Equipping our youth with faith

Jan 23, 2015

By Matthew Wee
The Melaka Johor Youth and Campus Ministry kicked off 2015 with its first programme, Mission Discovery. This one week event ran from January 5-10 at the MAJODI Centre. It was attended by seven youths from Melaka and Johor, a slight increase in the number of participants from last year due to the extended school holidays. During the event, the participants attended in-depth sessions on the Bible, the YouCat, different forms of prayer and evangelisation conducted by Deacon Adrian Ng and the youth ministers.

For the YouCat sessions, the participants first took part in a quiz. In the following days, they were encouraged to come up with their own questions regarding the faith to try and find the answers themselves. They had to look through the YouCat, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the internet and other sources to find the answers and then present their findings. They found that, by doing the actual research, they could remember better.

In the Bible Study sessions, the participants were taught bible timeline and exposed to a deeper understanding of the Bible. Again, they were asked to come up with questions for the texts they were studying which required them to find the answers in commentaries. Magdeline, who studies at the Teacher’s Training College in Larkin shared, “I didn’t realise that studying the Bible could be so much fun!”

Quite a few participants highlighted the Lectio Divina, Imaginative prayer and intercessory prayer as the most memorable part of the camp. They found these prayers very useful in their prayer life. Also during the event, the Angelus and Divine Mercy prayers were said at the appointed times and the Liturgy of the Hours was used for morning and night prayer.

The event was also blessed as every morning, the participants attended Mass celebrated by the Bishops of Malaysia who were there for their Conference Meeting. It was indeed a special way to start every morning. The Mass was then followed by an hour of personal silent prayer in which the participants could practice the different forms of prayer they were taught. On Friday evening, the participants served as hospitality ministers for Mass at Skudai Catholic Centre and welcomed the congregation with warm smiles and handshakes. On the final day, everyone gathered at the Chapel of St James in MAJODI for a beautiful Adoration where the participants presented their own petitions and prayed for one another.

The Mission Discovery truly exposed the participants to more facets of our rich and wonderful Catholic faith and we pray that next year, more young people will set aside a week or two to come and learn about their Lord and Saviour. Carlos Pereira from Melaka had attended the camp before and he said, “It helped me to open my eyes and know the truth about God. I feel that this camp made me realise the importance of being a Catholic’