Parents' Workshop

In the first week of April, we joined the other STF teams for the Parents' workshop. The workshop was a chance for participants to share their experiences with their parents, and vice versa.

I personally thought it was a cool workshop even though it was a bit short...the location was nice, the food was nice, it was a good break after an (always stressful) fundraising condition... But MORE IMPORTANTLY, it was good just to see my Dad again after what seemed like a long time apart and, more than that, to talk over some things and hopefully deepen our relationship a bit. I guess a lot of others had many things they wanted to speak to their parents about too, after everything they've been going through. Listening to the testimonies of both Second and First Generation, it was moving to see that people were able to come closer to and understand and appreciate their parents more deeply through STF... after all, we are going through many of the same things that they went through and trying to inherit a faith that is precious to them.

We had a family evening on the first night, with entertainment from both the parents and the STFers. A lot of it had been kind of hurriedly prepared, so the performances weren't perfectly polished but they were passionately delivered (and some were hilarious) and there was a really warm atmosphere. Later in the workshop, as I already mentioned, we also heard testimonies from both parents and participants, and it was touching to hear some of the experiences and breakthroughs people have had. Later on, we also watched the witnessing video my brother, Philip, made and I was really impressed by the video itself and also how much passion he'd put into it. It was cool to get a snippet of what witnessing was like in each country...

It was nice to see the rest of STF again and see their parents for the first time too... even though the team was kinda scared of my Dad for some reason. But I guess for me the main thing was to be able to talk to my Dad and give him a hug, and to hear about the rest of my family...

Christine