Campus Frontline: Together. Alone (Inter-Colleges Bible Camp 2023)
William Lam Associate Director of Fellowship Department (Nurturing Ministry)
Together and alone, two seemingly contradictory and incompatible terms, nevertheless speak to the hearts of students nowadays. Because of being alone, we seek a community. Although we are together, we still feel alone. “It is not good for that man to be alone.” Aloneness is the most basic state of human beings at the time of creation. How can we accept and respond to our being alone?
On December 27-30, 2023, our Inter College Department and Inter College Christian Fellowship held an Inter-Colleges Bible Camp on “Together and Alone” to review the discussion on community in John 1, and to rediscover the true nature of community of faith – its foundation, core values and mission. Together, through Bible studies, workshops, group activities and evenings, we hope to build a “true community” that is no longer alone.
Below are two of the students’ testimonials:
Learning to love one another through the Word. I am grateful to conclude 2023 with the Bible Camp. I got to know more brothers and sisters in the Lord, and I thank the Lord for His faithfulness in leading us through fruitful days and nights. What I experienced at camp was truly beyond expectation – we shared with each other what we had learned from reading the Bible with our “hearts”, and from the interactive responses of the community, we received supervision, reminders, encouragement, affirmation, and support, so that we had the strength to boldly allow God’s Word to change our lives. Believers should witness God in an ambience of love for one another, so that people can feel and see the invisible God in the physical life of the community. The members are able to have genuine and deep sharing and prayer, sorting out life’s struggles together, and searching and waiting for God’s teaching together. Through studying the Way of Life together, communicating with each other, sharing our understanding of the Way, witnessing the presence of the Way, sharing each other’s struggles, and encouraging each other, I was able to unravel my doubts and adjust my direction in the face of loneliness, darkness, and even the pull of society’s major circumstances. Through the Holy Communion service, we were able to rebuild our faith in repentance, and let the Way serve as a guide for our lives once again.
Small Group Leader, Ming Ho, HKU Student
Learning Alone and Loving from Jesus. The camp started with the outbreak of a zombie virus and the students being stranded in the camp, trying to create an apocalyptic atmosphere, going through the search for supplies, clues for the vaccine, and finally deciding whether or not to take the vaccine and leave Cheung Chau to save others. However, as the game progressed, it also revealed that the situation outside the island was getting more and more critical, such as the government’s abandonment of rescue, the suspicion and malice of others …… made everyone feel a lot of inner struggles.
Participant, Po Ying, Caritas Student
The most touching part of the camp was the monologues of the biblical characters, which were a change from the usual experience of reading the Bible, and described the inner dramas of Jesus and Elijah in a more verbal and personal way, evoking the various emotions and thoughts that would appear in one’s heart when one is alone. Just as Elijah knew that there were a hundred prophets out there, but with no one to go with him, his loneliness increased rather than diminished; Same as Jesus said that He was leaving His disciples, Peter’s refusal only hurt Him more.
Although the camp did not give a complete solution to being alone in the end, I have a small wish for “Together. Alone”: Just as Jesus knew that His disciples did not understand what He was going to do, but when He was still willing to talk about His future, I believe that apart from the loneliness and disappointment, there was also a waiting love in His heart, a love that “even though He knew that He was going to be alone, He still tried to be together”.
Full text is available in Chinese version.
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