Church camp in Cameron Highland was recently over, and BOY, was it an experience.
To give a general overview of the camp, it was a 4 days 3 night camp in Heritage Hotel, and our camp speaker was none other than Rev Dr. Lim Kar Yong.
WHOA, REV + DR? Imagine that person in your mind, A grey haired professor with a wise old man look wearing an equally grey blazer, that was the mental image I had in mind.
I was wrong. Here’s a picture.
SHOCKING.
Despite his youthful appearance, this man was the real deal, throughout the 6 sessions that he had with us, he managed to drive home some points close to the hearts of many of us in an interesting and informative way, the kind where you can just sit down and listen for hours upon hours.
Well, I can’t possibly hope to summarize EVERYTHING that he shared with us during camp, so I’ll just share with you a few highlights which are my personal favorites.
One of the first imagery that he shared with us was of that of BUCHENWALD concentration camp. He drew an analogy between our sinful life and our redeemed life, with that of confinement within Buchenwald concentration camp and freedom from it.
Concentration camp… what’s that? You ask. Well, I can tell you for sure that it is not a camp where Asians go to increase their level of concentration, at least not in this context.
Use of the word "concentration" came from the idea of using documents confining to one place a group of people who are in some way undesirable. In a nutshell, a concentration camp is where the NAZIs kept their political enemies, and mainly people whose interest runs against their ideology. People like Jews, homosexual, and clergies make up the majority in these camps.
So…. Buchenwald, what’s so special about that? In order to fully understand the context in this case Rev Dr Lim proceeded to expound on a few facts about Buchenwald, among the few notables were:
1. It was the largest concentration camp that the NAZIs had
2. How big? NEARLY THE SIZE OF TAMAN TUN DR ISMAIL
3. It kept confined to it, 240 000 men and women
4. Out of this number, there was a death rate of 24 percent, or more precisely 56545.
What led to that extraordinary rate of death? The primary factors were harsh living conditions which encouraged the development of diseases, starvation and as if that was not enough, the prisoners there were quite literally worked to death under the Vernichtung durch Arbeit policy (EXTERMINATION THROUGH LABOUR). Also, many of these prisoners were subjected to inhumane experimentations, some including the development of poisons where the prisoners were taken as guinea pigs to determine JUST the right dose to use, cause you know, wasting is like totally wrong you know?
(On a random note, it made me think about the differences between the Concentration Camp and our Church Camp, hahaha, imagine signing up for the wrong camp.)
So, after elaborating all the facts about Buchenwald camp, the Rev Dr begin to draw a parallel between our sinful lives and that to confinement in Buchenwald camp.
Ultimately, all the prisoners in Buchenwald camp would have been liberated on April 4th 1945 by the allied soldiers from the United States. One can only imagine the joy of the prisoners to be able to finally escape the Living Nightmare that they were trapped in and walk into the path of FREEDOM.
And Ultimately, Jesus would have liberated all of us from our sinful, self defeating lives when he died on the cross for us. All that was needed was for us to accept him as our personal savior and repent. Imagine a prisoner who refused to be liberated, who chose to STAY with his or her own captors, who after Buchenwald camp was liberated, chose to stay in another concentration camp. (Stockholm Syndrome much?) It’s like, imagine him walking up to the Nazis and say “Umm.. hey guys, you see, the allies have destroyed Buchenwald and I would really like it if you could accommodate me into another camp where I can be severely starved, brutalized, work to death, and be freely experimented on, I hope that’s not too big a trouble.”
What Rev Dr Lim shared that day hit me close to my heart; it struck a raw nerve, wound in me which prodded me into deep thought. [Assumes thinker pose]
Like everyone, I struggle with sin, and often sin seems to be winning most of the time. Often times it left me demotivated , stripped of my confidence and distanced me from God. I hated that feeling, quite literally at times, right after committing a sin, I feel alone. A sense of loneliness and emptiness as though everybody had left, and I was alone in this world.
After much soul searching during the camp, I came to realize, that for me, my real reason for defeat was that I have strayed too far away from God. Sure, I did many things to help others; I’ve dedicated all my successes to God, I’ve committed my time, abilities and effort to benefit others. BUT I was too far away from him.
A fundamental lie that prevailed in my life was that I always thought things such as quiet time and bible study were not a real necessity in my spiritual life, I mean sure they were important, but to me back then it was always work in the community that took priority above all the rest. I guess I was a Martha instead of a Mary.
Thinking back to a period of my life which I seem to be more at peace with God, I realized it was so because back then I took the pain to read the bible and pray every single night, come rain come shine. Proud and Arrogant, I have fallen.
HENCE, in order to address this issue, I have once again decided to restart my daily “pilgrimage”, once again come rain come shine, I would faithfully resume back to my quiet time and bible study. And additionally I would make more time for Church and fulfill my role in it as best as I know how.
Time is a scarcity in my life. Though I’m always rushing from one job to the other, I now fully realize that ultimately if I do not make time, forcefully create time for my personal walk with God, I am DOOMED to fail, doomed to once again walk back into the concentration camp that once kept me confined, bitter and shackled . [SIGH] I have to change._.
AND all this because of only ONE session. HAHAHAHA, I would not be lying if I said that most of the session had a profound impact in the way I think and provided me a fresh perspective of looking at things. That and the honest and heartfelt conversation that I had with my discussion group which I truly appreciated. I can’t hope to cover everything in this one post. But to me, this Buchenwald example was the lesson that I kept the closest to my heart, and I feel I would to share with it with you awesome people!
And well to end this post, let me quote from the bible a verse which I find particularly relevant.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey it’s evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall NOT be your master, because you are not under law, but under GRACE. – ROMANS 6:11-14
- Derrick Khor Zhong Wei
IMAGE 1-http://2.bp.blogspot.com/FiiBCxfV4O4/TVi6wiHEFtI/AAAAAAAAGPU/bSxcsY3n_NM/s1600/LimKarYong02.jpg
IMAGE 2-http://memoiredeguerre.pagesperso-orange.fr/lieux-dep/buchenwald-entree.jpg
IMAGE 3-http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/kristallnacht/images/image6b.jpg
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