ALPHA NEWS

ND Corner
September 2012

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The past few months have been most eventful. We were honored to receive Rev. Nicky Gumbel & Mrs Pippa Gumbel to our city in April together with some members of the board of directors from Alpha International, Ken Costa, & Chris Sadler. Let me give a big Thank You to all our partners & friends who came to our various events to meet with them. They were delighted that Hong Kong & China have adopted Alpha resources solidly into the local evangelical & city transformation ministries run by our numerous partners. We hope their presence have also encouraged our partners to continue in their good work that God has prepared for them, and allow us to share in witness of His glory.

For this years Alpha Invitation, we encourage the whole city to join us in 24-7 Prayer Chain from 26 Aug to 1 Sep to support Operation Starfish transforming Hong Kong, one life at a time. If you have not signed up already, please click on the link below for more information & on-line sign up. http://www.alpha.org.hk/PDF/ai12/AI12_Prayer_Guide_EN.pdf Come & take part in prayer for the evangelization of our city & our nation, mobilize your church, cell group, fellowship, university, college or friends to turn up the temperature in prayer! May His Glory fall on our land.

Nicky Gumbel Pippa Gumbel Ken Costa Tricia Neill Chris Sadler

24-7 -
http://www.alpha.org.hk/PDF/ai12/AI12_Prayer_ Guide_EN.pdf

Caroline Liu Alpha Hong Kong National Director

Rm 1003, 10/F., Kodak House II, No. 39 Healthy St. East, North Point, Hong Kong 39 2 10 1003

tel (852) 2869 1066

fax (852) 2869 1313

hkalpha@alpha.org.hk

www.alpha.org.hk

Alpha Hong Kong

Parenting Course Testimony

by David Poon

I think all parents arrived at the start of the Parenting Course not knowing what to expect. This sense of apprehension soon dissipated as we sat down at pre-assigned tables that combined parents of newborns with parents of children reaching their teens. Before courtesies were fully exchanged, we were quickly moved onto the buffet trays sampling some delicious Sri Lankan main courses and desserts. As it turned out, we were able to try a vast selection of other wonderful international cuisines over the coming weeks provided by a marvellous caterer. People are always happier on a full stomach. So after tea and coffee, introductions recommenced with Pastor Dan Evers welcoming all to the course and pointing out the mobile bookstore that had an eclectic mix of parenting books, childrens bibles and related Manga comics. The first part of each session consisted of a watching a video hosted by Nicky and Sila Lee who amazingly were able to answer, with good humour, many of the questions that we the parents had lingering in our minds. The video section continued with interviews with parents and their particularly loveable children who gave us a taste of how they faced and overcame everyday challenges with laughter and joy. It was an utterly inspiring experience to hear their stories. From there, all course participants enthusiastically discussed the pros and cons of, amongst other things, moral compasses,

childrens five love languages, setting boundaries and encouraging responsibility. We also exchanged ideas such as lounge camp outs for family bonding, equipping our children to deal with failure, adopting suitable parenting styles and understanding the undeserved favour or Grace bestowed by God. In this respect, we were very fortunate for Pastor Dan and his wife Skye to share with us their experiences of raising four children. Time flies when you are having fun, and the five week course was soon over with all parents keen to apply some of the newly acquired concepts. By this time, the buffet trays and bookstore had been emptied by the course participants whose only remaining question was, Where can I get some more?

Dan Evers NickySila Lee

- Dan

Classic Alpha Testimony

by Fanny Hui

The three-month Alpha Course was successfully concluded. I enjoyed every moment, specially the discussion section after dinner. With students came from different profession, educational level, and background, we shared different understanding and view points for each topic. That is really an Alphas vision and cogitation. Students took initiative in the graduation party to share their experience. The genuineness moved each and everyones heart. Wish there were more students shared their experience of how God open their hearts. I would like to share two wonderful experiences with you. My first miraculous experience happened in the Alpha Camp. I experienced the ministry of Holy Spirit in the afternoon. Same as others, I opened my hands to receive Holy Spirit. Wonderful things happened. I felt a huge force stretching my fingers until every finger was straightly opened. During the process, I sensed light and heat. It was not fiery. It was so warm very gentle and comfortable. The light was mild but vividly visible. (Im sorry that I opened my eyes, though I shouldnt). When the leader came close to me, she held my hands, I felt our insignifance and fragility. I need support and help. So, I held her hands tight and decided to accept Jesus into my life at that very moment. My mind had doubted and hesitated. Was it hallucination? When I shared with people the first time, I dared not say much. I was afraid to be teased: Were your hands cramped? With this attitude, another miracle happened to me.

