Recently, I had the opportunity to organize CERC’s annual camp and the topic for this year was ‘Wisdom’. The schedule was packed with both biblical teaching and hardcore fun! We had 5 talks, 4 bible study sessions and 6 sessions for personal reading on the book of Proverbs. Intense, right? But we loved it because from all of these sessions, God has taught us His knowledge and understanding and we were be able to see Christ as the Wisdom of God in both God’s work of Creation and Redemption. As one of our campers would put it, it was “mind-blasting!”
We have never had so much fun together as well! Eating Botswana caterpillars as a forfeit of a game, playing ultimate Frisbee in the mud, seeing church members being so enthusiastic during Performance Night, waking people up with rap and sleeping outdoors in the highlands is so exciting. Never before have I been to a camp with such a unique combination of so much fun and such deep biblical teaching.
My good friend Sam Ye Han got baptised as well during this time. On our way down from the highlands, our church took a detour to Lata Iskandar Waterfalls for a baptism. 3 of our friends were baptised. Sam and I met in IMU, a local medical university which we were both attending and he was the first guy I spoke the gospel to and read the bible with. To see him now ‘dying to this world and living in Christ’ is truly witnessing the miracle of God’s transformatory work in him. ‘Brother’ is what we call each other now.
But camp was only just the beginning of more things to come. When we got back to Kuala Lumpur, things did not go back to normal. Many of our church members were working hard to sort themselves out and there were things that we needed to sort out together. They were applying the wisdom that they had learnt from camp into areas of work, marriage, family life and church.
Most of the people in church are campus students and they too are struggling hard for the sake of the gospel as they reflect on their career goals, some of them seizing opportunities to do ministry. We have a bunch of students who are going all out for Jesus on campus and the effect was interesting because even unbelievers were asking us to do bible study with them! That is where I come in to play the role of planning and training our campus students in their biblical literacy as they go out and teach other students on campus of the Good News.
As I continue to do ministry in CERC, I am increasingly convinced of the lack of faithful and trained bible teachers here and how much I must work to equip myself for the sake of the gospel in Malaysia. It is a very odd thing because so many Christians whom I have met do not understand the gospel of the Scriptures. Rather, the gospel is often assumed and assimilated into their lives. This worries and troubles me because I love them and I want them to know the apostolic gospel. Nevertheless, I am thankful and comforted by the fact that God is a predestining God and that He is sovereign.
Do continue to pray for me. I can only carry on as long as God strengthens me to persevere in this work.
