When You Don’t Know if You Can Keep Going: An Interview with Margaret Greaves (Season 2, Episode 17)
Today I’m chatting with Margaret Greaves—a widow, mother and grandmother. Margaret moved to Western Australia at 12 years old when her parents became missionaries at Cundeelee, 160km east of Kalgoorlie, with the Australian Aboriginal Evangelical Mission. Margaret spent most of her life in remote areas in and around Esperance, as a midwife, child health nurse, farmer’s wife, and running a fishing business.
Margaret shares about her ongoing fear throughout her life—borne of physical isolation in remote locations, a non-Christian husband, and mental health struggles of her son—that she could not keep enduring as a Christian. She also describes how God continued to care for her and provide the women to walk with her. Margaret has a quiet ministry of prayer and phone calls to parents whose children struggle with mental health.
What Are We Even Wearing Anymore?! (Season 2, Episode 16)
We’re sharing our fashion frustrations in this episode. We’re Millennials and Gen Z has opinions about what we should be wearing. We don’t want to be Regina’s Mum in Mean Girls trying to keep up with teenagers, but we also don’t want to be the Eighties Dad, who kept wearing his acid washed jeans long after everyone else moved on.
We’re grappling with changing bodies and lifestyles as well as fear of seeming frivolous in theologically conservative circles. We believe God made the world beautiful and it is okay to enjoy beautiful things. Think of this as part two of the conversation: Awe is Not a Side Hustle.
Let’s break it down. What are we even wearing anymore?!
When You’re Scared You Can’t Trust God to Care for You: An Interview with Anna Pretorius (Season 2, Episode 15)
Today I’m chatting with Anna Pretorius—a mother of four, unexpected pastors wife, and Diversity and Inclusion Officer. Anna was born in the jungle in Papua New Guinea as the daughter of missionaries and moved to Japan when she was six years old.
Anna is delightfully funny and honest about the desire to be the strong one and build her own kingdom. She describes the fear underneath her frenetic busyness that she could not trust God to care for her. Anna tell us how God humbled her to know his power and authority and how this transformed her life. She also shares how she navigates working in the Diversity and Inclusion space and how Christians can navigate these spaces remembering how all kinds of people flocked to Jesus, he was attractive to them, but he was also challenging and convicting.
Awe is Not a Side Hustle (Season 2, Episode 14)
Today’s episode is about awe and creativity, remembering God made the world beautiful. We can image him though creating beautiful things. We tend to get stuck thinking that hobbies and creativity are only useful if they are a side hustle. So today, Maddy, Rach and Bec chat about incorporating creativity, beauty, and awe into our everyday lives.
When You Exchange Religion for Jesus: An Interview with Miriam da Silva (Season 2, Episode 13)
Today I’m chatting with Miriam da Silva—a mother of four, grandmother to one, former journalist who is now a Primary School teacher. Miriam was born in Sri Lanka and grew up very religious in the Catholic church. She described having faith in God, attending daily mass and reading her Bible, but not understanding the good news of the gospel or having a relationship with Jesus Christ. She migrated to Australia in her forties with her husband and four children after civil unrest in Sri Lanka. Not long after migrating, she lost her job as the family breadwinner, had a shoulder injury at work, and experienced financial difficulties, but in the process she met Jesus.
So You Want to Go into Ministry and Be Paid in Dollars with Alexia Horton (Season 2, Episode 12)
So today’s topic came out of our Ask Me Anything: Kids Ministry episode with Josie Rivett where one of the questions was around pathways into paid kids ministry coordinator roles. Later, I was debriefing with Amy Stopher, who said, “Pathways into paid ministry is a whole podcast topic on its own, you should interview Alexia Horton”. Turns out, not only is it a whole podcast topic, it’s Alexia’s whole job. She’s the Women’s Ministry Advisor at Trinity Theological College.
When You’re Scared You Did Something to Deserve Your Suffering: An Interview with Bek Stone (Season 2, Episode 11)
Today I’m chatting with Bek Stone—a mother of two, physio, and BRCA2 Breast Cancer survivor from Albany, who runs the popular Instagram account @mastectomytomarathon. Bek was diagnosed with breast cancer at 32 years old when her youngest daughter was 19 months old. She initially thought she had mastitis but ended up with a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction in 2025.
A typical physio, who adores running, Bek looked around for a creative outlet to encourage others while she recovered from her surgeries and landed on documenting her recovery (and nipple choices!) on Instagram. This chat was so honest, encouraging, and made me cackle on multiple occasions—I hope you’ll listen in, even if you are not facing a breast reconstruction.
Ask Me Anything: Kids Ministry Edition with Josie Rivett (Season 2, Episode 10)
This is a different type of episode for us—it’s our first Ask Me Anything episode. Bec enjoyed her chat with Josie so much that she found a way to bring her back! Maddy and Bec pepper Josie with questions from women who volunteer and work in kids ministry across WA. We run the gamut of topics from rural churches to doubts about enduring in teaching kids after leadership failures. This is a delightfully encouraging episode if you have kids in your life, even if you are not gifted in singing or children’s craft or possess the teacher voice. Josie reminds us that sharing our faith with children is a whole church task, because we are a family.
When You Need to Be Patient Longer Than is Reasonable: An Interview with Josie Rivett (Season 2, Episode 9)
Today’s interview is with Josie Rivett, a mother of four and the founder of a parachurch ministry, Living Words. She’s written an Australian curriculum for kids ministry to teach through the Bible in a year. We discuss her experience starting a PhD in education and setting up Living Words, which pushed her to trust in God’s provision more deeply after a long struggle with doubt in her teens and twenties.
