CF Events

NTU-CF About Stories Resources FAQs Contact I’m New About Stories Resources FAQs Contact I’m New Loving Your (Hall) Neighbour Written by: Kai En, Psychology year 1, Giant Grapes Small Group Published on: 12 March 2021 /In the first half of semester two this year NTUCF organised a hall hackathon, a 2 day event inviting people living in hall to think deeper about their hall cultures and speak into it. The following is a reflection from one of the participants./ “Home away from home”- that was the theme of my hall’s orientation program when I first entered NTU, looking forward to finding my second home in hall. However, one semester in, I found myself having quickly adapted to a hall life that was quite the opposite of what I expected- one with closed doors and unfamiliar faces, built on an unspoken agreement to lead parallel but not intersecting lives. Albeit the occasional lonely hours, I enjoyed the solitude and personal space which came alongside the lack of engagement in my hall. After listening to my friends share their various hall experiences at the hall hackathon event, it dawned on me that not everyone in my hall was as fortunate as me to have friends outside of school or even a family to spend time with every weekend. For international students who stay in hall every day, how stifling and alone they must have felt in this community. In Luke 10, when Jesus said to ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’, the man asked in response, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ and Jesus replied with the Parable of the Good Samaritan. A neighbor is not merely someone who physically resides next to us, it is anyone we choose to love and show mercy to. And there is truly no better way to love and show mercy to someone, than to extend to them a choice of knowing God. This was something a friend shared during SG a few weeks ago where we were discussing about hall hackathon, and it was a thought I was continuously reminded of over the course of the hackathon event. How can I expect to have loving neighbors, if I myself would rather much hide in the comfort of my own room than to step out and interact with the people right next to me? This hall hackathon event was more than just a platform to share experiences and be inspired. For me, it was a challenge to step out of my comfort zone and be the neighbor that I would want in my hall life. There were many ideas exchanged over the two days and it was exciting to meet people who are passionate to change their hall cultures for the better, in one way or another. Be it through the planning large events or just changing the little things that we do each day, let us choose to accept and not judge, to have courage to step up for what is right and most importantly, to let everything we do be out of love. This way, we will be able to be true neighbors wherever God places us in. Back to the top © NTU Christian Fellowship 2023

NTU-CF About Stories Resources FAQs Contact I’m New About Stories Resources FAQs Contact I’m New A Meetup with our Regional Friends Written by: Gabriel Hsu, Year 3 Mathematical Sciences and Economics, 3POF SG; Chia Kai Tiak, Year 2 Public Policy and Global Affairs, Breadfish SG Published on: 25 July 2020 / The East Asian Regional Conference (EARC) was held on 17 and 18 July 2020. Members from the East Asian region came together and had a conference, talking about issues related to their every day and God’s task for us. This year, the conference is held online as supposed to the usual physical meeting. Let’s hear from our CF-ers on what they have reflected from the sessions. / Day 1 I found out about EARC earlier in the year in March. It was going to be held in Thailand and I was initially hesitant to register due to the worsening pandemic situation. I did not know what to expect from EARC when I heard that it was shifted online and registered for it. Hence, it was both frightening and somehow reassuring to log in and find hundreds of people in the room: fellow students from different movements around Asia hoping to learn from each other. Worship reminded me of the first time I stepped into NTU-CF where I first participated in worship with the Chinese and Indonesian Students sections of CF and I immediately felt a bond with the other conference-goers, knowing that despite our different languages and cultures, we all find our identity in Christ and were able to worship as a whole. This also made the group sharing after the exposition much easier. We dived into introductions and I was surprised to find out that quite a few of the participants were older students who had attended the previous EARC and were returning to attend again. Everyone was keen to hear more about the movements back home and the unique challenges each were facing, I had the opportunity to hear more about six other countries and schools, and their experiences differed greatly from what I thought I knew about those countries. I was especially amazed to hear that many of them are trying to reach out to movements from neighbouring countries, something that we have never thought about in NTU-CF. I wish more time could have been spent together with the group as everyone seemed to have more that they wanted to share about and it’s easy to understand why so many of them were so excited to return after their first experience at EARC.– Gabriel Hsu, Year 3 Mathematical Sciences and Economics Day 2 EARC was conducted online this year due to the COVID outbreak and its original plans of having it physically at Bangkok had been cancelled. This breakthrough provided a window of opportunity for more Christian students, including myself, to participate in. Indeed, it was a fulfilling experience after re-examining our Christian identity and mission, as well as exchanging our views with students of various nationalities and backgrounds on pertinent issues. The second day of the conference had us understood better about social issues that concern Christians in the world today and what are the desirable responses we can adopt in dealing with these issues. This year’s conference’s theme – “Unfinished” – speaks about how we as part of the Universal Church are not, and never, done with fulfilling God’s restoration plan for the world. The workshop I attended discussed on “Serving the Marginalized”, with the marginalized described as a prominent group of people who require our attention and assistance. Issues involving inequality, unfairness and injustice were surfaced within the forum, and what I had in mind was, what can we do to help and deal with these issues the vulnerable faced? Truly, this was something I found perplexing, given my limited financial capabilities as a student now. However, as the forum continued, exhibiting love and compassion was the ultimate way in reaching out to the unheard. Just as how Jesus loves us all, regardless of who we are, we are told to “love thy neighbors as thyself” (Matt 22:39). And through this same love, we first help to amplify their outcries of pain and prejudice which the rest of the society had previously ignored. The next step, was to engage with them and point them to our faith in God and the Gospel. Brewed from this same ingredient, love, we ought to let them know that Jesus died as a ransom and hence, He loves us all as His beloved children. At this point, I felt encouraged that there is hope for the marginalized to depend on, and this hope is Jesus. Only with the love that Jesus exemplifies, the world may gradually shift their focus on the marginalized, and with an added ounce of compassion and awareness, appropriate action can be done to change the status quo. As we approached towards the end of the forum, a concise summary of the forum was done by the speaker – “As Christians, we recognize that service to the marginalized as evidence of our faith, as actions done in love, and they are done to point them to Jesus and the Gospel”. Certainly, I was comforted in this succinct maxim when reaching out to the marginalized comes into play. Thereafter, there was a short group discussion on the forum in a Zoom breakout room where we shared various issues that disadvantage the marginalized from our respective countries. After the forum ended, I thought of the public protests to George Floyd’s demise, which reflected violent and barbaric acts protestors including the marginalized Black community adopted. They were fighting for a cause against prevalent racism in America and certainly, I feel that their cause is justified. Many were known to voice out bitterness felt by the Black community and were sanguine in supporting the Black Lives Movement. However, their modus operandi was rather disappointing, as we adhere to Christ’s call to love and never to be “angry