knew that it was very much an impermanent situation for me, and I had that perspective which made me feel a deeper empathy for the people that were actually there at the Wayside Chapel.

But you could see in that your eyes you were really you were looking for a bit of affirmation and connection, you know, particularly when you've spent that much time out there alone, or you know, you think everyone seems to against me.

Who's there for?

Yeah, yeah, hadn't It had been a tough time. I remember actually having a walked I think. No, I did get the train from North Bondi up to the cross with a guy that I was sleeping beside me in the back of the pavilion there, and.

With that identification.

It's really common for our guys if they're stopped without a ticket, to be strip searched as well. So, you know, even just to get a meal sometimes it requires a loss of dignity.

Sadly. Yeah, it's incredible, Lisa, Welcome to the bathroom.

Hell and this you this is your first time podcast. How are you feeling nervous?

It's okay.

Well you're with my wife. She's the greatest people at because she's so kind.

Thanks, honey, I'm going to go straight to Lisa with this question, because I feel like it's one you will answer beautifully. How did you and John meet?

So? John and I were working together in Melbourne, so we first met. I'd already been working for the organization that we met in for several years and John came along to do a two week course with us and then stayed for fifteen years.

So was it a bit of love at first sight or was it one that was a slow grow?

Or look, he was cute, There was no doubt about that. He's still cute. But I'm five years older than John, so when we met, he needed a few more footy seasons. So we actually became really good friends, and then from a place of friendship we started dating. And here we are twenty three years last weekend.

Thank you.

That's no short feat.

It's a good start.

What were you both doing at that time?

We first met on December two, nineteen ninety six, ninety seven, right in four a Lightwood parade, Springvale, I remember it, and I was registering for the course where it was a two week it was called a mission exposure course where the organization that Lisa was working for, which was a part of founding Urban Neighbors of Hope was an organization that was actually an emissional order that lived and took on lifestyle commitments in.

What we'd call marginalized neighborhoods.

That's what we caught it back then, anyway, And so not only made a commitment to serving in that community, but made that commitment to living in that neighborhood as well. So the two weeks I just lived in with one of their neighbors, who was a bunch of young guys who had come over as refugees from me and Malboma, and did a few inputs in the morning and a

I love stelling that.

And why was he that guy?

And what was the two hundred dollars for?

So the two hundred dollars was for the course, and he was the guy who turned up late.

You're late.

We'll hear more about the work that you do today and what you've done, But can you just take us back into your backgrounds a little bit, and both of you are so much about community, about kindness, about care. What kind of upbringings did you both have that that brought about your desire to work in the fields that you both work in.

I grew up in a Christian household, and my parents were very involved with the church. But part of what they did too was that they often had people come and stay with us. I remember people, one person who was a student, somebody else who was in the process of stopping drinking alcohol, someone else who was leaving a difficult relationship. And so I often said to my parents in the years later, I kind of was scripted to do what I ended up doing in terms of wasn't

Yeah, that's beautiful.

How about you, John, Yeah, I moved over here from Malaysia, where I was born when I was very young. I don't really have any memories of that time, and Mum and dad set up here, and the kind of way that people migrated over here is they'd come and stay with you before they settled in, so we always had family coming through living with this so until they were

Yeah, it was already simmering still is, yeah.

Okay, So look in doctor Google. There's a lot of stuff on you guys about Mount Drewet. Mount Drewitt is a suburb in Sydney. Can you guys just describe for our listener that doesn't know about Mount Drewitt. Paint a picture of the community there and how long you were there and what you were doing.

Maunt drew It is an area of western Sydney that it encompasses about twelve little micro suburbs that are when they were first built, mostly social and state and public housing. I don't know across how everyone. Every state refers to it differently. And so that was built in response to

They built most of the.

Houses around an experimental design called the Radburn design, and you can see how the streets are constructed before there was any of the real support services. So most areas that are high levels of unemployment and intergenerational issues that emerged from unemployment, but also other issues people face usually built around industries like Geelong car manufacturing, then it closes down.

Then it happened same with doved and whereas.

These were quite unique in that they never had industry near them, and so people were just kind of thrown out to the ends of the earth and just left to fend for themselves. Often before the garbage trucks had worked out the roots head or the buses had access, so they were kind of left out there and that kind of set the identity of us against the world, and so any people who come in to try and

Neighborhood and raising our kids there as well.

And you took a vow of poverty, correct, How did that work?

