After completing his degree in Mechanical Engineering, Sam decided to ‘fit in’ one year of mission work before beginning his professional career. Twenty-four years later he’s still there.

Sam began with a year of youth work with Youth Mission Team Australia, assisting youth with faith and character development, but admits that, “I grew more that year than most of the youth we were helping.” Sam stayed on for five years.

Sam was always aware of disunity at both a community level and within the church, but he was too busy pursuing sporting and academic success to give disunity a second thought. “There’s nothing like being caught up in the middle of disunity - seeing lives fall apart because we cannot bring ourselves to love our enemy or even dialogue with them. I slowly started to care.”

By the end of 2005 Sam had become so saddened with the ramifications of disunity within the church and our communities, especially concerning the fights that broke out when he even suggested working towards unity, that his passion for adventure and the need in front of him collided. “Beyond Gary Ablett Snr and Curtley Ambrose, my ‘silent’ hero was St Francis of Assisi. I was staring at a world map one day, upset that Christians wouldn’t even work towards unity, and I thought how awesome it would be to do what St Francis did - sell everything I own, walk, and pray.” A year later he had mapped out the journey, sold his belongings, quit his job, and set off.