TTC Orientation Days (5-6 July '10)

Life at TTC started with two days of orientation (Monday and Tuesday) and those two days of orientation has become two days of encouragement.

As some of you know before, I started life at TTC with excitement as well as apprehensiveness. There were some worries regarding the classmates... the food... the lecturers... reading materials... and the amount of workload (the thing that make me worry most). Let me answer one by one.

The classmates... rocks! :D A lot of them are almost the same age as me and even younger, so it is quite easy to get connected with them. There are some who are much older, but they are so kind and brotherly... Some of them even very youthful till I feel that they are the same age as me J We were so committed to help each other, no one gets left behind. It reminds me of a quote from Lilo & Stitch: “Ohana means family. And family means no one gets left behind.” Yes, we are ohana.

And... I realized that I forgot to include seniors! They are very very nice and helpful.

The food... well... I don’t think I will get my favourite Indonesian, Japanese, Myanmar food. It will mostly be Singapore food. But it’s okay though, coz I’m not fussy about food. I’m an omnivore. I’ll eat everything... But honestly, I found the food acceptable.

The lecturers... well... cannot say much about it, class hasn’t started yet.

The one that I was worried most: Reading materials, assignments, etc... is worse than I had imagined before. In the opening speech, the Principal told us, “TTC can be a seminary or a cemetery.” Yup, cemetery. That is where our faith will go when we focus a lot on intellectual formation only. Some lecturers advised the locals to minimize or cut our time for ministry. I chat with some of the seniors, and in our conversations I sometimes asked them how life in TTC, especially the amount of the workload. NONE of them answered, “It’s okay” or “Not too busy”. Some of them answered only with a smile (because they didn’t want to tell the truth as the truth will scare us), and some of them just took a deep breath and answered, “You will realize that you can go through it by the strength from God only.” (not sure to categorize it as encouraging or discouraging...)

The most discouraging part is when one of the seniors reminded us that life after TTC will be tougher than life at TTC. She mentioned that some alumni stopped ministering. Some of them are really stressed out and struggling in their ministry that they asked her to support in prayers.

Imagining life in and after TTC made me feel so weak. I was anxious.

But God's always beyond imagination.

It is in the second day I heard someone said, “In grace and in truth.” When I heard the word GRACE, I was surprised. I was like awaken from a nightmare. Isn’t it through our weaknesses that we could see God’s grace?

In the last session, which is Evening Prayer on Tuesday, we were given time to reflect and pray. It was then that I reflected on “grace” and was reminded again that God is omnipresence.

He was there... He is here now... and He WILL BE there.

By His grace, I was saved.

By His grace, I was called.

By His grace, I am equipped at TTC now.

And by His grace, I believe I will finish well... not just until I finish TTC... but until God called me back home...

God also reminded me again to have HOPE in Him. I remembered that in the previous Saturday I shared testimony in the youth fellowship about starting a life at TTC, and at that time I ended it with saying, “Well... I just can surrender it to God...” But Rev. Gideon Ang suddenly added, “Well... not only to surrender... but also to hope. To surrender and to hope. (Berserah dan berharap)”. The word “hope” (and Rev. Gideon’s voice) echoed in my mind during that reflection time...

I shed tears...

Tears of gratitude...

Tears of relief and comfort...

Tears of hope...

Thank You, Lord J

To be continued to the Retreat part?