Channel 2 - Interviews
Interviews from Flame CCR live times and prerecorded "Chat Room" programmes. Part of programmes broadcast on Flame CCR (Christian and Community Radio) in Merseyside and worldwide via www.flameradio.org.
Channel 2 - Interviews
CHAT ROOM - Peter Wooding (broadcaster, journalist) Jul 2017
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John talks to Peter Wooding who details his early life in California, his Christian family (including Dan his father) and his involvement with UCB.
And now it's time on Flame C C R to take a look behind the studio's green door to find out who is in today's chat room.
SPEAKER_04Midnight. One more night without sleeping. Watching till the morning comes creeping. Green dog, what's that secret of your keeping?
SPEAKER_01And now, are you listening?
SPEAKER_00Hi, this is Peter Wooding, and it's very, very weird for me to be on the other side of the microphone.
SPEAKER_02You're listening to Flame Radio. My name is John Cheek and today we find ourselves in the shadow of Chester Cathedral on a Saturday afternoon, and I'm delighted to say that our guest today is the PR person, the broadcaster, the journalist Peter Wooding. Peter, just for a minute or two, can you just kindly introduce yourself to the listeners? Say a few things about yourself, maybe one fact that not many people know about you, please.
SPEAKER_00I have web toes. As most people don't know that. But I'm um freelance journalist based in North Wales, travelling all around the world, been a journalist for 21 years. You can probably tell by my posh accent I'm not from Chester or North Wales originally. I grew up in Surrey and then California and then moved back to the UK in the late 80s. Met a Welsh girl, and we're just about to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, and we have three beautiful daughters.
SPEAKER_02Well, congratulations to you both on your anniversary. And I would like to also mention as well, for the sake of our listeners, and this is a Merseyside-based radio station. Peter is also a big fan of the Reds, a big fan of Liverpool. And I'll quickly get that in. Probably a few Epicodians will switch off now, but anyway, Peter, if we can go right back to the beginning, can you tell us sort of a little bit of a potted history about your early years because you moved around a bit with your dad's work. Can you also tell us a little bit about your dad and what he did? Because one or two listeners might even remember him.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'll even go back a generation before that. My grandparents actually grew up in Liverpool. My grandfather grew up in Toxtas, which is I think why I chose to become a Red and support Liverpool from my childhood. And then my grandparents were missionaries in Nigeria, so just imagine um going out on a ship from Albert Dock out to Nigeria back in the late thirties. They weren't married when they went out there, they went there independently, and my grandfather's chat up line to my grandmother was, Would you like to read my Liverpool Echo? So if you want to try that, give it a go. So it worked. So they got married, and then my father was born there, and uh they called him Dan Juma, which means son of Friday, but he was actually born on a Thursday, but it took him a day to get the news to my grandfather that he'd had a boy. So I think the missions was in my blood at the time. And uh so then I was born in 1968 in Birmingham. My parents grew up in Birmingham, and then, like you say, we travelled a lot to follow my dad's career. He left Birmingham to pursue a career in journalism on Fleet Street in London, and it was a pretty unusual upbringing through my young years and early teenage years, going along to a lot of my dad's interviews where he worked for some very reputable newspapers like the Sunday People and the Sunday Mirror. I only discovered a few years ago he took me along to the Cray Twins' mother's house for tea. That was how my dad got his break in journalism was to get an exclusive story about I think Ronnie Cray in his prison cell. Pretended to be his prison chaplain and would witness to him, but he got his exclusive story. Yeah, it was pretty unusual upbringing.
SPEAKER_09We went to Cliff Richards' house and Some people they tease one another, take pride in themselves, keeping the other one down. Well, I'm not like that at all. Some people they fight one another. How it be other I'm not like that at all people they tell them.
SPEAKER_00Larry Grayson's house, people can remember him, Barbara Windsor. So yeah, pretty unusual upbringing, and then when I was fourteen, my dad had just come back to the Lord and was hired to work for open doors with Brother Andrew in Orange, California. So it was an exciting thing for us to make the big step across the big pond to Orange County.
SPEAKER_02Peter, can I just stop you there? At the age of 14, open doors your dad went to work for. First of all, for the sake of the listeners, can you just explain a little bit about open doors and what work they do, please?
SPEAKER_00They're best known by their founder, Brother Andrew, who wrote a book called God Smuggler, which told this incredible story of how he used to smuggle Bibles into Eastern Europe, into the Eastern Bloc, and uh the ministry's just grown and grown, uh helping people in the persecuted church. So Brother Andrew's this crazy Dutch man, and my dad got involved setting up their new service in Orange.
SPEAKER_02And Peter, for yourself at the age of fourteen, going to America, going to California, completely different to the south of England. What did it feel like for you? And at the time, in terms of perhaps maybe faith and church attendance, where were you up to in terms of you and God?
SPEAKER_00We'd gone to church when I'd grown up, but I didn't really know what it meant to be a Christian. I believed in God, but I just thought he's somewhere out there in the distance. And so in the early 80s, my dad started taking me to one of these California megachurches that put on these Christian rock concerts, and uh I guess that's where my love of Christian music started, and I thought, wow, Christians can have a good time.
