David Cohen

After an undistinguished time at North Sydney Boys’ High, my leaving pass was sufficient to gain a Commonwealth Scholarship. Hoping to become a diplomat or a barrister, I planned to do Law, but at 16 was too young for admission into Law School. So I began an Arts-Law degree. After 2 years of Arts perfecting skills at billiards, I proceeded to Law but was soon convinced that Law was not to be my chosen career. Not surprisingly, my examiners wholeheartedly agreed. Coaching tennis to support myself had not paid off.

I returned to complete my Arts degree, majoring in French and English, while teaching French (as Senior French Master!) at St Andrew’s Cathedral School. In January 1963, I was married. I was appointed to Sydney Grammar School as an Assistant Master, as well as Warden of Latimer House Anglican Hostel for university students at Petersham. They were a tough couple of years.

Our daughter was born in November 1963, and the following June we were on our way to Mauritius to pioneer the work of the Bible Society in the Indian Ocean area, covering such exotic outposts as Reunion, Rodrigues and the Seychelles. Our son was born in Mauritius in 1966, and at the end of that year, while on furlough in Sydney, I was ordained a minister of the Anglican Church in St Andrew’s Cathedral, having completed my basic theological qualifications by extension while in Mauritius.

After nearly 6 years in Mauritius, I was invited to New Zealand, to promote the work of the Bible Society there as Deputy General Secretary, and to open up the work in the French South Pacific: New Caledonia, New Hebrides (as Vanuatu then was), Tahiti and later extending to Fiji, Tonga, Samoa…such a heavy cross to bear!

I was only 29 when the General Secretary suddenly died and I was appointed as his successor, and within a month was in Addis Ababa for the World Assembly of the United Bible Societies. There I was invited (pressurized!) to become their Regional Director for Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. The job demanded 9 months travel a year, so we decided that the family would stay in Sydney with my wife’s parents. It was a bad decision, and a major contributor to the ultimate breakdown of our marriage.

After two years I resigned from the Bible Society and returned to Sydney to be with my family. I was appointed to a tiny parish in Sylvania for nearly three years and was then invited to become Rector of St. Matthew’s Manly, a large and dynamic church closer to where I grew up in Mosman. They were good years, but with growing marital and family tension.

Unexpectedly in 1985, I was invited by Scripture Union in the UK to become their General Director. I thought they had sent the letter of enquiry to the wrong person! Eight extraordinary years followed, with opportunities I could only have dreamed of, including preaching in Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral, and broadcasting regularly on the BBC.

But our marriage had come to the point where my wife wanted to live apart. I was invited to join the staff of Tear Fund UK, a Christian relief and development organization, and ended up as their Team Leader in Goma, Zaire (as the Democratic Republic of the Congo then was) following the horrific genocide in Rwanda in 1994. We lived and worked with 1 million refugees, in the most abysmal conditions, until the camps closed for political reasons in 1996.

On returning to Australia, ostensibly to care for my ailing mother, with little prospect of Christian ministry given my divorced status, I was invited to head up an organization called Christian Nationals Evangelism Council (CNEC)/Partners International, working in relief and development in some 60 countries around the world. Ten wonderful years followed. In 1999, at a mission conference in the USA, I met Kathi from California and, to cut a short and romantic story even shorter, was married 7 months later, after only spending 14 days in the same country together! She bravely came to Australia, sight unseen, and is now a happily settled Aussie, delighting even in cricket, AFL, ARL and other Australian pastimes, not to mention her love of gardening, birds, sheltie dogs, and other Australian wild life.

We are now in a state of sabbatical transition. Our home in Blaxland in the Lower Blue Mountains gives us great delight. Our west wing/guest wing means we can have people stay, which we love, and we hope it will be our base for whatever lies ahead. I am hoping for at least another 5 years meaningful employment.

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