A GRADUATION DREAM

 

 

Sharon and her proud family.

Theology Student Encourages Female Students

By ESTHER KAUGA

THE time is seven o’clock as Sharon Paul gently brushes her hair and stares contemplatively at her reflection in the mirror.

For this 22- years old lass from Chimbu Province, today is a very special day for her when she will finally made her family, her church and her friends proud.

She reflects back to her struggling education journey, shakes her head ruefully and whispers to herself beneath her breath, “Thank You Lord the struggles were worth it after all”.

Her parents were both subsistence farmers and she relied heavily on her mother to support them financially as her mother sells betel nut for a living.

“I am the second of three siblings and our mother is the main bread winner of our little family. She travels to Madang and buys bags of betel nut and sells them at Goroka and that is where we get the financial help that we need,” she explains.

Her father is a retired mining expert welder who helps out with the family’s financial need when necessary but they mostly depend on their mother.

Growing up, she was not a top performing student. She was the type of student who would only get a few ‘B’s and line up all ‘C’s and ‘D’s and ‘E’s on her report card.

With that ‘average’ student name tag firmly placed on her since elementary school, she had been carrying that with her from Okiufa Primary to Goroka Secondary School.

Every year she would witness graduations where her friends would get academic awards and she would go home empty- handed, feeling like a failure and that contributed to her having low self- esteem at school.

She never really thought that she would get into any tertiary institutions because those top places are reserved for those top performing students of whom she clearly wasn’t one of them.

However, that all changed during the last months of secondary school. It all changed when two Seventh- day Adventist preachers held a two weeks crusade at the National Day Park in Goroka.

“It was around September 2018 when I was doing my grade 12, there was a two weeks crusade and two guest speakers were there. The first speaker was the late Pastor Tony Kemo and the second speaker was Dr Unia Api,” Sharon recalls.

Proud graduate Sharon Paul from Chimbu.

She was captivated by Dr Api’s sermon regarding one’s decision to choose either Light or Darkness. A decision which every human has to make at a point in their lives and God will respect their choice regardless.

“I was residing at Kafuku village at that time and it was a K2 mile to town route but I was willing to be present daily just to listen to more of that captivating sermon”.

As she listened to the sermons, she reflected on her mother’s struggle to put food on the table and how often she had been a burden to her mother by being disobedient.

“It led me back to God. I clearly saw that despite all the bad that I had done, God was always there blessing us all the way. He blessed my mother so she always had enough for us kids and we were never denied anything that we needed”, she said.

That reflection led her to make a choice. She needed to do something for the Lord. She felt as if she owed God too much and if there was a time to show Him just how much she appreciated Him; this was the time to do so.

“When the meeting was over, I approached Dr Api and introduced myself and asked if there would be any jobs that females can do for the Lord within the church and he asked me this question instead ‘Daughter, do you want to become a pastor?’”.

Out of the many responses that the Dr would give, that was not what Sharon expected and it stunned her for a while. She thought he would direct her to apply for some mission office work but his response was definitely unexpected.

“He then, after hearing of my academic struggles, encouraged me to apply to PAU to study Theology and then he said, ‘Sharon I will be waiting for you at PAU next year’ and with that I felt overwhelmed with an unexplainable sensation of peace,” she recalled.

The feeling of peace was like a warm blanket over her shoulder as she walked with other fellow crusade attendees home. Her mind was settled then and the decision was final.

“On Monday, I went to school and changed my prior choices and did what the Dr instructed me to do. Nothing but just a simple 2 minutes conversation changed my future,” she said.

Even the word ‘Theology’ itself was new to Sharon so she had to write it down and define it at home that night and she discovered that it referred to pastors, ministers or anyone who is doing the Lord’s work in proclaiming the gospel and she understood that she would become one soon.

“To be honest I didn’t know that Theology was a course that females took. I hadn’t even come across a female Theology student whist growing up so I was not aware of it. 

"The church that I attended had only male pastors and ministers who would take services. Even in my district or the Pathfinder camps that I attended growing up, there was no female pastor for me to look up to,” she reflected.

Am earlier graduation at PAU. Bachelor of Arts graduates with their lecturers.
Picture by Julianna Muniz

Sharon believes that many females are not aware that a woman can become a pastor. There are no promotions in the church to encourage women to become pastors hence many are still in the dark.

The awareness for females to take theology is not there and so many female students are left with only one option to choose when they fail and that is to get married.

“As a Christian nation, I believe that it should be encouraged for girls and boys also to choose Theology and make a positive impact upon the country with their peers."

“Theology does not belong to a certain group of people but it belongs to anyone who responds to the call of God and is willing to sacrifice everything to do God’s work,” she encouraged.

There are only few dedicated souls who pursue Theology at tertiary institutions and that is the reason for many existing churches without pastors or ministers to look after them.

“Parents, just as you give tithe to the Lord, give tithe in the form of your children to the Lord by investing in them to study Theology.”

“There may be places that you cannot go to but once your child graduates, he or she will go to that place and do the work that you pray to do”, she said.

Sharon smiled as she reflected on the fact that she had lived a life full of miracles during her four years at PAU.

“Many do not believe in miracles but I say that it takes faith to live a life where you will experience miracles on a daily basis. I experienced God in a different level once I registered to do Theology at PAU”, she explained.

One of the many miracles that she recounted was that of how she registered without paying fee for her second semester during her third year at PAU.

“The clearance list was about to come out for students to register for the second semester but that was also a bad time in my family because financially, both my parents were struggling then”.

A graduation ceremony from 2021. Picture courtesy of PAU Online.

“I encouraged them to pray and wait until the last day of registration so that I could talk with the accounts team to at least be lenient with me whilst my parents would pay up in due time.”

“However, the list was out via our email and I knew my name would not be there since I did not pay the registration fee so I got my laptop and connected it to the school’s wifi and checked the clearance list just to see who was cleared.

“And to my surprise my name was there! I had to refresh the PAU page just to be sure and it was there the second time!”

“I was cleared to register and continue on with my studies. The moment that realisation hit me, I burst into tears as I recalled how pastors would speak of not having enough money for school fees but somehow God would do the impossible and pay their fees and I was actually living this experience as my own,” she tearfully recalled.

Sharon testifies that in order to give your best you must reflect back on your personal experiences with the Lord.

“It was a challenge for me as an average student to at least try and graduate with a GPA of 3 and above but God made it possible so that it will be a story for me to share as encouragement to other average students.

“Parents should not judge their child’s academic performance just by comparing them with others. You do not know the future of your child and what God has in store for them. May be one day they will make you proud when they graduate with merits or distinction,” she said.

For any average students like her, Sharon encourages that they should put God first and He will lead them to their future careers.

 “It was all by God’s grace that I have come this far. I reflect back on my education journey. I didn’t dream of graduating from a university and reaching this stage in life. It’s like a dream that came true for me,” she concluded with a smile.

Sharon is now working with the Eastern Highlands Chimbu Mission of the Seventh- day Adventist Church in Goroka as a Church Pastor and continues to shine for Christ.