September 11, 2001. As the world watched the Twin Towers fall, Pastor Fred Williams’ church in Jos, Nigeria, had already been under attack for two days. When the mob came back, Fred was standing out front with a licensed rifle, bullets across his chest, ready to fight.

Then he heard a question he’s still working through today: “You want to shoot the people Christ died for?”

In this conversation, Karl Faase speaks with Fred about life in Plateau State, where churches, pastors and Christians are regularly attacked and killed. Fred shares story after story of violence he has witnessed and documented, but also of the Muslim neighbour who stopped a mob, a Fulani village that changed his heart, and his conviction that the love of Christ is stronger than terror.

About Fred Williams

Fred Williams was born in London while his Nigerian parents were studying there, and grew up in Lagos before being sent to Baptist High School in Jos as a teenager - the beginning of a lifelong love for Plateau State. He came to faith at school, studied chemistry, accounting and building before completing a master’s degree in film, and was ordained in 1993. He pioneered Christ Academy, a church for young urban Christians in Jos, and married his wife, who is from Plateau, in 1995. Fred now lives in Essex, where he pastors Spirit Life Missions, while spending much of his time in Nigeria running community, education and vocational projects and documenting the stories of persecuted communities.

Special thanks to Open Doors, who support the persecuted church: https://www.opendoors.org.au/

Key Moments & Highlights

- Sent from the streets of Lagos to a strict Baptist boarding school in Jos for “getting out of hand” and meeting Christ after watching an 80s film called Burning Hell - Why Jos, a peaceful, welcoming city on the line between Nigeria’s Muslim north and Christian south, has become a target - September 11, 2001: while the world watched New York, Fred’s church in Jos was under attack for two days - Standing in front of the church with a licensed rifle, leading a young man to the Lord as the mob advanced — and hearing God ask, “You want to shoot the people Christ died for?” - The Muslim neighbour who stepped between the militants and the church and said, “These are our neighbours” - Installing solar panels in a Fulani village, where God showed Fred the darkness and hatred in his own heart - A Fulani leader asks for education for 300 children and gives 22 plots of land for a school and health centre that both communities will share - A former militant’s testimony: the Christian who prayed for him as he was about to kill him, and why “radical Islam does not have an answer for the love of Christ” - Training widows in sustainable enterprise and why the church must move from complaining about the problem to being part of the solution - A 12-year-old girl in East London who taped her mouth shut to become “a voice for the voiceless” - and what it asks of the rest of us

Find Out More:

Olive Tree Media: www.olivetreemedia.com.au Watch+ Platform: www.olivetreemedia.com.au/watch Daily Nudge: www.dailynudge.org

Special Thanks To:

Excelsia University College Christian Finance Vision Christian Media

"I knew when to stand up and sit down... I knew my Bible." Fiona Hall walked into an Alpha course in a tiny New Zealand church convinced she had all the answers. Then came a session on receiving the Holy Spirit - and she encountered Jesus in a way she had never imagined possible.

In this episode of Insight, Karl Faase speaks with Fiona about a life full of unexpected turns: falling pregnant at 15, a cancer diagnosis at 19, a wild season in the London music industry, and a leap to the bottom of New Zealand with four kids and no plan. She shares what it means to hold on to God's promises when circumstances don't cooperate, why she has a lasting burden for India, and why diverse voices - including women's - make Christian organisations stronger.

About Fiona Hall

Born in Edinburgh and raised across the UK, Fiona trained as an auditor at Arthur Young (now EY) before life took her and her husband Toby - together for 40 years - to New Zealand and then Melbourne. A mother of five and now a grandmother, she has led Alpha at Crossway, worked with Alpha in India, led Crossway Life Care, and now oversees ministry staff and campus pastors as a senior leader at Crossway. She also sits on the board of Christian Women in Governance and has served as a rugby chaplain - at the time, the only female chaplain in men's elite sport in Australia.

