0

The CSE Boarding Programme officially started exactly a week ago on the third of August. It was kind of a mad rush... rushed to collect birthday cake to celebrate Weilun and Jordy's birthdays, then Char suggested that we get some food and drinks for the boys for cluster discussion time... ended up cabbing to boarding school full of stuff.

Welcome briefing... welcome dinner... and soon everyone settled down and started studying for their coming tests.

This is definitely a new phase of life for me... a transition that I have chosen to take, and with it comes a number of changes, a shift in certain priorities, etc. In a way or two, work is no longer a "nine to five" - my schedules have to be relooked into... sacrifices have to be made.

I'm thankful though to be given this opportunity to get to know these thirty plus of them better (hopefully)... and more so the twelve under my care.

The boys have been exceptionally disciplined and well behaved for the first week - the showers were cleared after usage, rooms kept reasonably clean and tidy... they left for school early, studied when it's time to during study period... everything went rather well... then I caught one of them playing dota during study period.

I didn't know why I had such a strong reaction then. Perhaps it would have been better if he would acknowledge his mistake instead of just giving all sorts of excuses... but I guess I took it a little personally because I chose to give all of them the trust that they'd do things at the right times.

I know deep down he's a good boy, just like a number of others who appear not to be on the surface... well.

IDT (Intentional Discipleship Training) on Friday evening touched upon mentoring, in which many trinkets of knowledge and experience were shared. Pastor KK shared about how he and Pastor Ed played and worked together when they first started their mentoring relationship some twenty years back.. how effective mentoring comes forth by first building the relationship. Joshua and Matt subsequently went up to share a bit about their best practices when it comes to mentoring pre-teens and teens.

Joshua talked about earning the right to speak into their lives; Matt talked about the acronym YOU.T.H - whereby the "YOU" represents the genuineness one gives to them, just being who you are when you're with them, not putting on a facade in front of them when you're actually another person elsewhere... "T" stands for Training, training them in skills and values, that they may grow up with these skills and values ingrained in them... and "H" stands for Him. In the context of Christian mentoring, he meant pointing the youths to God... and whereas I can't freely do so at work, the next best thing I could and should do would be to lift them up to God in prayer and trust that God would watch over them and protect them even as they grow up and venture into new territories.

I don't know how many of these boys and the batches to come would grow up to fit the mold of being one who'd work his buttocks off for money and appear successful at work... then spend half the money on clubbing, cigarettes and alcohol just to give himself highs simply because life's never seem so empty and low and because he doesn't know what he's living for.

What I do know... is that between now and then, it matters... a whole lot.

Let's see how it'll all go bah. (: It's late... I better get some rest when I'm given the opportunity to do so... so yeah. Adios!