When You Are Lonely at Church (Episode 8, Season 2)
This episode was borne out of Maddy’s experience working on staff at a church and the sheer amount of people who confessed feeling disconnected and lonely in the post-service crowd. These people knew people at church, but described feeling awkward and uncomfortable, like they were not sure if they belonged or fit in with the crowd. So today, Maddy, Rach, Britt and Bec dig into our own experiences of loneliness, specifically at church, and what helped shift us out of these seasons.
When Death Triggers Doubt: An Interview with Crystal Heydenrych (Season 2, Episode 7)
Today’s interview is with Crystal Heydenrych, who is a botanist and mother of two. Crystal described the doubts that plagued her after her mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died four months later. I really appreciated Crystal’s ability to articulate her fears that God did not see her suffering and she was ultimately alone. She explained how she threw herself into researching the resurrection. She explains how God comforted her through reason, when her emotions were overwhelming.
Keeping the Faith in Frontline Mental Health (Season 2, Episode 6)
This banger of a question came from our end of year survey, “How do I retain my faith while being a first responder (i.e., frontline mental health, health, child protection) when the workplace culture demands dissonance from Christian values (i.e., black humour, seeing Christians as perpetrators of abuse etc). I personally and others I know in front line work struggle to reconcile their core values and faith with what they see in the world.”
Khaiah Thomson is a hospital social worker, the author of the Blackwood series, and one of our regular writers at Stories I’d Tell You at Dinner. Khaiah, Rach and Bec deep dive into some of the temptations we face as Christians working in frontline mental health and discuss what helps us to reconcile our faith with what we see in the world.
When All You Can Do Is Pray: An Interview with Mrs. Joy Young (Season 2, Episode 5)
Mrs. Joy Young is a 96-year-old woman who served as a nurse and missionary to Aboriginal people in the Western Desert, Wyndham, and Kununurra with her husband and three children. At one point, Mrs. Young was the only medical professional for a thousand kilometers in the Warburton Ranges in the Western Desert!
I had to pester Mrs. Young to share with me, as she was convinced she had nothing to say! The result was a delightfully funny and encouraging interview. If you’re stuck in a hard place or don’t know what to do with your life, Mrs. Young encourages us towards prayer and trusting in God in every situation, no matter how big or small.
When You Are Drowning in Good Works (Season 2, Episode 4)
Rach and Bec chat with Amy Stopher, who is on staff at Providence City Church and one of our regular writers at Stories, as we explore the idea that if God made us with limits, for our good before the fall, and commands us to rest, how do we weigh up work, ministry, and family commitments? How do we rest amongst hustle culture?
When the Third Culture Kid Grows Up: An Interview with M (Episode 3, Season 2)
We are interviewing all of our regular contributors for you to get to know them better. Today’s guest is M, who was a GP and cross-cultural worker in the Middle East, but currently living in Argentina with her Latino husband. She is also one of our regular writers at Stories.
We explore M’s lifelong interest in connecting with and finding common ground with the stranger, people whom on the face of it seem quite different to her, and how this has played out in her work history and friendships. We also discuss grief in relation to the cancer diagnoses of two of her brothers and learning to trust a God who is good, strong and kind.
When You Are The Only Christian at Work (Season 2, Episode 2)
Today’s topic was requested in our end of year survey. It’s not an apologetics deep dive, but more, how do I be a Christian at work without being Ned Flanders? Join us as we explore the temptations like fear of our colleagues hating us and getting left out, what it means to see all people as made in the image of God, and balancing being kind and being faithful to what the Bible says. We don’t have the answers but we’re sharing what has helped us nut it out along the way.
When You’re Angry You’re the One to Fix Everything: An Interview with Jill. (Season 2, Episode 1)
We are interviewing all of our regular contributors for you to get to know them better. Today’s guest is Jill, a GP and cross-cultural worker in the Middle East, who shares beautifully about the cross-section of burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress, but basically: what happens when you feel like you’re being dumped by a wave, angry that you’re the one to fix it all? We also cover how Jill found a richer and deeper faith on the other side of it.
Season 1, Episode 19: Everything to Binge This Summer
Think of Everything to Binge This Summer as your unhinged WhatsApp group chat with your friends and all their best recommendations: books, TV, and podcast episodes. We’re here save you from the endless scroll cycle where you can’t think of a single thing you would like to watch, or indeed anything you have ever watched. Or the aimless stroll around the library questioning if you are indeed a person who reads? We’re preparing you for reading poolside, living your best beach life, and binge-watching TV with your favourite cousin. We got you!
Season 1. Episode 18: What I Learned Through Church Conflict. An Interview with Rhianon Rae
We are interviewing all of our regular contributors in Season 1 for you to get to know them better. Today’s guest is Rhianon Rae, who shares beautifully about her difficulty with vulnerability throughout her life and what God has taught her about his faithfulness and peace through seasons of doubt and church conflict as a pastors wife.
Season 1, Episode 17: Loving On Your Brothers and Sisters
Loving On Your Brothers and Sisters was born from Britt texting this essay to our group chat and us collectively weeping at how beautiful and honest and encouraging it was. Join Maddy, Rach, Britt and Bec as we debrief and process the practicalities of loving our as brothers and sisters in the church.