What’s it like to lose everything, leave your home country, and step out in faith with no safety net? What about raising (and homeschooling!) seven creative children? How about being the middle of the contemporary Christian music movement and having three of your children be well-known artists? In her debut memoir, Helen Smallbone gives you the answers. But I had more questions and wanted to hear it directly in her voice. Listen in as Helen and I talk about the story of her life.
The Conversation | Helen Smallbone
This interview transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and conciseness.
Josh Olds: Now, this is sort of your memoir, it’s your story from all the way back starting in with your younger years on Australia. Then moved to the States, and Behind the Lights takes us all the way up through your current ministry and work. But just to begin, if you can just sort of compress that into just a couple of minutes and let the listeners know what they can expect when they read this book.
Helen Smallbone: This book is really a little bit of a life story. We’ve been given a fairly dramatic life story. My husband and I left Australia in 1991 with six kids, 16 suitcases, and me pregnant with number seven. After a business reversal back in Australia, we actually lost a quarter million dollars on a tour that David was promoting. And we knew that life was never going to be quite the same. We came here he was 42 and knew that this was a new start, basically.
We had no nest egg to fall back on because we’d lost everything back in Australia, coming here to start afresh. And then he lost his job. So really, we had nowhere to turn, but to sort of bunker down with each other. And then to pray. And it was really through prayer that we saw God take us step by step and lead us into some new ways. David did pick up a job a couple of months after, and then we lived pretty hand-to-mouth for the ensuing couple of years. We learned to work together in those early days we learned to do all the jobs that people don’t really love to do—rake leaves, mow lawns, babysit, clean houses. And it was really the kids working , particularly Rebecca and Daniel working, that helped put food on the table.
We saw God provide as well. We got given a car. We got help with paying some of the bills for our daughter to be born. We were given groceries by friends, people who knew us in the neighborhood. And so we just saw God really care for us. And then later from that, we ended up working together, or the kids end up working as Rebecca’s crew during her time as Rebecca St. James. And then from that the boys sort of emerged as her background vocalists. And then eventually, God gave them their own career. So it’s really following the gamut. Back in Australia, our normal life, then losing everything, dramatic life change. And then God’s slowly being faithful in giving us everything back.
Josh Olds: You co-founded a ministry for mothers called MUMlife. That’s what you’re doing now. What is your purpose in that ministry? And what led you to that?
Helen Smallbone: I’ve been a full-time mom, I call it active mothering, for 32 years. Between the time Rebecca was born to the time my youngest daughter graduated from high school. And so I did nothing else other than mother for those years. So I feel like my career is being a mum. And I know what being a mum sort of looks like. And so I just saw the opportunity—God actually opened the opportunities—for me to start mentoring younger mums. I was asked by some mums in a local church group if I would come in and mentor and I don’t do women’s groups. I’m not a real girly girl. I wouldn’t have done a ministry to women per se. But mums are my heart. Mums are what I know. Families. Kids. And so I thought, “You know what, this is probably a great place for me to serve in ...