Tomorrow is Not Today

What does it take to pack up your life, your wife, and three children, the youngest just nine weeks old and move to a war zone?

For Tim Buxton, it wasn't recklessness. It was calling.

Born in the jungles of Papua to missionary parents, Tim was wired from his first breath for a life most people would never dare. In 2014, on the exact day ISIS swept across the border and two million refugees fled into Iraq's Kurdistan region, Tim's family landed at Erbil airport — wide-eyed, oblivious, and exactly where they needed to be.

What followed were three and a half years of one of the most raw, costly, and profoundly human experiences you'll ever hear described. Building micro-villages for Yazidi genocide survivors. Sitting with fathers whose daughters had been sold into slavery. Midnight escapes through ISIS-held territory in a car with no air conditioning and a smuggler's stash of contraband. The weight of two million stories pressing down on one man who had no money, no government backing, and no roadmap only purpose.

But this episode isn't just about war zones. It's about what happens when you come home.

It's about compassion fatigue and PTSD. About depression and driving Uber at 2am. About the moment Tim realised that the refugees he'd served in Iraq had followed him to Toowoomba, Australia — and what he did when they knocked on his doorstep.

It's about his organisation You Belong (youbelong.org.au), which has spent a decade turning displaced strangers into neighbours, and volunteers into people who matter.

And ultimately, it's about the one question that underpins everything Tim has ever done:

This is one of the most moving, perspective-shattering conversations we've ever had on Tomorrow Is Not Today. Stay for the whole thing. You'll leave different.

00:00 I Find Peace in Chaos
 00:02 Introduction
 00:03 Born in the Jungle
 00:05 The Gold Coast Bubble
 00:06 The Day Everything Changed
 00:08 The Decision to Stay
 00:10 How Iraq First Called to Him
 00:14 Backlash from Family and Strangers
 00:18 Born for This
 00:20 Do It for the One
 00:22 Building Micro-Villages
 00:23 The Father Whose Daughters Were Taken
 00:26 Compassion Fatigue
 00:35 Post-Traumatic Growth
 00:38 Bitter or Better
 00:42 Teaching Kids to Suffer Well
 00:47 Midnight Escape
 00:53 The Yazidi People
 00:58 The 12-Year-Old ISIS Fighter
 01:02 Humanising the Other
 01:07 The Uber Driver Experiment
 01:15 A Stranger is Just a Friend You Haven't Met Yet
 01:18 Coming Home
 01:19 You Belong
 01:24 Waymakers Not Refugees
 01:30 Legacy

You Belong | youbelong.org.au | @youbelongorg
Tim Buxton | tim@youbelong.org.au