SPEAKER_09Don't believe it's for the play with the play for the playoffs, and it's But one night after going every week for six months, uh this preacher made it so clear what it meant to give your life to Jesus to become a Christian.
SPEAKER_00I just knew I had to make that decision. So this was around October 1983 I went forward and gave my life to the Lord. Up until that point, uh I was very shy. It's hard to imagine. American teenagers seemed so confident, so I was very shy in the classroom, going to high school in orange. But I think after I became a Christian, I started to sort of find my own identity, and I think having grown up as Dan Wooding's son was a big thing to deal with as well at the time. And uh, you know, I'm so proud of him and everything, but I was always known as Dan's son, so that was where I started to just feel like I was getting my own identity.
SPEAKER_02Peter, you said that night after that preacher that you gave your life to the Lord, to Jesus. Can you explain how anybody goes about giving their life to Jesus, becoming a Christian?
SPEAKER_00I mean you can be anywhere, uh, and there's not like a set formula, but for me, when they said at the end of this this talk, Do you want to give your life to Jesus? raise your hand. Well everyone's eyes are closed. I'm sure people have maybe experienced that in church. So I put my hand up, and the weird thing is my dad was sat next to me, and he told me years later, I just knew you were gonna do it tonight, Pete. And just a look on his face when I said, Dad, I've done it, and then he came with me, and I went to the front of the church to the altar, prayed the prayer with hundreds of other people giving their lives to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02Amen. Amen, and I bet you've never looked back since. So you were around fourteen or fifteen years old, but an English lad in California. And at the time, I guess, back in the early eighties as well, the church in America in general would have been fairly strong. Did you find it easy becoming a Christian and continuing as a Christian? Or did you find sometimes having to follow in your dad's footsteps was a bit of a burden for you?
SPEAKER_00I wouldn't say it was a burden, but I think what was a burden was that I was still a teenager and I was still feeling the pressure of uh what my friends wanted to do, the California party lifestyle. So sometimes I regret that I kind of backslid back and forth for about the next five years after that. But I had a Christian friend who just stood by me through all of that, and uh I remember one night going back to this church, I recommend my life to the Lord, and that very same evening I felt God calling me into the mission field. It was a very profound evening, so this was around uh uh 1988, and from that point to the next chapter of my life was uh going on the mission field with YWAM, Youth with a Mission, back in the UK.
SPEAKER_02Peter, does that mean you returned to the UK? Uh that you came back and did the missionary work here in Great Britain? What happened?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that wasn't the plan. I definitely planned to come back to YWAM, to come back to the UK to do their training. It's called a DTS Discipleship Training School. This was down at Homestead Manor in Sussex. My brother had inspired me because he'd done the school in 1985 and wrote a book about it, which was like a Christian bestseller. It was called I Wonder If Chocolate Kills Brain Cells, which is an unusual title for a book, but it was a really good recruitment tool for people to join Youth of the Mission. And it inspired me because I saw the change in his life. So I did the course over eight months, just a radical turnaround in my life. I'd never experienced Christianity quite like it, going out on the streets and doing mime and street performing and realizing that I could have fun while sharing my faith with people. That was quite radical for me around 1989, and then I felt God call me to go back to the city of my birth, Birmingham, and start a homeless ministry. So a year later, serving full-time with YWAM in 1990 in Birmingham, doing homeless ministry full-time, and again thinking I'm only gonna be here for like a year, and then I'm gonna go back to California and carry on my journalism studies. I was studying at university at the time. But then I met a Welsh girl, and uh we'd be here, like I said earlier, we'd be married twenty-five years coming up soon, and so that's why I stayed here in the UK.
SPEAKER_02Okay, before we get on to the Welsh girl Peter, during those times with Youth with a Mission, when you were doing evangelism, street evangelism, are there any particular moments that really stick out for you? Were there any uh dramatic encounters with members of the public that still very much stay in your memory today?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I guess there were two really. So uh I did the homeless ministry for three years, and um I think what I loved about it is you really got to know these guys, although so often you'd get to know them and then they would move on to another city, which was heartbreaking. But I remember one night um me and my wife had just got married and we'd go to the bull ring if people know um Birmingham well, and work with Birmingham City Mission giving out food, and this one traveller guy was just uh in a really bad mood that day, and I think we were the first people he wanted to offload on because he just found out he was HIV positive. And uh he got right in my face and I thought, Lord, what do I do here? So I just stayed calm and finally he calmed down and uh he just said I'm really sorry. I mean it you know, he didn't give his life to the law, but I think just my witness that I didn't respond to him really impacted him, and there were so many stories like that, just getting alongside people. I remember first started doing it, I was still very shy, from sunny California to the streets of Birmingham late at night, looking for homeless people, and I would sit down on the streets with them and people would walk past, and something in my sort of middle class upbringing thought, I wonder if people are looking at me thinking I'm one of them. And then I thought, well that's how Jesus would be. He would sit with these guys and just hang out with them and just be their friend. So that was very profound for me. And then on the creative side, we went from Birmingham to do leadership training with YWAM and St. Helens. People will know St. Helens very well. And uh we had an evangelist come who did escapology, and he came and did a workshop with us that people may remember Pete McCann. He was with Youth for Christ and then YWAM, he did a lot of TV magic shows. So he taught us how to do handcuff escapes, strait jacket, chains. So we did a street mission in Blackpool and I thought, let's give this a go. And uh just didn't have any idea how it would work, because it's so hard to keep a crowd when you're preaching on the streets. And so my friend tied me up in chains and padlocks, and we had a captive crowd, so we just preached the gospel, and then afterwards my friend um led someone to Christ. He was just so moved by it. So for many years after that, when we moved here to North Wales and uh I've been going to church in Chester for about twenty-three years, we started doing a lot of this street evangelism with the light project with Christopher, and it was really effective. But in the end, uh I hung up my straitjacket, I gave all my gear to Christopher because he was so much better than me.
