66th Inter@ctive

Suppose to share about sixty6 with ARPC , in this age and time … got to blog about it.

Who are we?

We are a Boys’ Brigade Company operating in Woodlands Secondary School. On saturdays, a bunch of volunteer officers will run a 3 hours program for a bunch of Boys age 13 – 18. The weekly program (we call it a parade) includes badge work lessons (covering life skills, adventure, first aid, leadership, drill, etc); Small Group where we share lives, build character and learn about the gospel; singing (sometimes) and games. In addition, we organise camps, courses and competitions for the Boys.

Why we do what we are doing?

We hope the hard skills we teach will be useful to our Boys as they navigate from teens to adulthood. Through the informal hang loose time and the sharing of our lives, we hope to model and transform our Boys lives. In the process our leaders also learn to be vulnerable and grow in maturity.

What’s so different is Sixty6 from other BB units?

Honestly, too not much. By any standards, we are pretty ordinary. One thing that probably stands out for us is our diversity and inclusiveness. Over the past years, we have make it a point to tailor our program to fit everyone. Today we have students from all races, streams, varied interest. Our message has been – regardless you are uniform crazy or slacker; drill lover or drill hater; sports type or gamer; intellect or non-intellect; chinese, indian or malay; express, NA or NT; leader or follower; trouble-free or trouble-some – we are family to you.  Sometimes people call us a Club, I don’t think we are. Club is for people with common interest, we are Family regardless of interest.

What are our challenges & prayer needs?

1. Many  of Boys faces challenges at home and in school. Pray that beyond running the weekly program, the Officer will do the most important thing of building relationship, be that listening ear and trusted counsel to our Boys.

2. Pray that we will be a blessing to our Boys’ families and the community in Woodlands.

3. Pray for more adult leaders to join us as we are really need more people to build effective relationship with the Boys.

4. Pray that the school will continue to do well in education our young people under the leadership of the new principal.

God Bless Sixty6

Ever wonderful why is Good Friday good?  In the next 5 days, I will be telling a story that explains … check out my blog for the 5 parts series as they unfolds day-by-day:

Part I: Wednesday
Part II: Thursday
Part III: Friday
Part IV: Saturday
Part V: Sunday

Today’s AQ training was a  real disappointment. Only 6 (Li Quan, Jordan, Yi Xun, Gabriel, Yu Wee, Ming Juin) turn up … with Yun Long puling out and Navindran no one in sight when needed … that means we are down to 1 team next week. It may be down to zero if Yi Xun does not recover in time. Unless God pulls a miracle, this will be the first year we don’t even have a team representing. Almost unbelievable with a company strength of 70.  Then again judging from what’s happening this week with our soccer team being walked over due to lack of players, its not surprise. Not to mention the tons of personal problems happening to our Boys the last few weeks. Yet, in the mist of it all, we are now more efficient on parades, have more time for our program and finally becoming more like BB company.

What’s happening to us? I have no idea … maybe its a cycle that we need to go through, just like the economy, after 3 years of great time, its time for our fair share of bad times. Maybe we just look good on paper all this years and the current storm is testing those foundation build on sandy ground.

Guess, we all have to clench our teeth and hang in there and keep building life transforming relationship.

Ecclesiastes 7:14

When times are good, be happy; 
       but when times are bad, consider: 
       God has made the one 
       as well as the other. 
       Therefore, a man cannot discover 
       anything about his future.

This week is sad week as we hear news of 2 young man who subcome to the pressures of life and took their life – one an undergrad and the other an arm forces doctor.

Personally, I’m going through abit of a slum myself and as I confess to my small group, its really easy to say in the mist of it all – its time to end it all. Fortunately, I’m too afraid of hell to send myself there.

I have a habit of going through the company namelist every sunday to take a mental note of those who are absent or those whom I have not catch up for awhile.  Looking at the list, I can spot quite a few Boys who are going through a slum in their life. Many of them needs love, affirmation, good counsel, comfort  and a steady hand to pull them out of their slum. Maybe our Boys wil not resort to taking their life, but they may dig deeper into their slum with diliquency, gangs, computer games and other form of addictions.

My encouragement to our small group leaders is that you are that steady handy to our Boys. The question is, what are your hands busy with on saturdays – Pushing administration? Conducting lessons? Playing games? Handing out discipline? All these are good and important, but ultimately, to transform life, our hands need to be busy to be that steadying hand guiding our Boys along the path of life.

To our Boys who are reading this. If you going through a slum right now, remember the life of Joseph? Inspite of his terrible circumstances, he trust in God and did the right thing, ultimately God did a great things in this life.  Hang in there, I’m sure there will be a rainbow at the end of the storm, in the mean time, please talk to any of the officers if you need help or just a pair of listening ears.

Sure & Stedfast

Read about Joseph’s life: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2037-41;&version=31;

This is technically my second post on the 66th website.

One of the thing we want to do this year is to harness our web presence. We are little all over the places as far as how people can get info about us. Prayerfully, this will get fixed by the end of the year and we can have a cool internet presence to keep our members engaged.

My dream is that sixty6′s niche will be the  ’internet’ company, i.e.:

• All about sixty6 in one web address
• Cool branding of our website
• Use of new media – blogs, podcast, vodcast,polling,etc,etc to engage our members
• Great materials on the gospel, youth issues & parenting
• Our Boys get to use their talents & social network on our sixty6 site

So, I’m doing my part … I’d moved my AQ training blog the company one.