During this year’s Alpha Weekend Away (20-21 April at Changi Cove Hotel), the organisers told me, “Your Alpha group is the largest one this year!”
With 11 participants, two facilitators and three hosts, the office meeting room in the 111 Somerset building where we had our weekly sessions was indeed overflowing, with some of us spilling out into the corridor!
But it wasn’t just the size of the group that showed me the harvest field was plentiful. The hunger of people in seeking the truth showed me that too.
Over the course of 12 sessions, I had the privilege of seeing God at work in palpable ways. Only a few weeks into the Alpha course, one of the participants came to salvation, much to my joy and wonder! But that wasn’t all.
Individuals who were quiet at the start gradually began to open up during the weekly sessions, with some even sharing about their deep personal struggles. During Alpha Weekend Away, every single participant shed tears as they shared about the Words of Knowledge they had received and as we prayed for them during the ministry time – clear evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit.
From being almost complete strangers at the start, the group has now formed a sense of camaraderie I had never witnessed before in any other Alpha group I had facilitated so far. In fact, the participants’ hunger to learn more in their faith journey is so strong that they are even planning to embark on a Bible study after this Alpha run is over!
In the words of one of the participants, Mariya Vynnytska, “One of the most important things that this Alpha course has done for me is that it left me ‘hungry’. It left me hungry for more knowledge and it left me hungry to continue learning and studying the Bible, and growing in Christ. I also found the Alpha Weekend Away particularly transformative and I am looking forward to deepening my relationship with the Lord.”
As Matthew 5:6 promises, may those who hunger for the Lord be satisfied.
Photos courtesy of Witness & Evangelism
Read also: How to work wholeheartedly for the Lord (re-integrating faith with our work)