SPEAKER_02Peter, if we can just go back slightly and as somebody who's done a bit of work with people who are homeless himself in the past, what do you say to people who say well you shouldn't be helping the homeless? You shouldn't be wasting your time. They don't deserve it. They are where they are, and they choose to be like that. Why do you help these beggars, these homeless scroungers? Why do you help them? What do you say in response to that sort of sentiment?
SPEAKER_00It's uh funny how God speaks to you through unusual things. So when I was praying about getting involved in this homeless ministry, I was back in California and I was behind a car praying for confirmation, and the car license plate had Isaiah 61, verse 1 on it, preach good news to the poor. And so I thought, yeah, this is what Jesus would do. So I just take that inspiration that Jesus went to the most marginalized people, the most stigmatized people, that I'm sure that's what Jesus would do. And also as I got to know many of these people, a lot of them had been businessmen, had just had some bad luck. It can happen to anyone. And so uh not everyone was trying to exploit people. People were there for genuine reasons, but even if they were trying to exploit it, we should unconditionally give love to them. But no, not just give them money. We were trained not just to give people money, but to actually give them food and try and set them up with an employment or housing. They just need someone like Jesus would do to help get back on their feet again.
SPEAKER_02I know what you mean, Peter. I remember all those years ago, the very first night that I volunteered to help out at the emergency homeless shelter in South End on Sea in December 1998. I remember chatting to a man with a Geordie accent, who was very, very shy and unconfident. And the more I chatted to him, the more I learnt. And eventually I learnt that he had been a businessman up in County Durham. And then he discovered that his wife was having an affair behind his back. She eventually walked out on him, and that was devastating. And he took his eyes off of his business, and his business began to go down the pan. Eventually he lost his business, his home, he lost everything, and he ended up on the streets down in South End on Sea. And I thought, as he was telling me all this, I thought, there by the grace of God go each one of us.
SPEAKER_03Have you seen the old man in the clothes down again? Picking up the papers with cheese in his eyes you see no bride and sleep at his side. Yesterday's paper telling yesterday's news. And said for you that the sun don't shine. Or let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London. I'll show you something to make you change your mind. And have you seen the old girl walks the streets of London? Duding her hair and the clothes in the red. She's no time for talking, she just keeps right on walking, carrying her home it to carry her bags. Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London. I show you something to make you change your mind. And in the night cafe at a quarter past eleven, same old man sitting there on his own looking at the world over the rim of his tea cut and he wanders over alone. So how can you tell me? Say for you that the sun don't shine. Or let me take you by the hand and reach the streets of London. I show the stuff then to make you change your mind. The metal rivers everywhere. And in the winter city. One more forgotten hero. And a world doesn't care. Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London. I'll show you something to make you change your mind.
SPEAKER_02Peter, so this was around about the late 80s going into the 1990s, doing evangelism plus homelessness work in Birmingham and elsewhere. What happened next?
SPEAKER_00So I met Sharon from Pristatin. She was doing a gapio with YWAM in derby and they came out to Birmingham to do some outreach with us. And uh we did some street evangelism with them. We fell in love. So we got married in June ninety two. And then Sharon felt the call to come and work with me full time with YWAM. But then in ninety-three when we were in St Helens, Sharon got pregnant with our first daughter and uh we thought maybe we should um come out of Wywam for a short time and sort of build up a home for ourselves in North Wales. But then I ended up going back into what I'd been pursuing as a teenager was my career in journalism.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so so Peter, you found yourself thinking that you might just become domesticated, just make sure that everything's okay and settled at home. But then a call came to go back into journalism. Now your dad's background had been journalism, but for yourself, had you done anything like that when you were a teenager?
SPEAKER_00I was the editor of a high school newspaper. It was funny because uh we moved a few times in California and we moved to a city called Westminster in Orange County in California, and uh I became the editor of the high school newspaper. I think that was, you know, God knew at the time that I would need that experience years away. So that was probably my first experience in writing and journalism. Then I studied in college in Huntington Beach, California for the um the college newspaper. And the other funny thing was my dad before that, when we were living in England, he's a uh a lifetime Birmingham City football fan, so he would give me pocket money to write reports on the matches if I went along with him. So that kind of got me started as well. And it's funny because a few months ago my parents were over, they was they still live in California, and we went to see Birmingham City, and they put a story in the programme about how my dad gave me pocket money to write, and they had an old photograph of me when I was about ten years old, so it was quite funny.
