Under His Sky: Belinda Allder's story

We are talking with Belinda, or “BJ,” Allder, a Nazarene missionary from Sydney, Australia, who has served in Thailand for seven years. The 33-year-old has battled cancer for the past 2 ½ years.

BJ shares with us about her call to be a missionary, as well as what God has been doing in her life through illness.

To listen to the audiocast of the live interview, please visit the Nazarene Media Library.

Belinda “BJ” Allder: So I have been in Thailand for seven years, came home on home assignment two and a half years ago. And when I was on home assignment the first month I went for some tests ‘cause I was really tired, and that basically led to finding out that I had stage four cancer. So, I couldn’t go back [to Thailand]. So for the last two and a half years I’ve been on chemo, and it’s pretty much kept me alive.

I’ve had a really good two years. I felt sick sometimes, but I was really active and able to do stuff around chemo dates. Then, basically the last month, my body’s just taken a turn around and they’ve said, “No more.” Doctors can’t do anything else.

They’re just giving me weeks to live.  So it’s kind of like, any day. Just trying to spend the most time I can with my friends and family.

Engage: Is Brisbane where you grew up?

Allder: No, my dad’s a pastor, so we grew up in Sydney. Here in Brisbane is our Nazarene Theological College. My dad’s the principal. So they moved up here 14 years ago.  

When I come home on home assignments, this is where my parents are. So that was also an adjustment to be like, OK, Brisbane’s now home. But it’s been a God thing because so many of my close friends from Sydney -- for all different reasons -- are here in Brisbane. Some of them are staying at college, or just in the area; my best friend, actually she and her husband are here at college, so on campus I see them every day and that’s just been awesome.

Engage: Tell us how you heard God’s call to become a missionary.

Allder: I went on a Youth In Mission team from my local youth group in Sydney.  We went to Fiji in 1998, I believe. We went from the main islands to these smaller group of islands where some Nazarenes had some contacts they wanted us to go check out.  We went in this small, tiny fishing boat. And they told us it would be four hours ‘til we got to where we were going.

I guess I didn’t really think, as a mission team, anything would ever go wrong. But time kept going by and by until it got to nighttime and it got darker and all you could see was water. I mean, it was beautiful but there was no land in sight earlier in the day, and then as it got darker, it was this big dark ocean.

I remember thinking, “Oh, this could be serious.” We could smell the petrol fumes, probably running out.
There was a quiet moment where God just told me to look up to the sky. And the stars were like glitter dust. I’ve never ever seen a sky like that ever again. And in that moment God spoke to me: “I’m bigger than any problem. All these stars are mine and you can’t see anything else, but the whole sky is full and I’m bigger than all of that, bigger than your problem and bigger than being lost at sea.”

That same sky that we were lost under, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, was the same sky that my parents were under back home in Sydney, Australia. We’re all under His sky, no matter where we go. I guess as I reflected on that, it was God’s calling on my life to serve Him under His sky, wherever that be, because people are the same. It’s all the same sky. It’s the same people. We have the same hurts and the same needs.

So that was God’s calling on my life to serve Him, not to a particular place or anything, but just to serve people under His sky, wherever I was. That’s become my catch phrase: under His sky, and that was my calling to missions.

I ended up in Thailand, and after not very long it grabbed a hold of my heart. And one year as a volunteer turned into seven years there.

Engage: Tell us about the school where you taught.

Allder: In Northern Thailand the Church of the Nazarene has a children’s home [the Maetang Tribal Children's Home]. It’s more like a dormitory, so it provides for hill tribe children who come from villages up in Northern Thailand that don’t have schools or good enough schools. So they can come down and live at our dormitory and then have access to the local government schools.

Being a Buddhist country, they have Buddhist schools that the government provides. What we do then, is we have in the evenings Bible studies and things with the kids, and we have church.

Engage: What was it like teaching those kids?

Allder: Oh, I loved them. It was really fun because I got to just be a native speaker so it’s just about speaking and listening and just having fun. Their education system’s all about fun and just being able to be with them in different ways. The high school’s huge, so I didn’t see as many of their kids, but we started our own Christian group at lunchtimes and [we were] able to share Christmas with the kids at a whole-school level, and so we were able to be a good Christian influence in that school.

The primary school’s a lot smaller so they’re mostly the kids from the home, so that was fun as well. But definitely the impact in the high school has been amazing over the years.

Engage: Are there any specific spiritual encounters with the kids that come to your mind when you think about your time there?

Allder: I guess one that comes to mind is just a kid in grade seven I used to teach. He would come and bother me at lunch and practice English. And from then on he just wanted to learn more English. I think he was in grade 10 or 11 when a Point Loma Love Works team came out and he just wanted to hang with them more and more ‘cause they were kind of cool. They would stay at the local hotel and he would come meet them for dinner and hang out with them.

They think that all Europeans, Westerners, are rich. And he found out these were college kids that had to save so much just to get here and sacrifice so much. And he was like, “Why would you do that for us? You don’t even know us and you’ve come all this way.” And they just explained that they’d come because they want to love on people and love like Jesus loved and maybe be able to share about God to people.

He said, “I’ve never heard of this. And your God is so powerful.” And he just saw that in them.

That was a turn-around for him, and he’s just grown and grown in his faith to the point where it got difficult telling his parents that he was a Christian. Now he’s now in, I think, second or third year university and his parents are cool with [him being a Christian], and they said, “If you choose this path, you take it seriously.” And they’re OK with him being a Christian.

When I was back just a few weeks ago in Thailand, he came down to volunteer to help with Third Wave and help because his English is so good, and it’s just amazing to hear his story and how he’s just grown in his faith through that, just people being there.

