4 minute read
Foundations for a future trusting God
Foundations for a future trusting God
Over the past 90 years, many young people have been brought to faith in Jesus through CRU Groups, camps and other ministries.
Many of those young people, now grown, look back on their CRU experiences as children and teenagers and recognise just how important they were in shaping their faith.
One such person is Sue Hume, a former student at Queenwood School for Girls. Sue grew up in a nominally Christian family, but as was the case for so many in the 1950s, Christian faith was cultural rather than a relationship with God.
“I’d asked my mum some questions, but she couldn’t answer them,” Sue remembers.
Thankfully, God chose to reveal Himself to Sue, beginning when she was in Year 5.
“I had a Christian teacher, and she told our class that there was going to be a Christian camp held at Bowral. I went along. Really, what the camp did was introduce me to the idea that you could read the Bible. I came back from camp and I said to my mum, ‘I’m going to read my Bible every day!’ And she said, ‘Well we’ll see how long that lasts.’”
Now, 60 years later, Sue is pleased to say that the habit has endured and her conversation is peppered with Bible references, demonstrating her strong knowledge of the Word.
But it took a little longer after that first camp for Sue to really understand what she was reading.
When Sue moved up to the senior campus of Queenwood, a friend asked her to go along to the CRU Group meeting on Thursday. The group at Queenwood at that time was led by Robyn Claydon (then Robyn Hicken), who taught English and Latin.
“I went along, and Miss Hicken gave a clear presentation of the gospel at my first meeting. She said that there were two ways in life, and that because of our sin we were all on the way that led ultimately to God's judgement. She said that if we believed in Jesus,
Later, while reading over the notebook that she’d kept alongside her daily Bible reading, Sue realised that she’d already accepted Jesus. “But I didn’t know the significance,” she explains. “It’s like a human birth, because the baby doesn’t know the significance of the day that they’re born! It was at that first CRU Group meeting that I understood the significance of following Jesus."
Sue continued going to the CRU Group every week, and really enjoyed it. “There was variety! There were talks, there were panels, there was an attempt at showing films… the way that the gospel truths were presented was creative and engaging.”
The year was 1959, and the CRU Group at Queenwood was experiencing enormous growth as it was the year of the Billy Graham Crusades in Sydney. Sue was one of 200 girls attending the group that year.
For someone who didn’t come from a churchgoing family, Sue’s CRU Group became important to her because it was easy to get to and easy to invite friends to. “When I became a Christian, my parents let me go to fellowship at a church but that was two buses or a 40 minute walk! The CRU Group was easier to attend as I just took my sandwiches to the hall at lunchtime.”
It also became a place where she developed leadership skills.
“Students were encouraged to be involved and discover their gifts. Fairly early on I was asked to speak at the group, and I really enjoyed doing that.”
Following school, Sue was able to use the gifts and skills she initially honed in the CRU Group as a teacher, then working for the Navigators in Australia and New Zealand, and finally as a volunteer teaching English in Central Asia.
Sue’s life has had its challenges. “I didn’t get married until I was 43. I watched a lot of my friends getting married, and I wanted to be married, but I didn’t want to marry someone who I couldn’t respect and someone who wasn’t walking with Jesus. So, I thought I’d rather be single,” Sue shares.
More recently, Sue has battled breast cancer and she and her husband, Syd, have encountered many other medical issues on top of the cancer.
But through it all, Sue has been able to trust God – which she identifies as the most important thing she learned to do in her CRU Group, more important than the leadership skills she gained. Even when she was so young, Sue learned that God is in control and can be trusted and relied on in all circumstances.
Around Australia, CRU Groups, like the one Sue joined at Queenwood, are helping young people come to know Jesus, and build strong foundations so that they can keep trusting God for their whole lives.
Pictured: Sue and Syd Hume
Sue recognises that these days, many young people are seeking something to trust. “Dysfunctional family relationships mean that they have a lot more to cope with. There’s probably a lot more pain, a lot more unresolved conflict in their lives, the baggage of confusion.”
But CRU can be a safe place where they can learn truths that are secure. If young people can learn the truths that God is good, that God loves us, that God is just and God is sovereign, that will give them a foundation for whatever they do and whatever happens to them.”