We took our poverty before moving to Mount Druitt. So we were working in multicultural in the southeast of Melbourne, which is where we met.

What was that.

Suburb, spring Vale Place? Where we met. Poverty was one of the vows that we took, so we took vowser poverty, service and obedience. The valve poverty was designed around trying to identify as best we could with the communities that we lived amongst and served, so that meant that we were living on something that was pretty much equivalent to centraling plus ten dollars a week. I think I guess we wanted to not be set apart too far from

But I think another part of that is when you want to say a big guest in your life, you've got to say a bunch of pretty hard core knows.

And the way our lifestyle is structured is.

Around, you know, access, mobility, being able to go anywhere at the drop of a hat, so a lot of it will pull you away from your main calling in life. So we were really passionate about being well known and deeply involved in the life of that neighborhood and you know, friends ring up, do you want to go out here, you want to go do this, you want to do that. Let's you know, I've got some tickets to go here.

I mean Mount Sure, it's a long way from Springvale. Was the idea of moving to a northern state to really extricate yourself from your families in Melbourne and you went to Mount Druid or what was the reason to go to Mount Drewt Because you could have gone to any state really based on that there. I'm sure that these communities exist in every state in Australia.

We had a fairly big and strong team in Melbourne already and so we felt like it was our organization was well placed to start something new. We knew people in Sydney, so from the point of view of moving to a place where there were already support networks in place for us, Sydney made sense. And then in terms of Mount drew It specifically it was actually Grayham mong from the wayside Chapel who introduced us to Mount Drew. It so I know the sort of neighborhood you're looking for.

And did you did you have your two children already at that point or.

Yes, yeah, we did so they were quite little.

Yeah, two and three. When we decided it was Sydney. And when we decided it was Bidwell in Mount Drew it to go. We packed the car and got in the car. We didn't have a place to stay that night or any We didn't know anything. We had nothing set or planned. We just got in the car and went let's go. And it was up the Hume Highway that someone rang up and said, oh, would you like to use my caravan? And then a couple of hours later someone rang up and said, would you like to

You're in Mount Dreuert. How was it raising kids in that environment?

Yeah? Look, our kids had no choice. You know, you don't have a choice about your parents. And so it was always done in a way where we are really passionate about making sure that our values aren't just a poster on the wall, but they're how we live our lives.

Ah, Leice, look there us.

You know you're the tender, loving, caressing care and I'm just shoving veggimie down their threat, you know. And it's just that's who they were really as well. One was very touchy feeling and the other one was very practical what he would need in this moment. And just to see that come together in this act of loving care was such a really powerful moment of seeing how you lived out values often bring out the best in not only in others, but in your kids too.

Without a doubt, it's a bit like what you're saying Lisa before that love is a verb, it's an action. And do you think that our kids pay more attention to what we do than what we say?

Absolutely?

Yeah. Well, when we were dating, she said to me, once you know who you are, shout so loudly in my ears, I can't hear what you say. You know, it's a weird thing to say on a second date, but I thought, you know, there's a She's a fascinating creature, this one.

Yeah.

Were you always completely aligned on like this is yes, this is exactly what we want to do, or one of you more reticent the other, or you were just gung ho.

I think we've been pretty fortunate actually, and that we've always been pretty well aligned. So we were aligned about the work that we wanted to do in Melbourne, and then when we were ready to move, we were aligned about making the move to Sydney. Yeah. And I guess when it was time for us to leave Mount drew It as well, we were aligned about that.

Yeah.

So how many years were you in Mount drew It?

I think it was about ten all up, you know when we counted more. But we've never been out of line in terms of what we've wanted in our values. And that's the kind of advice I give to people. What's that in that work out what you want to do in life? Yeah, and go and do it and then you're along that way you'll meet people.

Who have the same values as you.

And so we didn't need to have, you know, in those dating conversations where you're like, what do you like?

What do you like? What do you like doing? When you do it. We already knew all that stuff about each other.

We were both passionately committed to making this world a better place, and to the point where when you said let's have our honeymoon in Calcutta at Mother Teresa's Home for the dying, went yeah, let's do it.

And that's what happened. Did you do it there? We did?

Because Lisa said, it's not just boy meets girl, falls in love and sails off into the sunset. It's two people who were passionate about changing the world are brought together, and you know, we start our married life the way we want to continue it. And so, you know, off to the slums of Calcutta and working in the orphanage in the afternoons and the home for the Dying in the mornings, and that was a real foundation stone for of how we wanted to live our lives together, and

We haven't.