After my sharing that night, we continued with Alpha class. When watching the DVD, Rev. Nicky Gumbel mentioned that someone had experienced their fingers were stretched and their hands were widely opened when experiencing Holy Spirit, words cannot express my feeling. How thankful I was. God confirmed to me not to doubt. It was real. The arrangement of the whole course was really fantastic! In fact, after analyzing it calmly, I was not cramping. Cramp hurts. Though I cannot resist the huge force during the whole time, I felt no pain or hurt, not even a little bit of uncomfortable. To the non-believers, this is unscientific for they only believe what their eyes could see. However, hasnt science proved that sunbeam consists of seven colors? But how come we cant see the rainbow? As a matter of fact, rainbow is all around us, unbiased, whether we are good or bad. As love from our Father is all-embracingly shining upon us, dont use your eyes; use your heart to feel.

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The Marriage Course Testimony

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marriage is still not ideal, but we are grateful that our Lord is mighty and powerful. It is He who had protected our marriage through all the tumultuous waves so that neither of us gave up on each other. We pray that the Lord will lead us through this storm. Aside from this, I also learned from this course how to pour all of my personal affection savings into my wifes personal affection bank so that we can really buttress the foundations of our marriage. I need to listen to her patiently and attentively so that we can communicate effectively. I learned how to release the negative emotions I had stored up in my heart, so that our marriage can be healed and restored. We also learned to make good use of an invincible spiritual weapon -mutual forgivenessto help each other release tensions and invite the Lord into our hearts. I now know that we need to arrange marriage time for ourselves; moreover I need to learn to speak more words of encouragement and praise and be more attentive to the nuanced needs of my partner. When facing the shortcomings of my wife, Id learn to sit down and discuss matters with her with a gentle and earnest attitude, taking careful consideration of the relevant

With hopes of that our marital relationship would improve, my wife and I joined the Marriage Course. I had always believed that there was great disparity in our value systems and that in turn led to many obstacles in our marriage. Praise to the Lord! We had an opportunity to join St. Philips Churchs 2nd Marriage Course. The first lesson of the course Building Strong Foundations helped us realize that the reason we were experiencing so many obstacles in our marriage was because we had not individually developed an intimate relation with God for it is only God who can truly satisfy a persons needs. A Christian marriage calls for a Christian couple to seek the Lords Will in one accord, praying together and bringing their needs before the Lord. Marriage consists not only of the relationship between two individuals, but entails two people walking in step with God. When we have an intimate relationship with God individually, then our marital relationship would naturally become intimate as well. This seemed quite challenging for us at first; however, both my wife and I had faith that this was the direction in which we were going to work on in our marital relationship. Even though currently our

Prison in Paradise

Toh Han Shih

()

In July 2012, I and some people enjoyed a holiday retreat in a resort-like setting in Tainan, a city in southwest Taiwan. We worshipped in a church that looked like a vacation rest-house, surrounded by pretty, well-kept gardens with all sorts of flowers and trees. According to a story I heard, a group of mainland Chinese tourists had visited a similar place in Taiwan, where they were so taken by the Eden-like beauty of the place that they asked if they could stay there, only to be told by the warden that it was not a hotel but a prison. I and a group of fellow Christian volunteers spent five days from Monday July 16 to Friday July 20 at Mingde Prison, a low-security prison for drug offenders. The gardens were beautifully maintained by the prisoners. I, a Singaporean man based in Hong Kong, and volunteers from Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan conducted a series of Alpha courses for 42 inmates who were incarcerated for drug offences. The Alpha course is designed to invite non-Christians to explore the basics of the Christian faith in a format where they were free to express their views, whether for or against Christianity or neither. Each group in the course was led by Christian facilitators who did not resort to aggressive, hard-sell tactics to force the students to convert to Christianity or prescribe Christian teachings in a didactic manner, but encouraged the students to discuss among themselves as much as possible. In such open discussion, students were allowed to raise any question or express any view without any rebuttal or criticism from the facilitators. The typical routine would start with all of us singing hymns. Then we all would watch a video of a sermon by Nicholas (Nicky)