SPEAKER_02But you didn't tell them you're actually a Liverpool fan. You went back into journalism then as an adult. Presumably this was religious journalism. Can you remember your first story, the first thing you had published, and the direction you went in from there?
SPEAKER_00My first job was actually at the Chester Chronicle, and it was as a sub-editor, so my job was not so much to write the stories but to edit them and write snappy headlines, and it was really uh thrown in at the deep end for me because I hadn't finished my degree, it was a miracle I got the job without any qualifications, and we did 17 editions every week that I had to proofread by a Thursday to get out for the weekend and write snappy headlines. And then amazingly, from there I went to work at UCB as the news editor, so I would commute every day from North Wales to Stoke. But it's funny how God can test you what you're willing to do sometimes. So I was offered a position to open the mail and do data input at UCB for people that signed up after getting the Word for Today devotional booklet with the possibility I might end up being a news journalist there. And then um after seven months of doing that, miraculously UCB managed to get onto medium wave right across the UK. We'd come on from three till midnight, so they said we want you to start up a news service to do the news from three till midnight, and back then there was no internet or anything, so we'd just scan the newspapers to do news bulletins on the hour.
SPEAKER_02And of course, United Christian broadcasters were the vision, I think, of Ian Mackey, who felt that God was calling the church to basically broadcast Christian radio, and this would be in around about 1986. What was it like back then broadcasting really religious broadcasts for United Christian broadcasters?
SPEAKER_00It's funny because I went back to UCB last year to work as a freelancer on the news desk and telling some of these young guys in their twenties that we had no internet. We were excited when we had the first computer in the building that had internet on it, and someone explaining what email was to me. And I used to present a Sunday morning show and I used to record it on a VHS tape on a long play. And I don't know if people remember mini-disc recorders. We used to do, like you're doing this interview now. We would do them on a mini-disc, like a tape type thing. So back in those early days, yeah, things were a bit ad hoc. But what was amazing was they really held on to the vision, and it seemed impossible that UCB would ever get onto national radio, and then digital radio seemed to change all of that. I think finally, about 10 years ago, they got National Christian Radio. But you have to admire Ian that 25 years it took him to hold on to that dream from like 86 to 2009, I think it was, that they finally got onto National Christian Radio. But it was hard to fathom that it was even hard to get a local Christian radio licence back then just to go on FM.
SPEAKER_09Feel the wonder of the world, you have a laugh.
SPEAKER_01Tessa Jowell, who died on the 12th of May 2018 at the age of 70, made a key contribution to the existence of Flame CCR. Under the 1984 Telecommunications Act, individuals were allowed to apply for short-term broadcasting licenses. At a time when Christians were pressurising the government for national full-time religious broadcasting, and the government saying that they were not able to do that, Premier Radio encouraged individuals across the UK to apply for one-month broadcasting to celebrate the Millennium in June 2000. God prompted me, Norman, to do just that. And after extensive preparation and with the help of close friends, Flame FM first broadcast in June 2000 so that we were on air for Wit Sunday, the 11th of June, the Millennium, on 106.2 FM. Noting that Psalm 106 verse 2 says, Who can proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord or fully declare his praise? We had a lot of help from people coming in, had the encouragement to set up a full-time studio in Bevington, and a word from the Lord saying, Flame is going full-time, Norman, tell me what you need. There was a very obvious need, a full-time radio broadcasting licence. But the government was saying no. However, the government in 2001 drafted a communications bill and invited comments. So one of my key tasks in 2001 through to 2003 became writing comments on the proposed government legislation and joining the UK Christian Broadcasting Council in lobbying the government. We found support from the Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell, as it became her responsibility to make the Communications Bill into an Act of Parliament. The Communications Act came into force on the 25th of July 2003, superseding the Telecommunications Act of 1984. It consolidated the telecommunication and broadcasting regulators in the UK, introducing the Office of Communications, Ofcom, as the new industry regulator. Among other measures, the Act introduced legal recognition of community radio and paved the way for full-time local community radio services in the UK. Ofcom then, bidden by the government under the Communications Act, started offering full-time radio broadcasting licenses to corporate bodies who could prove a justification for a local broadcasting licence, support of such in their local area, and the capability of responsibly holding such a license. Lane became such a corporate body, where all Christian Media Limited applied for a licence and in due time, after much prayer and form filling, was offered a medium-wave broadcasting licence in December 2007, with two years to get on air. That set off a phase of establishing a new studio home, St. Paul's road Mission, and a transmitter site on the Biston Ridge. Hence on the 20th of December 2009, just within the two-year deadline, Flame CCR started broadcasting on 1521 kHz medium wave. Flame is now alive and acknowledges the part played by Tessa Jowell in getting on air full-time. Flame CCR in its broadcasts proclaims that Jesus is alive. And by the way, the music you can hear in the background is Tessa Jowell's favourite music, Alive, by the contemporary Celtic music band Skippinish.
