The Scottish Border

Another round of thesis rushing, another period of time to have a break. This seems to be a never-ending source of revolution. And once again, I managed to squeeze some time to update on what had happened recently. Anyways, last week, I went to the Breathe* weekend away at the Scottish border. The accomodation was perfectly good with excellent heating compared to the other two that I have went. Teaching was also fantastic but I was slightly dissapointed on the fellowship side because I'm quite surprised that some of the Brits at this camp were much more clique'ish that those in the Christian Union. To be honest, I've actually expected the integration process in the church student group to be better than CU but it didn't happened that way. The good thing is that I was not the only Asian student this time in a Brit Camp as I'm joined by a diverse range of other Chinese - Qing Wei my Malaysian law classmate, Leo from Singapore (who knows Mr Mao and Rachel), Cameryn from Canada, Xinzhe from China and Shin Roo from Taiwan. But looking at the pattern of interaction, the Asian bunch were mostly left alone to interact by ourselves except for some occassions when the pastors sat near us to have a chat. In my case, I knew Jonny and Pete from CU, so I conversed with them most of the time. It gets really tiring to have to take initiative all the time with the Brit Christians and I just felt that not many other international Christians have the patience to hang around. I think it's gonna be a massive mammoth effort to bring awareness to the Brits to embrace and welcome their fellow brothers/sisters from other parts of the world.

In any case, I did bring some postives from the camp. I've enjoyed the natural landscape of the Scottish highland and although it's freezing cold outside, it was worth the walk to see gigantic fir trees and frozen lakes. The other one was much more innate, where I kinda felt that I should get more involved in serving in the international students scene. I find the church's upcoming vision of sharing life in Leeds to be a good one but I felt that there are many international Christians in the city who don't feel a sense of unity and community with the Christians in the host country. More has to be done on the follow-up and a genuine desire to share lives. There are only a small number of dedicated Brits who are willing to work with International students and the majority of them are still very much unwilling to step out. This place is filled with so much of potential, with people from all four corners of the world congregrating in one place. For all you know, that one person may be touched by the Gospel and will be inspired to carry the passion and chain of reaction back to their homelands - if only the hosts are willing to step out from their comfort zone. Oh well, I hope that God will use me in various means to raise awareness of these to those around me.