Gumbel, an Anglican priest at Holy Trinity Brompton Church in London, UK, who was a leading developer of the Alpha course. After that, we would break into small groups for discussions. Although this routine was repeated over five days from Monday to Friday, it was anything but boring. The sermons by Gumbel, dubbed in Mandarin, were stimulating. The discussions were lively because some students were vocal in their views. When a student expressed a view, even if it challenged Christianity, the facilitators normally would not answer, but other students would answer that student, sometimes agreeing with him, sometimes disagreeing, sometimes offering alternative views, which made the discussions all the more interesting. It was a rewarding experience to listen to the views on Christianity of these inmates who have a background in traditional Chinese religions like Taoism and Buddhism. There were also testimonies by some of the volunteers from Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, who were formerly prisoners for drug offences. Their testimonies were very powerful. They described how they were once addicted to drugs but by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, they managed to break free from their addiction. Some of them described their former lives as members of Chinese triad criminal organizations and their past crimes such as stealing. These volunteers related how they turned to Christ and found a new life of hope, with some of them gaining Godly wives .Their personal stories of redemption from a life of drugs and crime must have given hope to the prisoners, who were in a similar situation.

context and her feelings, and avoid using a matter-of-fact attitude to resolve problems.

the difficulties we may face in the road ahead, I will certainly not give up easily!

I have great hopes for the healing and renewal of our marriage and hope that within my days on earth that I can truly enjoy a wonderful, loving marital life with my spouse. Regardless of all

The bodies of these former prisoners who became Christian volunteers bore tattoos as marks of their previous lives of drug and crime. But their eyes expressed hope, faith, joy and a commitment to God, which clearly demonstrated the power of God in changing lives. Some of them obviously demonstrated their love by the way they prayed so fervently to God for the prisoners with tears in their eyes. The Singapore volunteers treated me with great courtesy, unselfishness and a servants heart, demonstrated in little things like serving me food at dinner. That amazed me, because such Singaporeans, when they were previously gangsters, would have normally been rude, uncouth and violent. Some of the Singapore volunteers failed to complete more than two years of schooling, but after they became Christians, they managed to obtain university degrees at divinity school in Taiwan. This shows Gods ability to transform school dropouts, often regarded as the dregs of society, to highly educated scholars. These volunteers with criminal pasts have become ardent servants of God because they knew how much Christ has done for them. As Jesus told the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 21 verse 31, I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. On Wednesday night, we prepared our hearts to receive the Holy Spirit, in preparation for the next day when we in turn were to administer the Holy Spirit to the prisoners. On Thursday, we had a prayer session, where we laid hands on the inmates and prayed for them according to the requests they expressed. Then there was an altar call where the inmates were asked if they would accept Christ. Most of the inmates went up to the stage during the altar call, professing their acceptance of Christ. Praise God. I was surprised to see some inmates who had expressed scepticism and even sarcasm towards Christianity come up

during the altar call. God works in wonderful and mysterious ways. For some inmates, I observed how over the days, their facial expressions changed from scepticism to a joyful receptivity towards Christ. This is a witness to the effectiveness of the Alpha method, where non-Christians are won over to Christ not by intellectual argument or high-pressure tactics, but by being allowed to find God. Above all, this is a testimony to the power of God in the hearts of sceptical non-believers. Some inmates told me the programme they liked best was the song worship. During the singing, I could see the faces of the inmates light up with joy as they sang, even those who expressed scepticism about Christianity during the discussions. The Holy Spirit moved mightily through song. Another important factor in the conversion of these inmates must have been the testimonies by volunteers of how God gave them hope by liberating them from the bondage of drugs and crime and giving them a new start in life. On Friday evening, we drove to Pingtung, a city in southern Taiwan, where we visited Operation Dawn, a Christian halfway house for drug addicts. The prisoners there produced handicrafts as a vocation, and we were shown their handicrafts including leather covers for bibles and other Christian memorabilia. We worshipped with the inmates, and some volunteers shared their testimonies. We also prayed over the inmates and laid hands on them. We left the Singaporean volunteers at that centre, where they were spending the night, and drove back to Tainan. It was a blessed trip. I witnessed volunteers, who were transformed from lives of drugs and crime to mighty servants of God, bringing hope to the prisoners and leading many of them to Christ. This was possible only by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. We volunteers were supposed to minister to the prisoners, but were richly blessed in turn.

