Nicola grew up in Papua New Guinea, fourth-generation PNG-born Chinese, raised in Madang on the northeast coast. At twelve she boarded a plane to Sydney and started high school at PLC Pymble, thousands of kilometres from her family. It was boarding school she loved, she says — the lifelong friendships, the freedom within structure, the PNG girls who all stuck together. But it left her, perhaps, without the anchoring her parents would have provided. She'd find that out in her twenties.
Those years were turbulent by her own admission. Failed economics at Sydney Uni. A stint at secretarial college. Honours in textile technology, then four rough years in the fashion industry; screaming bosses, impossible margins, Sunday dread. An engagement that ended. Through it all, something she describes simply as not knowing what she wanted. She was wild. She was searching. She just didn't have a name for what she was looking for.
Eventually she landed in nursing, neonatal and paediatric intensive care, and never looked back. She now believes God led her there. The stress is real, she says, but the purpose makes it different. You're working towards something. A baby going home. A family staying whole.
Enter Scott. A Christian. Early in their relationship, he asked about her values, her upbringing, what she believed; and quietly, consistently, brought every conversation back to God. She started going to church. Two years passed. Things started to shift.
The turning point came in two moments. The first was a Good Friday sermon where Tim asked whether the congregation believed Jesus had died and been resurrected. Sitting in the pew, Nicola thought: yes, I actually do believe that. The second came weeks later on a bad day at work, driving home, she found herself mid-conversation with Jesus before she even realised she was praying. "It dawned on me then," she says. "I am a Christian. And then I burst out crying."
But the episode title doesn't just point to faith. In her twenties, Nicola went high-altitude mountaineering. She fell into a crevasse in the Himalayas — hanging in darkness for 45 minutes before her team hauled her out. She got blown off a summit in New Zealand by 150km/h winds and slid down the mountain with two others, three ice screws popping before the last one held. She probably should have died, she says. She didn't. She thinks she knows why.
Recently confirmed at Soul Revival, Nicola joins Joel and Tim to trace the long road God walked with her — from Madang to Pymble to a crevasse to a car on the highway.
Stories of Jesus Changing Everything.