Malacca Conference Testimony (Part 1)

Hey ho readers!!

Recently a group of youth (6 girls to be exact) went for a conference in Malacca from the 24th - 27th of August.. It was a life-changing experience and the girls testified it in front of the church last Sunday.

The girls that went to Malacca (note those in the shiny shirts).

(L-R): Ashley, Sarah, Naomi, Phoebe, Caryn, Esther

MIA: Pan Eu Fern

The blog team has manage to get sharing from part of the group (and is working on getting the rest). The first to Share that Sunday was Caryn, the eldest among the youth. Her testimony was really touching and moved many people to tears. Here is the testimony: -

Good morning dear church, i'm going to share with you my experience at malacca, during the 54C camp. I think this camp had impacted all of us who went, in an individual way, according to the things happening in our life.

For me personally, it was during the session of healing that impacted me most. For a very long time I was hurting inside and keeping a lot of anger in me. I knew I needed to come out of it, to be healed. But I didn’t know just how much I needed it till I went for the 54C (Fight for Christ) camp.

During the healing session, Pastor Jay Koopman pointed out the symptoms of a person who need inner healing. The symptoms are having insecurities, being in anguish, lacking goals and dreams, not trusting others, constantly needing affirmation from others, the need to dominate or manipulate others, wanting to be alone, etcetera, etcetera. And I had all those symptoms. Though I wasn’t an expert, but I do hide what I don’t want to share, and the things I did not share were gradually accumulating into a mass of anger and bitterness.

People are always saying ‘give it some time, it will heal by itself’. But the truth is, the wounds don’t heal with time, they only get deeper. Which is why even after so many years, all those symptoms seem to only grow worse with time. But these symptoms were not the problem, it was what that was hurting me that was the problem. The symptoms were only the actions of how I was handling my own hurt.

All this while, I never thought anyone could fully understand how I felt towards my life. But then Pastor Jay helped me realize that Jesus truly does know our pain.

You see, at a very young age, my dad had left the family to work in Brunei, to earn the big money. But the longer he was there, the less he cared about us, and over the years, the less he contacted us, and even start to avoid coming back for the holidays. I felt quite abandoned by my dad. But then Jesus had felt this sense of abandonment by his parents as well. In Luke 2: 42-46, when Jesus was in Jerusalem with his parents for the Feast. His parents had gone home without knowing that Jesus stayed behind. They traveled for a day before they realized he was not with them, and it wasn’t until 3 days later then they find him.

Besides that, there were other things like betrayal, being disowned, loneliness, verbal abuse and humiliation that Jesus experienced, that I too have experienced in my life. Realizing that Jesus knows and understands comforted me a lot. It brought me great relief. But the real healing didn’t take place until I could forgive those who hurt me. So during alter call Pastor Jay told everyone of us to just say out loud the names of the people who have hurt us, how they have hurt us, and then just say ‘I forgive you for all that’ as though the people were right there in front of us.

After that alter call, I could really feel the healing take place in me. I felt freed from my anger and bitterness, and felt like I could open up to people again. This experience has made me even more grateful to be a child of God, knowing God understands, and would heal me if only I’d ask. He did not promise to prevent us from being hurt, but He did promise that He would be with us all the way through.

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Praise God indeed for working in Caryn's life. Continue trusting the Lord and serving him whereever you are Caryn! Love, blogteam...

Signing off,

-blogteam-