A common passion to make meaningful change is what first brought Samuel and Melissa Tshisekedi together.
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They first met at a conference in the Democratic Republic of Congo where Samuel was the pastor of a church and Melissa was visiting on trip with her Melbourne-based church.
They bonded over common dreams to build up the impoverished nation with water, agricultural, small business and charitable projects and founded the organisation, Congo's Hope.
Five years after their first meeting, they got married in Bendigo, not far from Melissa's home town of Boort.
Before that, their lives could not have been more separate.
Samuel describes his childhood town of Tshikapa as about the geographical size of Boort but with a larger population and only one sealed road.
The Congo of his childhood was ruled by a dictatorship.
He walked 15 kilometres each way to attend school. Sometimes there was no food when he got home and he would have to sit the next day's exams on an empty stomach.
A young Melissa finished the final years of her schooling as a boarder in Melbourne and then started a degree in industrial design. She left it after a semester and went into banking for seven years before going back to university to study a Bachelor of Science in prosthetics and orthotics.
For the next 12 years she worked in the health sector in Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland.
One day in 2004 during a church service, Melissa felt a deep urge to attend a mission trip to Congo.
She did not meet Samuel on that trip however the country left a deep impression on her, which prompted her return two years later.
"I think the thing that really struck me when I went to Congo the first time was every person talks politics," Melissa said.
"I actually came to know in 2004 more about Congo's political situation than I knew about my own country in a four-week visit.
"When (politics) is on the TV, everybody's watching, everybody's listening, everybody's abreast of all the new changes that are coming.
"Because it's paramount to the survival of the every day person in the street." Melissa's observations of Congolese society made her examine attitudes back home.
Never be too ideological about your ideas. And the person who disagrees with you does not need to be demonised.
- Samuel Tshesekedi
"It was like politics isn't something that happens in a bubble," she said.
"Here in Australia, people are in the political scene and then there's the rest of us." Samuel experienced the same contrast in reverse.
"You have grown up in a country where you do not get that level of freedom to be able to discuss issues because you're always looking behind you, because you might end up in trouble, and then you come to a country like Australia that celebrates the freedom of speech but then you see that actually conversations don't happen," he said.
"Aussies are quite opinionated, we have opinions on everything but I think we stay in our little group of the people who hold a similar view," Melissa said.
"There's not a lot of cross-issue discussion between opposing parties."
The couple's thinking was crystallised during a stint living in Queensland during a state election and observing the national conversation during Julia Gillard's prime ministership.
"In our view, it seems that politics is a lot more about, 'if I attack the other person's character as hard as possible, call them names, they are a liar and this and that, then nobody's going to listen to them and then I'll get into power'," Samuel said. "Why can't we discuss ideas without actually having to insult the other person? It all tends to end up being about the people and not the ideas so much," Melissa said.
"And personalities come and go. Ideas have lifespans that last beyond people, beyond individuals."
From all these musings, the organisation Voice of Reason was born.
Having moved their lives to Bendigo to be closer to Melissa's family, the couple is developing a strong passion for their community.
They have observed recent debates about a planned mosque in East Bendigo with great interest and believe that a real discussion about beliefs underpinning different attitudes in the community is yet to be had.
They hope to bring local Muslim leaders and Bendigo community leaders together in conversation to respectfully scrutinise each other's views.
"Never be too ideological about your ideas," Samuel said. "And the person who disagrees with you does not need to be demonised."
As Christians Samuel and Melissa know they too must be open to having their beliefs challenged. They have also started an organisation called Reasonable Christianity which provides training in communicating and explaining the Christian faith.
The Voice of Reason holds monthly public discussions on big life questions on the last Friday of every month from 6pm to 7.30pm at Bendigo Library.