By Matthew Lum
Hey guys! neo here. I am one of the webmasters at RE:NEW. I also tagged along with Phoebe and Leslie for CMC West Coast.
Day 3 was pretty exciting. Our team is still sleep deprived from our holidays and the team has been working hard around the clock to inform people about RE:NEW and make sure we keep posting updated content for you guys!
Today I got a change from our regular program by volunteering to help out the Youth group at a Karen (Burmese/Thai) church. We got to serve one of the church families by bringing cleaning supplies and cleaning their house. Our family was really nice and had several young children who kept us entertained between the cleaning and scrubbing. Afterwards we got to hang out at the church and meet several Karen families and play some games. The Karen were also nice enough to serve an authenticate Burmese dinner.
Watching the youth group brought a lot out of emotions for me. Even though I grew up attending church on Sundays I never really got to experience a real church family. My experiences with churches in the past have often been very lonely and can still bring out bitter memories from time to time. I wonder what it must be like to be raised in a church with loving families and have friends that you grow up with.
I still find it hard to feel safe at church. I often fear criticism from people and struggle to open up to people. However CMC West Coast has actually been filled with some of the nicest people. In fact I have been very blessed by the openness and honesty of my smallgroup. CMC has been changing my view of the church as I see many Christians who are genuinely serious about trying to live passionately for God. I am at the point where I literally can’t believe the love that I am seeing. I feel almost compelled to deny the fact that people can be so loving. Because if I accept that fact then I can be hurt again if turns out to be false.
CMC is definitely changing my life and teaching me to be more missionally focused. Not necessary on evangelism, gospel sharing, overseas kind of missions. But just a great reminder that as Christians we are on a mission! We are to live with a purpose rather than just from day to day. I am thankful for the bump in my holiday schedule to take some time and truly seek how God wants me to grow.
Happy Holidays everyone and God Bless!
For more info about Karen visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_people
Thanks for reading,
neo
See how it all ends on Day 4!
- CMC Reflection Day 3 - December 30, 2011
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