Interview with Sam Chan
It’s August. The sticky heat sapping my energy, the kids sick of being confined to the tiny but air-conditioned apartment, we eagerly escape to the mountains of Karuizawa. As the cool forests and beautiful mountain streams refresh our tired bodies, fellowship and time in God’s word refreshes our souls.
Our whole family looks forward to each year’s Karuizawa conference – my husband and I love the opportunity to sing, pray, and learn together in English with other missionaries from all over Japan, and our kids love the youth program, where they fellowship with other missionary kids and grow in God’s word together.
I’m particularly excited about this next conference in 2015 because the guest speaker, Sam Chan, is one of my favourite lecturers from seminary! It will be exciting to catch up with him and his wife, Steph, meet their 3 boys, and once again learn through Sam’s engaging and challenging teaching style.
I asked Sam some questions to help you get to know him.
RH: Where are you from?
SC: I grew up in Australia, mainly in Sydney. I was born in Hong Kong, but my parents moved to Australia when I was 6 months old. So that makes me 1.99 percent Chinese!
RH: Where did you and Steph meet?
SC: Steph and I got to know each other through Christian friends in Sydney. We’d see each other at conferences, socials and church. We gradually drifted together —and slowly, but surely, fell in love.
RH: What’s your work?
SC: I began working for City Bible Forum, in Sydney, in 2015. City Bible Forum creates ways for people and their friends to hear about Jesus, while working in the city. My job is to give public talks in coffee shops and conference rooms.
RH: You first trained as a doctor, why did you leave medicine?
SC: I love working as a doctor, and still work one day a week as a doctor. So I haven’t totally given it up. But my reason for leaving full-time medicine was because I had so many opportunities to give talks about Jesus. I couldn’t juggle both being a full-time doctor and a full-time evangelist.
RH: What will you talk about at the conference?
SC: I will give two sets of talks. One set will be expository talks from Philippians. The second set will be topical talks where we look at life’s big existential questions.
Photo of Sam Chan from Amazon; photo of Karuizawa Union Church from Wikipedia