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()() () T (Nicky Gumbel) () ()

Alpha in the Workplace Testimony

Sa mantha De a cons

Jesus said, Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7 God works in the most amazing ways and this time I have encountered him through Workplace Alpha. This all began with a phone call from my boss one morning. I was nervous thinking that I must be in some sort of trouble. When I sat down and started chatting with my boss, it surprised me that he wanted to invite me as one of the core team members of our firms prayer group. This was an answered prayer as I previously asked the Lord to show me my purpose in the workplace and what I could do for him. So I gladly accepted the invitation and started helping with the administration and organisation of the group. Later on, I also helped with leading studies and worship. Little did I know that all this was Gods preparation for His greater plan in our workplace. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

So I asked Father to teach me. Again, God sent angels around me and He provided everything we needed. Alpha training and preparation went extremely smooth and guests application kept rolling in. We ended up hosting a full house (more than 40 people signed up)! Our Lords provision is more than abundant. The joint Workplace Alpha team was full of praise and thankfulness! Many, LORD my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare. Pslam 40:5 This first Workplace Alpha has really blessed us with more than we can imagine. God have done many wonders and His plan for us is so great. I have received many positive emails from seeking participants telling me how much they enjoy the course and have been blessed by the prayers and discussions. Some started going to church to learn more about our Saviour. I know this is just the beginning of Gods work in the workplace. Let us surrender all our hopes and ambitions for our Father to reveal His better purpose and plan for us! He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the LORD and put their trust in him. Psalm 40:3 Special thanks to Mr. Daniel Li of Alpha Hong Kong for training our team and his caring and thoughtful prayers and emails. Also want to thank the lovely couple Gary and Garland for supporting our Alpha weekend. Most importantly, praise our Lord, for He is good, His love endures forever!

One day after care group, I was talking to my friend Ian, an Alpha veteran working at a law firm close to mine. He told me that his prayer group will be doing Alpha in a few weeks time but due to space limitation, they might be doing it in a small room with a lap top. Coincidentally, our prayer group just finished the R12 study and was looking for a new study. Our group always wanted to do Workplace Alpha as we heard that it is a great channel to share the gospel. But we did not know where and how to start as not many of our team members had previous experience with Alpha (including myself). So with His amazing power, God intervened and honoured both our firms prayers. By combining the two firms resources and manpower, we were able to hold a joint Alpha in our firms conference room in July. All things work for the good of those who love Him. Although the two firms decided to do a joint Workplace Alpha, I frankly did not know how we could manage the administration and organisation. The experienced members were all immensely busy lawyers. As a trainee, I would love to give a hand but I thought to myself, My Lord, how am I able to do this with absolutely no idea what to do?

7 7:7 12

 8:28 40 40:5

40:3

China Pastors training Testimony

Br o t her C hen

Through the training and practicing drill of Alpha Course & The Marriage Course in these few days, I had learned something that Id never experience before. The overall approach and theory are so easy to understand and simple to use. It is applicable to be used in church, school, business and all sectors in society. Alpha Course is highly promotable for healthy growth in church and stability of social services providing comprehensive support and development. Ill put my first priority to bring what I have learned from Alpha back to Shenzhen Church. I believe in Gods grace and under the guidance of Holy Spirit, Alpha Course will flourish successfully and effectively. I was very moved by the learning experience. Although this is my first time in Hong Kong, I have a warm home coming feeling. I would never forget the training, the love, the enthusiasm and the dedication from the pastors, preachers and staff from Alpha. Furthermore, the obedience, love, hospitality, intercession and dedication among the brother and sister learners, are all engraved in my heart. I am so grateful for everything. All glory to God!