No, We've always had someone living in our house and then then we had our own kids as well, so we've never just had any couple of years of just me and Lisa. So we are actually getting that opportunity in the first week of September. We'll be for the first time in we've been together twenty five years. The first I remember, we came from honeymoon and we were running a house for ten asylum seekers and that was and it never really stopped.

You know, We've had heaps of people. But you know, we'll we can't wait, seriously really, because I.

Can imagine you two just continuing type on your doors the way you.

Travel two days and.

We're moving into a tiny place, so that would help, right.

We've still got to couch and a bit of hospitality will be a bit caught to who we are.

But you know, just the two of us, we we can't wait. We're tickled, is there? I mean, do you really always agree? Do you have a way of working things out? Like I'm sure you barrack fast? You look like an Essendon John's I'm getting from one of you? Who do you follow?

Used to be cut but now it's g w S.

I think, oh okay, because they're in the west of Sydney. So how does that go?

When g WS play Essendon and the fact that the bombs How.

Good was that when g WS after what they did to us.

Last we could do ten podcasts on and yeah, Essendon and it's not many people I meeting Sydney you want to talk about it?

You've met the person. Are you an ES fan? No, yes, we both are.

So that was the thing, you know, when we met our Sydney girl on Melbourne and footy was always such a big thing in our family and growing up and played it and stuff. And then so yeah, back to you guys, is there something that you do to come together when you actually do see things a little differently or you're telling me that you really don't see anything differently.

I mean sometimes we do, of course sometimes we do. Thankfully, It's never been the big things. And I think if you're aligned on the big things, you can work the little things out.

So the first couple of years of marriage, you know, it takes a lot of negotiation and navigation and you know, even learning how to share a bed. So because we hadn't lived together until that point, I remember that. Do you remember that first time we were living in was it Regent Street? And one of the guys from Africa was so cold he was he was wanting to come into our room with us just to warm up. I mean, poor guy. He's come from you know, from Africa to Melbourne, Melbourne, we need d Yeah.

He's just like, what's going on? How did jump? How did that? What was that conversation? Like that? We're pretty open to anything, but yeah, not that. So yeah, that brings back some memories they've got.

They've all gone on to get permanent residents that are doing amazing things in this country, including one of them who has a kid who nearly won Australian Idol a couple of years ago as well.

So yeah, it's doing really really well.

Now you you have your two biological children, but you've also adopted a girl at Quine of an older age. Right, how did you come to meet her and how did that come about?

Chadsey was one of our u S group kids. Okay and pretty special kids. We're full of life and energy and lots of energy and used to spend a fair bit of time at our house. Got along well with our children. Through meeting her, we got to know her mum and sadly her mom was dying, so she actually asked whether after she passed away we'd be able to

Even that conversation, Lisa came home, she said, I've just been at Karen's house and Karen's asked me if we'll take Jazz on and so I just assumed that's a yes, then, John, And that was pretty much the conversation. Yeah, right, right, So we've never really you know, we only really argue about directions.

Car. But and then they invented the maps to a ways or Google.

Yeah, there's a lot of less arguing in the car.

No doubt, he said. Of the mailways. Yeah, Gregory's in Sydney. On the drive on the passengers said.

Over, I'm not pretending like we have little Barney's over things. And you know, Lisa has this thing she has to be exactly on time, and you know, I'm like, it's just an estimate when they say twelve o'clock and she's like, no, no, we've got to be there. And you know we you know, we have those little niggles around that, but we hage you the small stuff. Otherwise the big stuff is you know, we just go what do we need to do? You know to be able to work this thing out?

Yeah?

I love that bligned on the big things, on that the mindset. There was a paragraph in one of the articles that I that I read. It goes like, besides, everything worth stealing has already been stolen. John says, we had one woman who robbed us blind cash cameras. Someone even took the kids piggybank. Once we know it's a good all, but we're still their friends. Who else is going to love them? How do you get to that mindset?

Oh?

Look, I think for me one of the things is love isn't a feeling, it's a verb. So it's something you do, It's something you choose. In choosing to love people, you choose to look for the good in them rather than focus on things like whether or not they stole your kid's money box. It's not always easy, but choosing to engage with people and find commonality and see the good in them and receive from them too, I think has been really important for us.