Engage: What are you most passionate about when it comes to missions or being a missionary?

Allder: Wow. That’s a big one. I guess just being there with the people. I think there’s nothing more we can do than get where they’re at, to be in their homes, to be in their lives, to be real to people. I mean that’s what it was with this kid. His English name is Patrick. And, you know, he saw me when I was upset and cranky, and he would tell me, “Let’s pray.” Just to experience life together, that’s -- to me -- what missions is. It’s not a program, it’s not an event; it’s just being with people and living your lives together and then taking them with you as you journey, too.

Engage: Explain a bit more about what kind of cancer that you have and what events led to you finding out that you had it, and what the journey has been like for the last couple of years.

Allder: I actually had Dengue fever a few months before, when I was in Thailand. So I came home and I was feeling tired. I’m just a “go, go, go” girl. I don’t sleep. So this is weird, you know? I went to the doctor and thought, “Let’s just check for the Dengue and check out what’s going on.”

The doctor found some very strange functions in my liver. I was going around Australia [speaking in churches], so I was over in Perth, which is the opposite end of Australia, like six hours flight from here. My doctor rang from Brisbane and said, “Find a doctor there quickly. You need to do more tests.”

I was in Perth for a week, supposed to be speaking in churches and things, and basically spent every day at a different ultrasound, every test you can think of. When I left Perth my doctor told me, “I think you have cancer.”

I flew to another city for the weekend to speak and tried to hold it together with knowing that, “Oh my gosh. They just told me I have cancer, but I’m here on my own, so I better not lose it.”

I came home to Brisbane after that weekend and went straight to the doctors here and find the primary source. They found it in my bowel. I have bowel cancer, but my liver has been the thing that has been the worse the whole time. It’s pretty much covered, and so they couldn’t operate or anything. That’s why all they could do was chemo to try and stop it on the liver. It went down for a bit and grew again. Basically the chemo just kept it at bay for these two years.

Everyone’s like, “How’d you feel? Did you get angry?” No, from the beginning there was just a peace that God’s in control and there was just a peace about it. I didn’t ever question God once, and I still don’t. I believe that God can heal me, but I also know that He may not and that is His plan. Even up until now, in these last few days, I can see how He’s using my story that there is a hope and my life can continue to be used. That’s my prayer each day right now.

Engage: How is your family doing?

Allder: Yeah, good. It’s obviously hard for them and, you know, it’d be hard for any family, I think, to live with and deal with knowing that, you know, it’s any day. But they’ve been amazing and a strength, and it’s really brought my family a lot closer, in these last few weeks especially. They’ve all been there for me in amazing ways, ‘cause I just have to rely on them. I do ask for prayers for them ‘cause it’s just so hard for them to have to deal with, I think.

Engage: Do you have brothers and sisters?

Allder: Yeah. I have two brothers. One lives here at home. He’s 19. And then another one who’s 30 lives down the road. It’s been really awesome to see how they’ve been around a lot. You know, my brother’s a line technician. He goes on tour with bands a lot. So he’s cancelled all his tours so he can just take local jobs, and that means a lot to me.

Engage: What are your family’s names?

Allder: My dad is Bruce. My mom is Jackie, and my brother – the oldest one is Tim. He’s married to Carine. And my youngest brother is Mitch.

Engage: How has the church embraced you during all of this?

Allder: Oh, the church has been awesome, I mean globally. Especially in these last few weeks, I am just so humbled by how much support. For the whole two and a half years, my family around the world has just been so supportive and prayed constantly, and that’s really, really held me up.

The thing is, people say, “Oh you’re so strong,” or whatever. It’s not me; it’s the support that keeps me going and holds me up really. And so the church has really been my strength. And it’s been awesome because it’s also been a witness to those non-Christians around because they can see it and they’re just like, “Wow. You have so much support.”

Engage: Is there any moment or experience during the last two years that just really stands out to you?

Allder: Just from the beginning, the whole idea of people telling me, “You’ll be healed. You’ll be healed.” And to come to the terms of well, I might not be, and being at peace with that and seeing how God can use someone He’s not healed just as effectively; to see that through the suffering and the pain and the not-healing that there’s still hope and still joy. So that was a process and a real breakthrough when I realized it doesn’t…even though I do believe God is a healer and He can do that, it’s not always the case. And I’m just humbled to be used in whatever way He wants to use my life.

Engage: What kind of thoughts or plans do you have for yourself in the coming weeks?

Allder: It’s hard to know what to do with your time because I also want to make sure my life is tied up for everyone, make sure that money is in the right place or those sorts of things. And I want to give things away to people and so it’s just hard to know what to do with your time.

Actually I’m still organizing a new thing called Nazarene Missions Pathways Network here to try and get Australians out in the mission field a lot quicker and being more involved. So we’re having a national conference in February to get Australians mission-minded a little bit more and so I’m still organizing the conference. It’s the first one we’ve had, and I’m excited to see that mission’s gonna hopefully take off again here. If my last days are spent doing that, that’s exciting.

Engage: Is there any message or word that you would want to share with the Nazarene church globally, with your family?

Allder: As my family and I’ve been talking about my funeral and stuff and which parts we will just have family at, we realized our family is huge. It’s not just our immediate family, but we have family around the world. And I’m so grateful to be a part of that and I’m so thankful for their support. That’s really honestly held me up in these last two and a half years.

So that would be my thanks and what a privilege to be a part of and may we all never take that for granted, and continue to live each day like it’s the last and make each day count.


Note: Edited for length and clarity.