SPEAKER_02And during this time, Peter, as well as doing Christian radio with UCB, United Christian Broadcasters, were you keeping your hand in with written stuff?
SPEAKER_00What I was experiencing was this amazing part of God's plan that from my grandparents being missionaries from my experience in Wyoming, that God was opening opportunities for me to be a journalist for UCB, but to travel the world on the most amazing mission trips. So I went on trips with Operation Christmas Child doing live broadcasts from Serbia, from Croatia, went to Mozambique. I think the most dramatic experience for me was broadcasting from Bezlan in Russia, where Chechen rebels took a school under siege, 300 children killed, and I got stopped by secret police, almost got arrested, I was banned from Russia. That's a long story that one. So God was just giving me that opportunity to use my missions and journalism background.
SPEAKER_02You're listening to Flame Radio. Our guest today is the Christian, the journalist, the broadcaster, Peter Wooding. Peter, can we go back to that time in Beslan?
SPEAKER_00So I think this was around 2005 we saw this terrible story emerge on the news where Chechen rebels took over this school in uh Beslan, which is in the Caucasus area of Russia, and um I just knew something in me. Uh had to do something about it. I was just establishing a charity called Assist Europe at the time that my dad had helped found in America, and I was running his European charity, so I decided to take a team from my church in Chester on the one year anniversary of this siege. I'd just go and minister to the people. But I was also doing live broadcasts for UCB while I was on this trip, and uh we went to the school to visit and pay our respects and minister to the people, and we were given badges to wear, which was in Russian, and we thought they said guests, but they said press. So this secret policeman stopped us all and said, Where's your press visa? So I had to be honest and say I was a journalist, but I was there leading a mission team. So he took us all to the police station and interrogated us for hours. It was such an intimidating place because there was such heightened security, snipers on the roofs, the world's media were there, so it was pretty scary. And um I was banned, I wasn't allowed back into Russia after that trip. So I was let away with a warning, but I wasn't was refused a visa after that. So that was quite a scary experience. But I remember two very profound moments when we did go into the school. We went into the gymnasium where these children had been held hostage for like four days, and they'd kept it as it was. It was like the roof was gone, bullet holes everywhere, and they had pictures of all the children on the walls with candles, and the mothers were there just weeping away, and I just got on my knees and prayed and thought, well, you know, I've got three daughters, this could have happened to them, and I just wept and prayed for them. The other moment was I came out of the gymnasium and saw this father just weeping away, and the Holy Spirit said, Go and pray for that guy. I thought, well, I can't speak Russian, I'm a sort of shy middle class guy. What can I give to this guy? He's got tattoos, big tough Russian guy. But I just put my arm around him and he just wept on my shoulder, and I thought of Isaiah 61 again, comfort those who mourn. And just prayed for him. It was just a profound moment. I thought if that was the only reason I went on that trip, it was for that very moment.
SPEAKER_02Peter, I like the sound of the fact that you were regarded as a threat by the authorities out there in that trouble spot. You were regarded as a threat. I think Christians should be regarded as threats by the established order. Do you think sometimes Christians who go and witness to the truth, who shine the spotlight on the truth, whether it's with a pen or with a recording microphone or with a camera or whatever, the Christians who shine the spotlight on the truth are actually being prophetic?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, very much. So it's such a privilege as a Christian journalist to shed light on stories that won't normally get reported of what God is doing around the world. And you know, as I've been to so many places, I've seen incredible testament to Christians that have been persecuted and have overcome incredible obstacles. As well as being banned from Russia, I've also been a Bible smuggler myself, so it wasn't planned, but I smuggled Bibles into China, and it was such a humbling experience, the miracle that the Bibles got through without them being checked at security. This was in Kunming in mainland China, and uh we secretly met these pastors and I always remember asking them, so how many people live in your village? They said, Oh about a thousand. I said, So how many have you led to Christ? Oh a thousand. They had no Bibles, no resources, and with all the persecution or all the challenges putting their life on the line, it was so humbling to know that they were so determined to get the gospel out, and that's how I hope I can play some small part in getting those kind of stories out as a journalist.
SPEAKER_02Peter, I first met you down in South End on Sea in the year 2005, when I was doing press and publicity for the local church's organisation Love South End, and I was introduced to you by the evangelist Tony Anthony, who'd met you at Spring Harvest. By then were you working pretty much full-time as a freelance journalist, albeit still connected to United Christian Broadcasters?
SPEAKER_00No, I think at the time uh it would have been one of my last assignments for UCB. I was doing loads of stories on Tony Anthony, and then he invited me to come to Loud South End. And I remember being so inspired because I think that kind of outreach was quite pioneering, really, to just uh take on a whole city. Is South End a city? Just about and have a campaign like that, because that was around the time we had Festival Manchester and Mersey Fest, so I think I was just so inspired by that. I did freelance news stories for CBN News with a journalist called Tim Finch, who was in Chester for quite a long time, a great video producer. And maybe that was where I started to get the uh passion to do video journalism, but freelance journalism just terrified me, you know, with a young family and a mortgage. I'm just glad, you know, sometimes you don't know what God's got planned for you around the corner.
