She also appears on a television program with her husband and is one of the most popular speakers at CCC's college. A highly artistic person, Ps. Chris is currently playing a big part in CCC's building project and especially enjoys being involved in the aesthetic decisions. On top of her many roles, Ps. Chris values her family the most, and plays the roles of wife and mum with great dedication. She has most recently stepped into the shoes of a proud grandparent.

Harvest Times invites you to join us as she recounts her journey.

THE BEGINNING

Phil and I came from similar backgrounds—we were both from non-Christian families and we had each lost a parent since young. We met in drama club when we were in high school and I was sixteen. During the end-of-year senior musical production, I was doing make-up and Phil was doing a little singing part. Back then, I was very shy in a lot of ways and I had little self-confidence. I actually got picked with my girlfriend to be the lead part in that musical, but I backed out because I was just too scared.

I ended up doing make-up on Phil's face! I had a crush on him but I wasn't aware that he already knew. At the after-party, I told my girlfriend I should go home since Phil wasn't there. I went to the doors and as I opened them, I saw Phil standing there in his cool jeans and t-shirt. He looked at me and told me he had been looking for me! He then took my hand and we came back into the party. That night I had my first kiss ... we started going out, and that was the beginning of our romance.

After our high school graduation, we ended up in Christchurch with Phil doing fine arts and myself doing teaching. It was a very different culture for me. I came from a conservative, quiet household and we were thrown into this "university culture." It was also the beginning of the hippie revolution and I felt like somebody had given me wings! I began to grow in confidence and started making decisions for myself. It was marvelous and I loved it!

TURNING POINT

But the hippie revolution carried a darker side as well. Phil and I started living together and experimenting with drugs. It was that era in the hippie culture when we started studying eastern religions for nirvana and peace, but things didn't seem to be working out. We seemed to be going around in circles and our hearts kept crying out for truth. There was a kind of prayer in our hearts: "God, if You're real, who are You? Which way (should we go), which road (should we take)?"

I guess the Lord was watching and was just waiting to get us in the right place at the right time. In our second year, we reached a crossroads when things started to cave in around us, and we felt dark forces oppressing us from dabbling in the occult.

One winter night in August, as we were sleeping, something brushed past Phil's head and he woke up from a nightmare screaming, "Jesus! Jesus!" As I turned the lights on, the air was buzzing and it felt evil and dark. I looked at Phil and he was trying to find bits of sticks to make a cross. A friend had told him that if he ever got scared or got in trouble, he could call on the name of Jesus and he did just that.

We didn't know any Christians, so in the morning we rang a friend who was involved in the occult. She directed us to a psychic center but I told Phil not to go because I had been there before and it was creepy. My friend's mother happened to hear that we were having trouble with spirits and fear, and she asked to speak to us. She had been a psychic herself but she was born again at a big Christian crusade. She then gave us the number of a pastor who could help us.

Back then, I thought a pastor was a farmer or someone who looked after cows! Anyway, Phil rang and spoke to the pastor's wife. She wanted us to go to church on Sunday night, and said not to let anything stop him even if it were the devil himself. When Phil told me what the pastor's wife had said, I told him I'd go with him.

That was the turning point of our lives—8 August 1971.

SET FREE FROM FEAR

We biked across the city and came to this little building where there was a little lady standing on the steps. She gave us a big hug and we went into the tiny church with about fifty people. An old man came out to lead choruses and I thought, "Wow, this is weird!" Another man, who turned out to be the pastor, came out from behind the curtain and preached about the love of Jesus—how we were living in the end times and Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. My heart went, "Yeah, Jesus! Wow!"

When he gave an altar call at the end, that little lady tapped us on the shoulder and told us to go up. We thought everybody was going out, but when we went out to the front of the church, it was just the both of us!

We were a couple of long-haired hippies with boots and I can't remember what we said, but when we prayed a little prayer, there was a warmth that saturated us and I knew I was home. That night we were radically saved! Phil was prayed for in the back room and completely set free from his fear. He was also baptized in the Holy Spirit that same night.

I was sitting on the pew waiting for them to come out of the prayer room and when I saw Phil, he was glowing! I thought, "Wow!" The pastors wife told me it's all right and I would "get it" the next week, but I was thinking, "Get what?" Phil didn't know what had happened to him but he was high. I was all quiet biking on the way home, but Phil was shouting, "Praise the Lord, man! Do you know Jesus? Jesus loves you, man!"

UNUSUAL MARRIAGE PROPOSAL

We got back to our flat and we both didn't feel right living together anymore, so we made an appointment to meet the pastor. As we shared our feelings with him, Phil said he had this word in his mind, "fornication" and he asked what it was. The pastor choked and dropped his Bible before explaining to us that we should either marry or part.

Then came Phil's "romantic" proposal: He turned to me, sounding a little desperate, and said, "Ah, do you want to get married?"

So the next week, the pastor asked for those who had invited Jesus into their hearts but had not been baptized in the Holy Spirit to step forward. I turned to the guy beside me and asked, "That's me?" He asked me if I spoke in tongues and I said no. So he asked me to go out and I went. When the pastor prayed for me, I was totally filled with the Holy Spirit! I heard heavenly music that was like a big orchestra, and it was unbelievable. I began to sing and worship and something was released in me at that moment. Being baptized in the Holy Spirit also "unlocked" me and I was freed from fear. The week after, we were water baptized.

TAKING A STAND, MAKING A DIFFERENCE

We got married three weeks after we were saved in that little church, and I went back to training college after that. The three weeks in which everything had taken place was during our college holiday period, so when we went back to school, it was announced at assembly that we were married.

As we were sitting there silently waiting for the lecturer, the head student turned to me and asked, "So why did you have to get married, Chris?" She was insinuating that I was pregnant. I felt my knees shook as I stood up in front of the whole class and testified about Jesus.

I said I was sorry because I got a lot of those girls to smoke drugs with me and read those books about the eastern gurus. I apologized for all the things I drew them into, told them I found Jesus Christ and invited them all to church. My two best friends and their boyfriends came to church the next Sunday and were saved.

We started attending the church regularly and now I had friends with me. People in the church were much older but they loved us! Phil and I bought a big house and he went full-time almost immediately. The preaching gift was on Phil big time. He started preaching on the streets and in shops. We just knew we wanted to serve Jesus. We started witnessing to hippies and they began to get saved. People off the streets, hitchhikers and kids searching for the truth ... they all started coming to the Lord. More than 1,800 kids came to the Lord in that little church.

I was 18 then and Phil was 19. Then I graduated from training college and started teaching the next year. While we were at the commune in those early months, I got pregnant but lost the baby. That's why I wrote my book, "Jesse." I got pregnant a few months later with Rebecca, and when I was seven months, we moved into our own flat so I could look after myself and attend to the pregnancy. We closed down the commune and the church bought a big Bible college house and all those hippie kids that were saved and wanted to be trained enrolled into the Bible College.