For you, embody that you know the way you love people and you have a really beautiful, loving, accepting, non judgmental presence in people's lives. So they often feel very comfortable to be open with you very quickly. Actually, So that's how we've always kind of worked well together in that kind of context. Is So she's like Terry Danna her om like Alan is art.

So she.

Okay, so for everyone else in Australia, So baby bombers in the middle of the eighties, Terry Danner who was the center half back, so he was a strong, solid support.

Yeah, and Alan's is a rover. He just runs around and creates chaos in the space. So that's what I do. So that's how we work.

We've always worked that way. I get him, I bring him home, and then Lisa loves them prettier than Alan. You respect you Alanie's art.

If you're listening, absolutely well, you know, a little ginger haird little we've been just running around. But you know that's sorry, that's that's a silly and allergy. You know, Lisa role bring the party, but you know Lisa will.

Make things fun.

Yeah that's right. And yeah, so I bring the fun, but Lisa brings the love and care.

Okay, you've seen some experience is no doubt of people at their lowest point. Do you get burnout? And if you do, does your mental health ever get affected? And is there something that you do for yourselves that really helps every time or all the time.

Well, having listened to your podcast, I know that your big believers in therapy. Absolutely, yeah, and so we Yeah, that's been something that's been really important for us. I think I see someone every week, so there's that space always to be able to process things as they arise rather than needing to wait. We didn't always have those people in our lives, and I think that was to add detriment. Yeah, I think we're much healthier people now that we do.

So do you do therapy too, Well?

Yes, I have a lot of therapy, So I came late to the party. Yeah, but you know, having a family that's quite neuro diverse, that also has struggles with anxiety and depression and bipolar as well as ADHD, you know, the whole mix is learning to navigate that world requires therapy and quite a lot of it. So something I've been on a journey for for about eight years now.

That's been my great pleasure.

Because you've you've been on the end of a few assaults. I believe you've had a chair, you know, crunched over your head and you've.

Really done the deep dive around here.

You have a very good producer to you know, it's happened a few times.

Like you know, when you want to get involved in people's lives, you know, you just got to go all in right sometimes put your body on the line. And well, I'll give you this one story that when I looked at you and realized that I couldn't love you anymore

Oh wow.

And I was just looking frozen in terror from the balcony as this this act of We talk about love and changing the world, but it was not until you put your body on the line that I saw that come come alive. And so when this woman says, you know, it's more than a feeling, it's a verb.

Is a verb. You live it out every day. It's fearful, it is that's hot hot. Hey, how do you guys relax? What do you do to have fun?

Trashy TV?

What do you like?

We saw an episode Monks season two that you're yes, right, yes, Wayne, you are the dodgy Australian photographer Daryl Darryl. That's right, Darryl dirtbag.

He's some weird eryld dirtbag. Don't know, some double de surdo. You go to interview us in a couple of days time. There is funny how those things turn up. Goggle Box. You goggle boxes wants to be on google Box. Banter in our house across the TV is hilarious. Our kids are some of the wittiest, funniest people.

I've ever met.

Are they at all in the same field as either of you? Are they interested in doing something in that field?

Our twenty one year old says that they will never do that. Our nineteen year old says, I want to do exactly what your mum did, just from a psychologically much healthier place than you two.

Okay, explain, man, what do they look? What have they seen that we're not because something You're pretty healthy.

You too, I think they could see. There's no such thing as a completely pure motive coming out of an unbroken vessel. You know, we all have brokenness, and that was one of the points I wanted to make and about our wedding that I remember quite vividly is we clearly made the point this isn't two incomplete people completing one another. This is two broken people being brought together

That's exactly right. But that's where our kid can also see.

I think they could see as much of the push factors as the pull factors.

Yeah, do therapy together? Do you do couple therapy?

We have, Yeah, we're not. At the moment of our.

Kids ended up in hospital, we realized we needed to our marriage to bear a lot of weight, and with a few of the diagnoses that they've had. You know, if you know, they kind of give you the statistics saying, oh, there's a ninety percent divorce rate for couples who have raising kids with these kinds of struggles. And so that's what was triggering for us to go off and say, look, let's do some hard yards now.

Is that to get on to the same page or to really have a third person listening to your different point of views?

Yeah, it was a bit of both. He was really helpful in terms of some things about parenting too. I mean, when we talk about how we live our life, we have always been on the same page in terms of how we parent, maybe not always quite so much. So we needed a space to do that exploration and to get to the point where we could be on the same page, because ultimately, apart, it's not helpful for our relationship or for our kids if we're not.