SPEAKER_02And what God did have planned for you, Peter, turned out to be something of an international dimension. And I do remember that year 2005, because it was around then, in fact, shortly afterwards, that I crossed swords with the chairman of HM Revenue and Customs, because around about that time the second largest government department in the country had actually banned its staff, its many thousands of staff nationwide, from supporting the Samaritan's Purse charity on work premises during work time. They'd quite formally and firmly banned their staff from supporting Samaritan's Purse in any way. Peter, can you please tell the listeners a little bit about the work of Samaritan's Purse? And also explain a little bit about how you came to be involved with Samaritan's Purse UK, please.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I guess my first experience was going on a Operation Christmas Child Chew Box distribution team to Croatia in Vukovar. And uh that was an incredible experience. So that was the first time I saw the work hands-on. And then in 2012 I was hired to be their part-time press officer for the UK, and uh so over those four years that I was working for them, I did all their local media campaigns for Operation Christmas Child, but also what a lot of people don't know about Samaritans Purse is the incredible work they do in disaster zones. So the first trip I did was to South Sudan. There was about 50,000 refugees in a camp, and it was amazing that I was in the Samaritan Spurse compound editing and uploading reports onto YouTube in my tent in a refugee camp in South Sudan. And then I went to the Philippines after Typhoon Hyen. I went to Nepal after the earthquake, and then I went to Greece. That was my last overseas assignment with them. So Samaritan's purse do Operation Christmas Child, but then they also do incredible relief and uh development work. So they'll go into a disaster zone, meet the immediate needs, but then they'll stay there for several years to help people get back on their feet. But the thing I love with Samaritan's Purse is they're incredibly professional but also don't water down the gospel. With Franklin Graham, you can't not share the gospel quite openly, so it was incredible to go on some of those trips.
SPEAKER_02Franklin Graham, by the way, is the son of the evangelist Billy Graham. And I guess probably many people listening to this know that Samaritan's Purse certainly are well known for providing Christmas shoe boxes where they send out a shoe box full of stuff, primarily to children, but also to adults in very impoverished parts of the world, and the shoebox can contain a toothbrush, toothpaste, all sorts of basic necessities to keep them going. Peter, I know that you've often filmed and reported on many of these sort of relief missions where shoe boxes have been delivered, but the lorry loads. Are there any moments, any stories from those times when you've been covering such deliveries of shoeboxes that really stick in your mind?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the first one was in I think it was around 2000 when I went to Vukovar in Croatia, and this was just after all the fighting that had happened there, and it was quite shocking. You think you're on a film set when you see schools, hospitals, orphanages completely covered in bullet holes everywhere. You think, how could people fire at a hospital or a school or an orphanage? And there were two really wonderful moments on that trip. I was doing a live broadcast to I think the breakfast show on UCB, and we're in an orphanage, and as I'm doing my report back, the children start singing, Yes Jesus loves me. And we were just really getting choked up. It was just a lovely moment.
SPEAKER_05Jesus loves me, he who died heavens came to open mine, He will wash away my sin, let his little shall come in.
SPEAKER_08Yes, Jesus loved me. Yes, Jesus loved me.
SPEAKER_07The Bible tells me, is a stats beat, is a stats beat, it's a stats beat, it's a stats beat, it's a stats beat, it's a stats be a stats beat, it's a stats.
SPEAKER_00And then uh we were in a school and I remember this boy, we'd run out of boys' shoeboxes, so I had to give this boy a girl's shoe box. I thought he's gonna be so disappointed, he's gonna get like a Barbie doll or something. And he opens the box and the first thing on the top of the box is a makeup kit. I thought, oh no. And the first thing he said is Mama. He thought, I can give my mother something for Christmas. Oh, that really just I mean that was 17 years ago. That always sticks in my mind just to see what little would seem to us at Christmas time where our kids get loads and loads of presents. But that simple thing, a makeup kit to give to his mother, always stood in my mind.
SPEAKER_02Peter, as somebody who's done a bit of evangelism himself, I'm often having to fill the question, Well, why is religion the cause of all wars? And Peter, you've actually been to some war zones, places devastated by the effects of war. Is it really the case that quite often, apart from the UN, the only people who are actually trying to help people rebuild their lives are Christians, our churches.
SPEAKER_00I wouldn't like to say they're the only ones, but they definitely are at the forefront. I mean I'm so impressed with Samaritan's Puss that after a disaster hits, they'll have someone on the ground within hours. I wouldn't like to be the one that gets the phone call, say, Right, can you go to Nepal now? And then have doctors and nurses and relief workers go out within hours, but that's what's amazing is uh the church really is at the forefront. I think what really summed it up for me was when I went to the Philippines and we interviewed a Baptist pastor. We went to his church and all the sides of the walls had come down, and we interviewed him and we said, When the typhoon hit, what was your feeling? He said, I just wanted to leave. I wanted to just get out of that place. But God said, No, you've got to stay with your flock, care for your church, and he just started weeping in front of us. And then he introduced us to a guy who survived the typhoon by holding a beam up in his house so that his wife and six kids could get out the house while the typhoon happened, and his little boy sat at his feet while they all tried to get out. So, Dad, you can do it. And then finally he let the beam down and it dropped on his foot. And Samaritan's person had to amputate his leg. Leg. And there he was stood with his wife and six kids, plus his baby that was born because his wife was pregnant during the typhoon. And he was just thanking God that his family survived and yet he lost his leg. But he was so grateful, but it was the church and it was Samaritan's purse that had been the ones that were there for him.
