BRINGING HOPE TO GATTON (PART 1)
By Christopher Quah
When Christina See went to further her studies in Australia, in the Land Down Under never did she imagine that God would call her to save souls, minister to students and plant a church there.
It was in the year 2009 that Christina had been offered a chance to study Veterinary Science at the University of Queensland (UQ). As a top A student from her school, it was a golden opportunity for her as she had always dreamed of being a veterinarian.
“I have always loved animals. Sheep especially. But what I didn’t know was that God wanted me to take care of His sheep, not just literal animals,” she explained with a laugh.
Upon arrival to Australia, she was sent to the Brisbane (UQ) campus to begin her studies. It was a comfortable and enjoyable experience for her as Brisbane was the capital of Queensland, and was a very beautiful and bustling city.
It was there that she joined Hope Church in Brisbane, a non-denominational church.
“At the beginning of the year, I only joined as a member. I never actually planned to be active and even skipped the prayer meetings,” Christina admitted.
For the first year Christina was placed in the St Lucia campus in Brisbane. It is a large city with many shopping malls, and everything that a student needed. Christina lived there comfortably for a year.
However, when the second year came in 2010, she had to move to Gatton.
“Gatton was less developed, in the outback of Australia. You could say it was like moving to a rural setting equivalent to a kampong in Malaysia. But, also that I would lose my faith as I would be separated from my new family of believers in Hope Brisbane Church. Furthermore, at that point there was no active Christian fellowship to join at the university,” Christina quipped.
She added that her Christian friends who were there even stopped going to church.
“While pondering about my fate, my roommate, a strong Christian believer said that she believed God had send me there for a purpose. When my mentor prayed for me, she gave me a Spirit led word, that said there is a reason why the vet school had moved to Gatton the moment I came to study,” Christina explained.
This led her to believe that she was called to go to Gatton to do more than just to study.
The call to start church planting actually started from a God-given desire to see Revival in Gatton. A revival where people will begin to know the goodness and love of God in their lives that will bring transformation to the land. It was reinforced one day after reading the story on King Solomon, where God asked Solomon in a dream to ask for whatever he wanted and it would be given to him. Then I heard the small still voice of the Holy Spirit spoke, “Christina, I will ask you the same question, what would you desire if you could have anything in the world? Tell me and like Solomon, it will be yours”. I went through all the things I could ever want and felt like the only thing I truly desired was to see revival in Gatton. And I told God, “I want to see revival breakout in Gatton”. Days went on and nothing changed. But about a month later, our senior pastor covered the exact same topic about King Solomon and the dream that he had. And she said, “ I am going to ask around to see what people have to say if God asked them that question”. And out of the blue I heard my name being called. Of all the people in the congregation, she chose me! I sheepishly answered “to see revival in Gatton”. To which she replied, “Amen. You will see it with your own eyes”. I never forgot that day and to this date I have seen the small sparks of revival that will break out into wild fire in the years to come.
“As if to confirm the word, while I was at a church conference, a random leader prayed for me, and gave me a word. He said he saw a vision that I was ministering at a place that looked like a park. I immediately knew the place he was talking about, it was my campus in Gatton as it looked exactly like the central walkway there!” Christina exclaimed.
Even more, divinely planned was that the Hope church had recently planted another church called Hope Ipswich which was much nearer to Gatton than Brisbane. This allowed Christina to commute much easier back and forth from her campus to the church.
“At this point under God’s prompting, I was trying to find Christian friends to help me start a Christian club under Hope church. This was in order to reach out to the other students at the campus. God also provided me with a ministry partner. Now the amazing thing was that this good friend of mine was not a believer when we first met. But she was willing to travel with me to church. She was a staunch Buddhist. But God had other plans for her. In the months to come, He orchestrated different circumstances that turned her into a believer. When she eventually accepted Christ, we started the Christian club together. God has used her to further the Kingdom in this club. She also has been a great help for me in the ministry,” Christina explained.
The duo eventually started the club Campus Christian Movement in 2011. They had regular prayer meetings, praying for revival in Gatton.
“At the beginning we were an all-girl club. But as we faithfully continued to pray, two guys showed up. They join the club faithfully and soon more and more guys join,” Christina explained.
“Soon the group became so big that the church leadership decided to ordain us to plant our own church,” Christina added.
(To find out what happens next, tune in to part two only on Asian Beacon)
