Grace Reuben created history by becoming the first ever Fijian woman of Indian decent to be ordained as a minister for the Methodist Church in Fiji and Rotuma.
Grace who hails from Vunicuicui in Labasa was ordained last week at the Methodist Conference after she graduated from the Davuilevu Theological College with a diploma in theology last year.
"I would just like to give thanks to God for my six-year journey and I would also like to thank my Christian and Hindu friends who helped me to become what I am today," Grace says.
She said her Christian friends helped her through prayers and financial support while her Hindu friends also helped her financially.
Grace grew up a Hindu in Vunicuicui and was the middle child of seven brothers and sisters living in a cane farming settlement.
She was always sickly and had sores all over her body which would emanate a horrible smell.
"Three of God's messengers came to my place and shared about Jesus Christ so this Jesus was a new God to me but they told me to pray to Jesus and I will be healed. So I decided to test this Jesus. I've been to the temple, I've been to witchcraft so I wanted to test this Jesus," Grace says.
She was completely healed and her father gave her to the church. On July 19 of 1988 she was baptised by the former Methodist Church president Reverend Josateki Koroi.
"I was without hope and at times I wanted to take my life. When I came to know Jesus Christ, not only was I healed, but he also gave me hope."
Grace studied for her deacon's course at the church school in Macuata and was posted to the Dudley Church circuit in the early 1990s.
Moving between Labasa and Suva, Grace decided to leave the mission and become a kindergarten teacher in 1995 at the Young Men's Christian Association Kindergarten in Suva.
But upon the urging of Reverend William Lucas, she returned to the mission and continued her work with the church until 2006 when Mr Lucas urged her to study to become a minister.
After a stint in Ba she finally entered Davuilevu in 2009, but the following year, tragedy struck - she lost her husband.
"I wanted to give up and I was really challenged by the loss of my husband because he was uprooted from us, but I learnt how to rely on God and lucky I got good counsel from my lecturers and friends who supported me and my son through these times," Grace says.
Looking back through one of the darkest times in her life, Grace is thankful that she was able to come through and is looking forward to serving her flock.
She is the second minister at the Dudley Church in Toorak helping the circuit superintendent Mr Lucas.
Grace is also thinking of furthering her studies and is awaiting the church's blessings for her aim of studying a bachelor in Divinity.
In the meantime, her advice is that all widows not lose hope in their lives even if the world seemed to be falling around them.
"To the widows whom our spouses have taken the lead, we become hopeless. We're worried. Many will think the world has come to an end but they have to focus on the goal and focus on God," Grace says.
Grace's brothers and sisters are still practising Hinduism. She says they are still close despite their religious differences.