SPEAKER_02Peter, when you hear things like that, you realise that here in the West, in the rich, comfortable West, we don't know the half of it, do we? We don't know the half of it. Peter, can you please tell a little bit more about some of the other organizations that you've worked with doing audiovisual work, journalism? Mission Aviation Fellowship?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they've been amazing because nearly every time I've been on one of these Samaritan's Purse trips, going into the most remote places like South Sudan, Mission Aviation Fellowship have managed to get us into places that no one else could get us into. So they have these tiny Cessna planes that will get medical aid and transport people into like refugee camps in the most rough terrain. When we landed in this refugee camp, it was basically we're landing on this, and it was just a dirt land strip in the middle of nowhere. There was a crashed plane on the side of the runway. So they could get us into the most uh remote places. Incredible what you would get to see from these tiny planes. But the most reassuring thing I love about MAF pilots is they'll always say a prayer before they take off. You don't normally get that when you're going on your holiday. The pilot says a prayer that you land safely, so that was always very comforting. But I was always so inspired by these guys. To them, it's just uh another day of work for them, but they're just doing incredible work.
SPEAKER_02Yes, we've covered Mission Aviation Fellowship on more than one occasion on Flame Radio in the past, and as well as being a Christian missionary organization, flying in missionaries to different parts of the world. They also help all sorts of medical and famine relief organizations, from the UN to the Red Cross to Oxfam to save the children, flying in doctors, nurses, surgeons, as well as vital famine relief supplies, uh very worthwhile Christian organisation, Mission Aviation Fellowship. Peter, as well as various escapades and adventures abroad, you also continue to work with various Christian organisations in this country, including the Christian Institute and also Christian Legal Centre Stroke, Christian Concern.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's been quite a wide variety. I've been freelance for about nine years now, and uh Christian Institute hired me in the early days when I was starting out to do video stories on a lot of their cases, and I think the most unusual assignment I was given was when they were campaigning for freedom of speech, and I filmed Mr. Bean, Rowan Atkinson in the House of Lords giving a speech on how comedians as well as Christians should have the right for free speech. This was section five that they were trying to overturn. And that video has had the most views of any video I've ever put together. That was like over half a million within a few days. And then I also worked for many years for a Christian concern and the Christian Legal Center doing very similar work, a lot of legal cases, filming outside the Royal Courts of Justice, filming rallies outside Parliament, and uh really trying to speak up for Christian truth and the right for Christian truth in this country. You know, I wouldn't go as far as to say that Christians are persecuted in this country, but certainly are marginalized when they try and speak up for biblical truth in this country, and uh it's been quite shocking to see sometimes the secularist agenda, to see the bias in the courtrooms against Christians just for wearing a cross in the workplace or offering to pray for someone in the workplace. So it really opened up my eyes. So those are some of the organizations I work for. And another amazing group I worked for was Global Day of Prayer London, and we had a day of prayer at West Ham and then at Wembley Stadium coming up to five years ago. That was an incredible moment where I was the press officer, probably the most exciting and stressful day of my life trying to coordinate media at Wembley Stadium, about 35,000 people there. So that was a another group I worked for. And then in the last few years I've been working for a ministry called Leading the Way, who broadcast on a lot of UK stations with Dr. Michael Youssef, who's an incredible preacher. One of the stories I'm about to write about, I've written his story before, is a guy that was a homeless drug addict in Bradford, and he heard Dr. Michael Youssef on the radio saying it he was going to preach the uncompromising truth. And this tough drug addict, homeless guy is like, Who's this guy to give me the uncompromising truth? But something resonated with him. His name's Bruce Pearson, and since then he's given his life to the Lord, he's going to Bible college, and he even has a radio show, and he introduces Dr. Michael Yousse's program now. So I'm about to write a story about that. But leading the way doing an incredible work in the Middle East, helping refugees in Syria, and uh one of my other most recent stories was how an ISIS leader was gonna kill a leading the way follow-up guy. He heard the broadcast was gonna meet this guy and he was gonna kill him, but the Holy Spirit so touched his life he became a Christian and now leads Bible studies. So I do a lot of work for leading the way, they're doing some incredible stories at the moment.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Peter, in all of this, and you mentioned the secular agenda, in all of this, have you encountered some opposition for trying to broadcast the truth? God's truth, trying to spotlight truth.
SPEAKER_00I've certainly seen people like Christian Institute, when I've seen them appear on mainstream media, it does clearly seem that there's a bias, that they'll set up like a panel discussion, and it just seems the journalist, the presenter, really has an agenda to make the Christian look bad. And uh I find that quite frustrating, and that's where I've seen the biggest evidence to opposition to Christians, where there's a real liberal agenda that we see a bias in the media that really should be completely unbiased. So that's been quite an eye-opener.