You've both seen a lot of suffering of the human spirit. Is there any particular advice that you give to people that moves them or helps them the most? Is there something that commonly you've done throughout your life that you often say?

No, Probably not anything I say beyond listening and validating their emotions and their experience. I think I don't feel like I've got any great wisdom. I can in part, but I feel like I can listen well and help them to know that someone cares about what it is that they have.

Yeah, what would you say to that? John? Look, I can only think about people. You know.

I was at a deathbed of a woman who had grown up abused all through her life. And you know, as she sat there on her deathbed and she had leaded to life there she quickly got hooked onto drugs because of who she was living with and ended up working the streets for many years. And you know, she sat on the deathbed she kind of said, father.

You know, is am I worthy?

You know, she was really asking those questions, and you know, and I just said, Darln, you know there's going to be a standing ovation when you walk into heaven tonight.

Yeah, we do a five minute shower, two.

Conserving water five minutes. Let's go for the two minute shower. Can you guys both answer these questions?

What do you miss when you're not together chatting?

She's my anchor, so I often just rattless.

Okay, okay, Oh a time in your life that you'd like to revisit, well.

Like a season or a moment, anything, anything. A moment was actually us and the two youngest kids. We did an evening walk on a volcano in Bali, and I remember the conversations we had on the way out and on the way back, and it was just us in the group with two guides in this great expanse of beauty, And if you asked the kids, that was one of their best moments as well.

See, there's a moment I'd like to go back into to not do, And there's a moment I'd like to go back into, just to check it out. So what I would not do is when I was going to propose to her in Marriage Road in Mulgrave.

And we had like an argument over directions. So I always was wrong, where are you going? This is not off this spring mail road?

And you saw it was marriage road and I was so angry, but I still stopped. I was such a jerk when we were dating. Why you stuck around with me? And you know then I kind of slowed down and then just sped off and drove us home. He drove you home, dropped you off, let you go. I would like that moment back, you know, I'd redo that. I wouldn't do that.

I think we've ever had someone who wants a moment back.

I think one other time? Really, yeah, I do remember one other time.

I want that moment back. Yeah yeah, right, yeah.

I think someone said the times that I've hurt people, oh yeah, yeah, ok, yeah, I get that.

Yeah.

But the one I'd like to look was when I when we when I proposed to he Ackland Street, we recreated our first date, which was at the Ackland Street cake shop.

I was going to say, was it over a cake?

Yeah?

Absolutely?

Do you remember the Ackland Special from the Ackland Cake Shop on Ackland Street.

And we recreated our first date and went to some Kilda beach and I got down on one knee and because we were in the valve poverty, I got down one knee and gave you the ring that I got out of the forty cent machine.

And it was but four super Bowls and the four super Bowls that I got first. I'm not tight. I gave it to you all.

What's better than that? For supamore?

And I would probably tell the bloke that just stopped really awkwardly right next to us just to keep moving to have that moment back. It's a very vivid and precious one. Every time we go to Melbourne we pop in and get an neck On Special together.

I love it.

Final question, describe each other in one word exceptional love personified. Oh yep, Well you two. Thank you for gracing us with your presence today.

It's been this has been a really fabulous chat and good luck and you know the world, if we can clone you fifty times even more, yeah, we'd be.

In a way better place. So thanks so much for coming in.

Thank you for having us, lovely to be here.

Thank you so much and great to see you again, John, And we're going to talk.

I can tell that was happening.

What magical, humble, incredible people they both are. Yeah, and we just heard like the tiniest, tiniest amount of their stories.

And as John was leaving, he said, you know what I really do to relax, I watch Essendon football games.

He loves that.

I like him even more now. I'm sure we get to spent a lot more time together.

They just like both of them, the work that they've done and the kindness that they share and you know the impact of the lives that they have made. They were just also sharing about a little boy who they were there when he was born and he's now has a scholarship to a private school in Sydney and they also knew his dad before before. Like I mean, just that, you know, the rollover of generational impacts of kindness that they're making is it's so special.

Yes, And their commitment to community and growing community, it's I had a feeling that we were going to hear something different and hear something special.

We certainly did.

Their unique and like I said, I figured clone them or all of us embody a little bit more of what they're, Yeah, just a little bit of what they're they're they're extolling with something inte wonderful.

We will catch up with you listener next time in on Separate Bathroom.

Thanks for listening.