The mission preparation this year is started by the IT Mission Training held on Jan 8-10 at their Baulkham Hills office. I find the training to be really exciting as there were many suprise elements in it:)
For a start, we weren't given any info on the schedule for the 3-days training. We're just told to be there at 1pm on the first day. The purpose of this is so that we would learn to be flexible and to cope with uncertainty. It's a good exercise especially as we are so used to run on a nicely scheduled routine and tend to get frustrated by the lack of it.
Then during dinner, we played third world country simulation, where some people got to be the first class citizens, some the common people, and the rest had to be the third class citizens. The third class ppl only got to eat rice with bbq sauce and some lettuce. It is often the situation in the third world countries, where the disparity between the rich and the poor are starking and where injustice is often done towards the have nots.
Through the simulation, we're encouraged to think how are we as Christians are going to respond to this situation in the country we're going to.
I find the testimony time to be an encouragement and to be a good bonding time. Through sharing our testimonies about our conversions, we could see how powerful God is. We could also feel the bonding that we have as God's children who have been saved from our meaningless life.
I also loved the 'Amazing Race' game. We had to visit countries, finish the task given, overcome challanges without talking to each other within the group (our group is the 'silent' group)
*imagine what the people on the street think of us when they saw us not talking but giving signs to each other!*
My fave task during the training is 'the puzzle'. We're given different sizes and numbers of puzzle pieces between the member of the group. The challenge is to have a complete square in front of each member of the team, without talking to each other, and without being allowed to ask for the puzzle pieces from each other. What we could do it to offer the pieces to the other team members. I could remember my feelings at the time: confused, frustrated, fearful. I was fearful that I may not know the right pieces to give to the right people to help them. And I did exactly that: giving the worng pieces to the wrong people! Through this game, I learn to persevere - to keep going even in the midst of uncertainty, confusion, and frustration (it was the perseverance that get us to complete the task), to give everything I could even though I couldn't see the benefit of my giving, to look out for the needs of others even that means I need to give up on what I have.
From the training, these are the key verses that we are encouraged to live out:
If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
Philippians 2: 1-7
