On November 16, 2006, City Harvest Church (CHC) sent a mission team of 19 people to Kuching, East Malaysia. The trip was led by one of CHC’s youth pastors, Wu Yu Zhuang; the team was there for five days. The purpose of this particular mission trip was to help Pastor George Tiong of City Harvest Christian Fellowship (CHCF), Kuching run a Youth Conference similar to Emerge.
Two months before, the Kuching church members had already started to prepare for the conference through fasting and praying. They had also completed the heats and semi-finals of the various competitions, such as the Track, Badminton, Talentime, Dance and Word Power events.
ANOINTED SESSIONS
Together with the team of musicians and the leaders and members of the local church, this mission team began the second day in prayer for the opening session. As they prayed, their hearts grew really excited to see the people that were about to come for the opening night of the youth conference.
An hour before the meeting started, the crowd was already swarming the entrance of tire church. The meeting then began with a vibrant session of praise and worship. During worship, the congregation was so hungry for God s presence that many of them knelt down and wept freely. One member from CHCF, Avin, mentioned that he had never felt so much energy from the praise and worship before. Pastor Zhuang then preached an inspiring message on how young people today can also rise up to the call and change this world for Jesus. The hearts of many youth were moved as they responded to the altar call and cried out for revival in their city.
Over the next two days, each session was filled with a powerful presence of God during worship, followed by preaching that also deeply stirred the hearts of those in the CHC mission team! Many of the youth found themselves relating to Pastor Zhuang as he shared his personal testimony on how he overcame parental persecution. Pastor then encouraged and inspired them to bear a good testimony at home as they continue loving and serving the Lord.
On Saturday night, the team held an evangelistic meeting for the youth. At the end of the message, an altar call was given and more than 45 youth gave their hearts to Jesus, which is a record-breaking high for the church in Kuching this year! Praise the Lord!
WITNESSING GREAT GROWTH
By Sunday night, some of the people were already physically drained from four full services. However, looking at the hunger of the congregation only inspired the team with strength to continue giving the best in the finale. Every single member in the mission team gave of their best in every area, from those playing in the worship team, and the lighting and sound crew, to even those doing physical arrangement.
An interesting incident took place during this final session. The moment the service started with the first praise song, suddenly the power failed. The team contemplated restarting the praise and worship in order to give the sound crew sufficient time to rectify the power failure. Instead of being daunted by the malfunction, the congregation pressed in and praised even louder! And right in the middle of the first praise song, the power came back on, to great cheering. The final session ended with a renewed vision to see the church in Kuching grow to greater heights of revival.
As a result of the members' prayers and passion, this church has grown phenomenally in the past two years, from 250 to 450 members. This is reminiscent of the early days of CHC Singapore—where the members came with empty pockets but full hearts. During the 2006 Christmas services, the church hit its highest record attendance of 854 people!
According to Pastor George, this was the first Youth Conference ever held in the small town of Kuching. He believes that the youth in Kuching will rise up to impact their marketplaces in a mighty way.
The youngest member on the CHC team, Serene Tay, 17 shared, "This is my first mission trip. It has been a wonderful experience to be able to witness how God is moving in such a strong and mighty way in Kuching. Their hunger for God and their eagerness for church growth has impacted me deeply. The trip has brought me closer to God than ever before." HT
