This page is dedicated to Youth or Leaders sharing how Jesus has changed their lives.

Kayley Chan (Youth Leader)

I grew up in a family with parents who denied belief in any particular religion, and an older brother who also did not know God. But thankfully, this was also a family with parents who were open to religion, and an older brother who has come to know God in the past years. Thinking about the first time I ever heard or learnt about God draws my memory back all the way to one of the early days of kindergarten. I remember receiving a note from school about Scripture classes, a note which I understood little of, and a note which my parents weren’t too fussed about either. When I returned the note however, the box for Protestant/Anglican/some sort of Scripture had been ticked. Whether my parents ticked it in the belief that becoming Christian would make their daughter a better person or learning something new had no harm, I am thankful for this decision.

Without any initial knowledge of what Scripture class was even about, I grew up from that week onwards attending various Scripture classes at school, learning about this ‘God’ figure and ‘Jesus’ person and ‘Christianity’ business through the Bible and songs. Despite this, I remember denying my belief in any god or religion in year 5, boldly stating it to my friends who asked me about whether going to Scripture made me ‘religious’. It was fairly inconceivable at that time that a few years down the track I would be boldly declaring my faith in Jesus Christ – that very Jesus Christ I so defiantly denied before.

High school was a time that had bursts of elaborative questioning, the closest to mid-life crisis that a fairly relaxed high-schooler can get. In the uniform environment of a selective school that focused on intelligence, success and recognition, it was hard not to question whether it was actually all worth – when the results came back, when Presentation Day was over, or when we graduated altogether. I can’t pinpoint a particular time or date, but over a period of time, I landed myself in the middle of a group of close Christian friends who spurred me on to explore the magnitude and overwhelming grace of God for myself. In a string of events that happened not merely by chance, I found myself attending events and groups such as RICE Rally, a friend’s youth group camp and my school’s ISCF lunchtime Christian group.

Hearing the gospel more and more, the story of Jesus Christ became more than just a story to me. That God’s love for us would extend to the point of sending His perfect son Jesus to save

us and forgive us of our sins through His death and resurrection at the cross. That being a Christian was actually a lot harder than I initially thought, but knowing in the end it wasn’t about us, but had everything to do with God’s grace and gift of eternal life by accepting and placing my trust in Him. This truth overturned a lot of what I knew, or what little I knew, but had also given me all I needed to know.

And as I look back, I know that this was something I was serious in wanting to know more about. For I’m not even sure now whether I would be able to muster up the courage to rock up randomly at a youth group at 9am with a friend, knowing nobody there, having no idea about how church even worked, and having only found my way there by googling EFCA East Lindfield and using Google Maps. And since then, I’m still trying to wrap my head around what the cross really means, and it still amazes me with how much more I have yet to understand. Having come to know Christ didn’t mean everything fit together perfectly or that I don’t mess up the things I do, but I know that I can admit my wrongs and come back to a God who loves me. And not only that, but we can walk this road with brothers and sisters who are rooted by faith in the cross.