BGR Retreat 9th-10th Mar, Chien Chong
Saturday, March 17, 2007
This week for YF, we were able to have a 2 day retreat on my favourite topic… BGR! :) that was immensely fun because we had Chien Chong come to speak to us about two aspects on BGR; ‘Purity’ and ‘Faithfulness’. I tell you, the things he said aren’t really new to most of us, but the way he brought it across, wow… Let’s just say that he really knows how to connect with youth and get us laughing and engaging with him. :) The point was that, the truths he told us about how we should keep purity and be faithful, really hit home because of the way he brought it across and the techniques he used to make us remember the points. Even now, I still remember how he described Ruth as a big muscular woman instead of a ‘qian jing xiao jie’ because of the way she was described as having to carry heavy loads. It was such a uproar when he even joked with the fact that she could be some body builder and not some girl with ‘hello kitty’ face. When he spoke about how we might be afraid we won’t be picked up as a boyfriend or girlfriend, he also used the imagery of a book left on a bookshelf.
However, since we were of the Y generation, he said that we’re more like ‘a website that hasn’t been visited’ or ‘a file that hasn’t been downloaded’. Frankly, that comparison really cracked me up and you could just hear the whole crowd laughing in agreement.
The point of the matter was that the sessions with Chien Chong were fantastic and really meaningful because it gave us all thoughts to ponder upon for discussion the next day. Which brings me to the next day, after a good rest overnight, we woke early at head to the beach. To the beach can! It was so nice having QT with nature around you. We were given material that was gender specific which really helped us to focus our thoughts and commit certain stuff in prayer to Him. I really enjoyed the fact that we could just spend quiet moments with God and some annoying sandflies and seagulls. :)
Coming back to church, we were able to have gender specific discussions and touch on many interesting topics within our discussion groups. After we were able to share with our brothers/sisters, we came together as a whole group and shared our findings. The girls even had a whole list of questions for the guys that they came up with during their discussions. As a guy, I was thinking to myself how come they spent all their time coming up with questions for us?!?! They were supposed to be discussing the topics! Haha. But it was still fun hearing from them and trying to answer their questions as best we could.
To summarize it all, the retreat was a really fun time, though short, that helped us to reaffirm our stand on purity and faithfulness; to hear from an appealing speaker about the topic we all love [mind the pun]. Who knows? We might just have a follow up YF on BGR since most felt we didn’t have enough time but for now, I can’t wait for next week’s YF! Cycling to East Coast Park plus a picnic! See ya guys all there!