Key Moments & Highlights

• A Vespa "gone to Vespa heaven", a love of Royal Enfields picked up in India, and why inner-city Fitzroy feels more like a village than the suburbs ever did
• Growing up between a devout Catholic mum and a Methodist dad whose massive heart attack quietly changed his life - though he never talked about it
• Falling pregnant at 15, telling her parents, and why abortion was never on the table
• Going back to school with a baby, marrying Toby when Ben was 18 months old, and then a Hodgkin's diagnosis at 19 - picked up in a London ER
• Being "horrified" when a woman from her in-laws' church asked to pray for her
• Five kids (including identical twins), a merchandising business selling t-shirts for bands like Take That and Oasis, and a music industry that became "not a nice place to be"
• Throwing rune stones to decide whether to move to New Zealand - and getting all the kids christened for the sake of a school uniform
• Following Toby to church in Balclutha mostly so she wouldn't be left home with four kids, and finding a vicar she now calls her spiritual dad
• Thinking she had all the answers at Alpha - until a session on receiving the Holy Spirit
• A shared hunch about Melbourne, a World Vision job, and a first year so lonely - with the Boxing Day tsunami keeping Toby at work
• A young Christian woman in India whose village burned her house while she knelt and worshipped, and why Indian church leaders say "don't pray against the persecution"
• How Christian Women in Governance has trained 250 women for board roles - and why the Royal Commission recommended more women on boards
• Leading Crossway's staff as it grows from four campuses to ten, being a rugby chaplain, and looking back on the 16-year-old mum she once was

Find Out More

Olive Tree Media: www.olivetreemedia.com.au

Watch+ Platform: www.olivetreemedia.com.au/watch

Daily Nudge: www.dailynudge.org

Special Thanks To

Excelsia University College

Christian Finance

Vision Christian Media

It was four o'clock on a Sunday afternoon when Richard Grellman sat down to tell his wife, Suellen, that she'd be moving into aged care the next day. He had researched the conversation, written it out and memorised it - and got one sentence in before he broke down. It was Suellen, living with early-onset Alzheimer's, who comforted him: "Don't worry, sweetie, it'll be all right. You're doing the right thing."

In this episode, Karl Faase speaks with Richard about a life lived on both sides of success. He reflects on three decades at KPMG, and decades of chairing boards from AMP to Mission Australia. But the heart of this conversation is the nine years Suellen spent in care, the prayer Richard realised he had been getting wrong, and why he now faces his own cancer diagnosis convinced he "can't really lose."

It's a conversation about leadership, service, grief, perseverance and the quiet strength to walk beside someone you love all the way to the end.

About Richard Grellman:

Richard Grellman joined a nine-partner accounting firm at 17 and became a partner at what became KPMG just before turning 30. He spent most of his 32 years there in corporate recovery and turnaround work, rising to the firm's national management committee before retiring on his 50th birthday. He went straight onto the AMP board as a non-executive director for 12 years, served 25 years on the board of Sydney City Mission (which became Mission Australia), including 10 as chairman and spent 11 years chairing professional surfing's world body (now the World Surf League). Richard and his late wife Suellen have three children and seven grandchildren. He has since remarried and is currently facing a recurrence of Hodgkin lymphoma.

Key Moments & Highlights

• Failing maths "with a big capital F" - then joining a nine-partner accounting firm at 17 and becoming a partner at what became KPMG before he turned 30
• Thrown from a car at 15, praying mid-air - then opening his Scripture Union notes that night to a prayer about remembering "the vows I made on the night of my peril"
• Going forward at a Billy Graham crusade at 19, and telling KPMG's managing partner up front that he was a Christian before accepting the partnership
• Being frog-marched off the LJ Hooker assignment at 39 by a consortium of 72 banks - and the hard lesson in delegation that shaped everything after
• A $120 million settlement cheque in his name, a phone call from the Reserve Bank governor, and a call from "Paul Keating from Castle Hill"
• The slow, uncertain years before Suellen's early onset Alzheimer's diagnosis, and the bucket list they completed together before she couldn't
• The Sunday afternoon conversation about moving Suellen into care - and how she ended up comforting him
• A first-time preacher's sermon on perseverance that changed Richard's prayer from "take her" to "give me strength to walk beside her"
• Restoring order to a chaotic world surfing board, leading the merger behind Mission Australia, and uniting the state Bible Societies into one
• Facing Hodgkin lymphoma with the attitude that "Christians have an unfair advantage" - and the gift of remarrying a wife who says "we have cancer"

Find Out More

Olive Tree Media: www.olivetreemedia.com.au

Watch+ Platform: www.olivetreemedia.com.au/watch

Daily Nudge: www.dailynudge.org

Special Thanks To

Excelsia University College

Christian Finance

Vision Christian Media