SPEAKER_02And being a Christian in the media world, has that afforded you opportunities to share your faith? Can you think of any times when you've actually discussed God and what you believe with other journalists?
SPEAKER_00I've mostly worked for Christian organizations, so I guess I'm a little bit sheltered when it comes to that. So I guess one of the ways was when I was working for Samaritan's Purse, I would manage to get some inspiring Christian stories of what they were doing into some of the mainstream media. They would seem to be quite touched with that, and that was sometimes open opportunities, but that's probably the extent it's gone for me.
SPEAKER_02Just mentioning Samaritan's Purse, sometimes they can be regarded as being controversial by certain sections of the media because of their connections with Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, and I believe that Franklin is one of the founders of Samaritan's Pearse in America. What's his relationship with Samaritan's Purse in this country and what actually is the real truth about Franklin Graham? Is he as outspoken as he's made out to be?
SPEAKER_00Definitely not a bias and prejudice. I just think he's willing to speak up for issues that a lot of evangelists sway away from. But you know, it's a very tricky one where Billy Graham was never really known to comment on political issues. He always was willing to pray at the inauguration of a president and and lead the prayers at those, but wouldn't really make such outspoken views on, you know, quite controversial issues like radical Islam, homosexuality, things like that. Whereas I think Franklin has taken a lot of criticism because he has spoken up on these issues. So it's split Christians really. They have different views of him. But having met him myself, if I met him when he came to London when we launched the campaign to send out a 100 millionth shoebox, all I can say is I was so impressed with his passion for the gospel. And he was just a very humble guy. I interviewed him about some incredible stories of being involved with Operation Christmas Child right from the early days when he started working with uh the guy that founded it in North Wales, which is where it all started. So yeah, it's a very tricky one because so many people respected Billy that he never seemed to get as much controversy as Franklin has. And I guess now with Donald Trump it's only gonna get more controversial.
SPEAKER_02Donald Trump who's a for anybody, perhaps possibly for any Christian thinking of getting involved with the media world, perhaps maybe either writing or broadcasting or whatever. Would you have any advice for them, Peter? Any any recommendations, any guidance?
SPEAKER_00I started out the Chester Chronicle, and in the late nineties you could really be a specialist journalist. You could be just a writer, they had a whole team of photographers, editors. I went back to the Chester Chronicle recently. Now you have to do video, do your own photographs on your phone, they don't really use many photographers, so I'd say try and learn as many skills as you can. I'm very fortunate that I can adapt from writing to doing radio to doing video. Everything is video now on social media. So we've got Facebook Live and all these different platforms. So my one piece of advice is just learn all the different aspects of journalism. I recently also interviewed Lee Strobel, who's an amazing journalist I respect, who wrote the best-selling book, Case for Christ. And his journey was he was an atheist trying to disprove the Christian faith, but in so doing found Jesus was real and wrote a book called Case for Christ. And I interviewed him recently about the whole topic of fake news and integrity and news. And he said, Well, back then you had to test your sources and be balanced and get both sides of the story. And we seem to have lost that today. We just want to be the first to get the story out there and not really have that integrity. So my other piece of advice would be always check your sources. Don't just get stories out there. We get a lot of urban myths on social media, and people that will share them without really checking the sources. So check your sources and try and multitask.
SPEAKER_02And also perhaps maybe stick to the truth as well as Christians. Peter, I'll be called to at all times adhere to the truth, live by the truth, tell the truth.
SPEAKER_00Very much so. And um I forgot to mention one of the organizations I'm working for that really doesn't hold back with sharing the truth to this young generation, is the Message Trust in Manchester. I've been working for them as a writer now. Andy Hawthorne, who I'm sure you've interviewed before over the years when he was with the Worldwide Message Tribe doing all these rave concerts in the 90s, has managed to keep going. The Message Trust is celebrating their 25th anniversary this year, and every month we have our staff prayer days, and we're constantly seeing people come to Christ through our rock bands, hip hop bands, prisons teams, schools teams, and they're just like Dr. Michael Youssef says, preaching the uncompromising truth. People do want to know today. Young people want to be challenged, and we've just got to make the gospel as clear as possible, but also use every creative means at our disposal.
SPEAKER_02Peter, you must be going a bit dry now, but I'll ask you one more question, and it's a question I often ask of my interviewees. So take your time with this. But we've talked about things very much in a Christian setting and a church setting. So therefore we've touched upon the subject of God. But this God, what's he like?
SPEAKER_00Very patient, I think, with me. I've been a Christian for thirty-four years now, and I have my struggles sometimes, and yet God is just very patient. He's always there showing his grace to me, and somehow chooses to use me in the media, in evangelism. So I think that the way I describe God is just very patient and very gracious.
SPEAKER_02You're listening to Flame Radio. My name is John Sheik, and our guest today, I've been privileged to say, has been Peter Wooding. Peter, thank you very much indeed.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, John. Fun to be on the other side of the microphone.
SPEAKER_09We can watch that.
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