Ateca Rabukawaqa lives in Suva, Fiji, and has served with Pacific Students For Christ (PSFC) for over 25 years, most recently as an office administrator. Ateca has completed Langham Preaching training and is now a facilitator, passionately teaching and discipling university students in how to read and understand the Bible faithfully.
Ateca shares, “I’m very passionate. Since being saved when I was 18 years of age, I knew how the Lord had impacted my life through the preaching of the gospel. The decision that I made totally changed the way I saw life…serving in PSFC with young people, I know Jesus can do the same for them. It can change them for good, just as it did to me.”
Passion for mission
Prior to working for PSFC, Ateca served with Campus Crusade for Christ for 10 years when she first moved to Suva, and worked for nine years at the University of the South Pacific. She shares, “I worked with the ministry [Campus Crusade for Christ] as a volunteer …. That’s when my journey started for mission; having a heart of evangelism, a heart of going out and seeing young people saved… And when I left [the University], I still wanted to do the work of reaching young people. And this opportunity came up to serve at PSFC.”
Ateca is passionate about reaching young people with the hope of the gospel. She shares, “For any young person to know what their future would hold, having a relationship with Jesus would be the first step into seeing that way open for them – where God would lead them. I know there’s a lot of things that every young person would wish to have, but not just what they would have after they graduate, but have meaning in life. Having God at the centre, knowing His will as they follow Christ, and in the end eternal life for them, that they would be saved.”
The need for Gospel training
As a nation, Fiji is a religious country with many that go to church, but that’s where it often stops. Ateca explains, “If you go to every village in Fiji, the biggest building there would be a church. Every village has a church. And so I grew up in that. When you are small, you are taken to church. You have to go to church every Sunday. You have to. And so [as a nation] we think that that’s being a Christian…Students coming into university, they think, ‘I come from a home that goes to church every Sunday…Because I go to church, that makes me a Christian.’ But they don’t have a relationship with Jesus.”
Pastors in Fiji often have no training in understanding and teaching from the Bible. Ateca shares, “One of the things that Fiji churches lack is training for pastors, training for those that are preaching every Sunday…they’re teaching Bible stories, but there’s no preaching about Christ, the work that Christ came to do for us to save us. There’s an absence of the gospel being preached. They could preach from any Old Testament character, just not about Jesus.They can say it, but they don’t challenge people into knowing Him as Lord, making Him as Lord and Saviour of their lives”.
Meeting the need
The ministry of PSFC started in 1973 with the vision to reach and equip university students for Christ. She shares, “The first staff worker said that the University of the South Pacific is a training ground for the leaders of the South Pacific [students from all over the South Pacific come to study at this university] … As we look back over 50 years, the people that have come out of our university are really now leaders of government in the Pacific. Even in the church, they are senior ministers, they are pastors of churches…We want to train and equip them.”
There was a shift when Langham was introduced to PSFC. Ateca shares, “When we had Langham come in, we just saw this as one of the best [ways of] training. We can train these leaders of the South Pacific in preaching – in preaching the gospel, in knowing what to do with the gospel and go back and do that in their own countries.”
“Because of Langham’s work, we’ve seen the fruits. Student leaders have given Bible talks. Not just that, but there is transformation. It happens first in their lives. And to be able to stand boldly and speak and preach the gospel, that has never happened before. Even for us as staff, to confidently open the Bible and speak of Jesus, preach the gospel… Langham has helped us equip our leaders, trained them to teach the Bible as well. We’ve seen generations of students going out from here into their communities and doing the same and especially as they go to the churches that they serve, they can do that.”
“The Langham preaching material that we have is a new tool. It has taught me to get into the Bible, to really look into the Bible through observation, through interpretation and even applications that really are about Jesus, and of course, the work that he did for us to save us. I see the salvation of students having that relationship with scriptures…When they open the Bible, they know what to look for…The transformation that happens because of the word of God being explained, being seen clearly through the tools that Langham gave us.”
Pray with us
- Pray for more pastors to be open to participating in the Langham training and for the Bible to be taught faithfully.
- Thank God for Ateca and her passion for Jesus and sharing Him with young people.
- Thank God for the ministry of PSFC and for all the students they have ministered to. Pray for more young people to know the hope of the gospel.