Edited by Ranen Chan and Charis Chen
Time sure passes by like the wind! I have thoroughly and evidently forgotten how many meetings we've had so far! Not only does this mean we have been through so much together, but it reminds me of the many blessings God has showered upon our chapter these past 2 years (coming to 3!). And now, welcome to our joyous, most recent chapter meeting. This is our 4th meeting without our three, amazing friends Nathanael, Jemima, and Eliza (Che Che)! We miss them with all our hearts but rejoice with them at the wonderful experiences and opportunities they'll have.
Our chapter meeting started off with a fantastic icebreaker designed by Charis!
The purpose of this game was to learn cultural communication. Our goal was to transfer a message from person to person with just actions in our individual groups and see how drastically the message changed along the way.
Photos by Coach Michelle
Trying to guess what the other person is acting.
(Wait a minute... what is Coach Joseph doing?? :D)
After our rather unpredictable acting, each person guessed what the original message was. Everyone was so confused! "What was all that waving and pointing supposed to mean?" When the first person shared the original message, the others had the shock of their lives, and all of us had a good laugh! With the message "Take this money, then go and buy tissue paper," in his mind, Coach Joseph had actually pretended to sneeze, showing he needed tissue paper. However, it was misunderstood! The end result was "Pay money and suddenly catch a cold!" Behold, the evolution of sentences...
By playing this game, we learned that most of the time, it is not as easy as we think to translate what is in our minds into the right words for another person to understand. Just like how it was so difficult to communicate the exact same message to the next person, we will find ourselves in hard situations in life where we have to communicate to a person of a different culture or background. It can be tough to comprehend a different person, even sometimes our own family, because each of us interpret things differently, do things differently, and basically, have a different mindset. How then, do we communicate with them? We discovered that we must always make an effort to understand the other person and their culture better by asking questions and making initiative in everyday situations to break the cultural barrier! Then and only then, will we be effective communicators for Christ, speaking to people of all cultures!
Many thanks to Charis for heading the wonderful game!
Following that energetic, and not to mention, "confusing" icebreaker, Jern Ling led us in an interactive and meaningful devotion.
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| Photo by Ranen Chan |
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| Photo by Coach Daniel |
Through this devotion, we learned what exactly Jesus meant when He said "blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" in Matthew 5:4.
1. What are some things that cause you to “mourn” or be very sad?
2. Why is mourning over sin and evil called a blessing in the Kingdom of God?
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| Photo by Ranen Chan |
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| Photo by Ian Chan |
The first question was quite simple to answer. Many of us perceived things people mourn over as the loss of loved ones, lack of appreciation from others, and seeing others suffer. However, the second question got us thinking a bit more. It prompted us to think what the real meaning of "mourn" really is. Is it just a wishy-washy, sad feeling over something bad or a sincere and strong conviction we, Christians, should apprehend? We found out, in the devotion, that when we mourn over the sin of the world, it shows that we have a pure and righteous heart seeking after God, because God is holy and He hates evil. So, if we really follow God's example, we would hate evil too and be in despair over the deterioration of the world. Therefore, when Jesus said "blessed are those who mourn," He meant the righteous who sorrow over the sin in the earth,and blessed are those who truly follow God! What a great reminder for all of us to seek God and his holiness, not letting the world's lies distract us!
Thank you, Jern Ling for that insightful nugget from God's Word! It certainly helped clear up what is the real meaning of Matthew 5:4 and helped us determine to apply what Jesus told us!
After this was Chapter Sponsor Joseph's turn to share a message with us.
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| Photo by Ranen Chan |
He shared that nowadays, young people do not seek wisdom because they tend to believe these 2 things to be true:
1. They will live forever.
2. They have all the resources and money in the world.
(These are NOT true!)
Through Coach Joseph's sharing, we recognized that our lives are not to be taken for granted. We may be young and capable now, but will that last forever? God provides us with homes, families, opportunities, and we are to be good stewards of what He has graciously given us! What more can we do for Him but live the short lives we have with wisdom for the Lord's glory!
Next up was the YSG + YCC Robin Round Coaching session led by Ranen and Ian!
In this session, everyone presented their current speeches three times, each time at a different location with two "judges" (coaches). And just like in a tournament, there were postings pasted on the walls informing us of our assigned coaches and location for each round. The "horrors" and memories from past tournaments started flooding our minds...
Well, practice, practice, practice, here we come!
Phew! You'll be surprised how much change can take place after practicing the same speech 3 times in a row! :D It certainly taught us the importance of practice for our speeches and feedback from the evaluators (which reminds us of Coach Joseph's favorite quote..."Feedback is the breakfast of champions!"). Thanks, Ranen and Ian, for that memorable and eye-opening activity (for a moment we had forgotten all about tournaments!).
And after a short and scrumptious teabreak, the YSGers had their usual speech coaching session while the YCCers had their YCC teaching time led by me and Jern Yoong.
The YCCers reviewed what they learned in previous lessons such as eye contact, enunciation, the basics of public speaking, and many more important factors of giving an excellent speech! We had an awesome time playing games, discussing, and reviewing with them! :)
Last but not least, Charis and I held auditions with the speakers for our upcoming chapter presentation! Yay! All the speakers performed remarkably and we enjoyed auditioning each and every one of them! :D
Well, this closes our September 4th meeting! I can't wait to see what God has in store for us in future meetings!
Well, practice, practice, practice, here we come!
Photos by Ranen Chan and Coach Joseph
Phew! You'll be surprised how much change can take place after practicing the same speech 3 times in a row! :D It certainly taught us the importance of practice for our speeches and feedback from the evaluators (which reminds us of Coach Joseph's favorite quote..."Feedback is the breakfast of champions!"). Thanks, Ranen and Ian, for that memorable and eye-opening activity (for a moment we had forgotten all about tournaments!).
And after a short and scrumptious teabreak, the YSGers had their usual speech coaching session while the YCCers had their YCC teaching time led by me and Jern Yoong.
Photos by Ian Chan
The YCCers reviewed what they learned in previous lessons such as eye contact, enunciation, the basics of public speaking, and many more important factors of giving an excellent speech! We had an awesome time playing games, discussing, and reviewing with them! :)
Last but not least, Charis and I held auditions with the speakers for our upcoming chapter presentation! Yay! All the speakers performed remarkably and we enjoyed auditioning each and every one of them! :D
Well, this closes our September 4th meeting! I can't wait to see what God has in store for us in future meetings!
************Additional pictures!***********
"Bonjour, human!"
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| Photos by Ian Chan |
Ze magician...
Concentration.
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| Photos by Ranen Chan |
Over and out. Till we meet again...
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