Alpha News (April 2012)

8/2/2019 Alpha News (April 2012)

1/8

ALPHA NEWS

Rm 1003, 10/F., Kodak House II, No. 39 Healthy St. East, North Point, Hong Kong

39 2 10 1003

tel (852) 2869 1066 fax (852) 2869 1313 [email protected] www.alpha.org.hk

April 2012

Alpha Hong Kong

The rst quarter of 2012 has taken off with a bang. God

prepared our hearts at the end of last year that He was

going to do great things in China. Needless to say, His word

would not return to Him empty, but would accomplish His

purpose (ISA 55:11). Our team held two batches of a week-

long training in February & March consecutively for a total of

68 pastors & church leaders from the mainland. Another one

is being planned for June. We were so encouraged to see

pastors who were trained in 2011, chose to return for furthertraining, they gave testimony on how their courses have

taken off in the mainland. We were pleasantly surprised to

nd out that one of the leaders, Jason who joined the March

training actually came to Christ through an Alpha Course,

and is now serving as an Alpha leader in his Church. He

even allowed us to tape his testimony. Please go on-line

www.alpha.org.hk to hear his story.

At the end of March, I had the opportunity to share my

personal testimony with a bunch of early birds at the HSBC

Breakfast Fellowship. I recounted how Jesus used John 2

to call me to be His servant, to Do whatever he tells you

and be witness to His miracles. At Alpha, I have the greatprivilege to witness His miracles & His life-transforming

works. I invite you to see for yourself the mighty work of God

through the rst hand testimony of those who experienced

His goodness. Enjoy a glimpse of heaven as you read

through these amazing testimonies.

2012

55:11

2011

Jason

www.alpha.org.hk

Caroline Liu

Alpha Hong Kong

National Director

[Message from the National Director

]

[China Pastors Training

]

The Alpha Course training camp was very well designed. It

included a thorough introduction, demonstration lessons, a

live eld visit, testimonies and a practicum. In addition, we also

learned about healing and the work of the Holy Spirit. It was

really a very comprehensive course!

This course adopted a guest-oriented, personalized approach

in every aspect of its ministry work. There were two key points

that I learned from leading a small group: a) how to take on the

role of the conversation facilitator instead of the Q&A expert

and to distribute the questions around the group b) how to take

care of the quieter group members.

1.

2.

The principle in summary was to provide an atmosphere of

acceptance and to enable people to relax & feel at home in

the gathering.

From the Alpha HK team, I saw how they, being lled with

Gods love, served God with all their heart, soul and strength.

May the God who gives me strength also would give me the

same kind of dedicated life, so that I can carry this torch of

passionate devotion back home, and set alight my community,

city or even the whole of Hunan province.

Thank you Lord for pouring out Your love to me and my wife

through Alpha. Once again, we re-experienced the Lords full

3.

4.

5.

Brother Li

2012Apr_Newsletter.indd 1 16/4/2012 16:50:00


2/8

Brother Cheung

The days had own by so quickly that it suddenly dawned on me

that our camp was already coming to an end. I really dont wish

to leave everyone but I know I must return to practice what Ive

learned.These days of training have given me much growth in my spiritual

life and are truly one of the happiest and most memorable times

of my life. From day one till now, every day I received much

cherished spiritual nourishment. Prior to this, I knew nothing

about the Marriage Course or the Alpha course. Through these

few days of learning, I acquired a much better understanding of

the course content. Today, Mr. Ng gave us a great lesson on

music, praise and worship which were of great help to my ministry.

Furthermore, we talked about healing and prayer ministry in

todays world. Perhaps the way we had been praying for others

had not been very effective but with this teaching, we now know

how to conduct prayer ministry more effectively.

Being lled with the Holy Spirit is very important. I know that

without the power of the Holy Spirit we cannot do anything for

God. The rst two days after I arrived, I carried about a lot of

pressure and was a bit emotionally unstable. Slowly the Holy

Spirit touched my soul and I experienced a great release. When

the Holy Spirit lled me, my eyes were lled with tears and I let

myself cry. God immediately came to comfort my soul and I felt

that the large stones burdening me were taken away.

Lastly, I wish to thank God for his arrangement for giving me

such a wonderful opportunity. Ive participated in numerous

conferences before in Hong Kong and never have I beneted so

greatly. I was able to experience and practice in-person what I

had learned which surely will help me in implementing this in real

life. Moreover, Id like to thank all of the teachers and staffs of

Alpha HK for you have helped to renew and boost up my spirituallife. Each of your smiles and love is deeply imprinted in my heart

and I will learn from all of you how to be a servant which God

delights in. May God remember your labors and sacrices and

may your ministry achieve increasing success and bless more

people. May God continue to use you and rain blessings upon

you!

Alpha

!

a)

)

Alpha

1.

2.

3.

4.

Alpha

AlphaAlpha

5.

sacricial love for us! Such wonderful resources, love, and

encouragement will no doubt help uplift our ministry into a

new level, because we have the most crucial and important

support the Holy Spirits renewal and presence.

Thank you Lord! Thanks also to all of Alphas teachers, staff and

nancial supporters of the Alpha ministry!

[ China Pastors Training ]



3/8

[ Classic Alpha Course ]GOD IS WITH ME ALWAYS

Growing up in a Christian family, this was not a religion that wasforeign to me. Going to church was just weekly routine to me.

When I entered secondary school and got engaged in more

extra-curricular activities, I even began to distance myself from

church. This all changed on January 6, 2009, my sons (King

Hang) 1st birthday.

King Hang was a heavy baby at birth and he had always been

very healthy. This was the case until at 11 months old; he was

suddenly hospitalized for bronchitis. After taking a routine hospital

chest X-ray, the hospital pediatrician diagnosed King Hang with

a rare disease - Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia that needed

immediate surgical repair.

The day of the surgery nally arrived. The doctor said that

it was a complex surgery, estimated to take three hours. My

husband and I accompanied King Hang into the waiting room.

The heaviness of our hearts at the time was indescribable. After

six excruciating hours of waiting, the surgery nally came to a

smooth closure. King Hang stayed in the hospital for four more

days for observation and was released home after the doctor

was satised with his recovery.

Was it coincidence or was it Gods arrangement?In retrospect, we realized that from discovering the disease

to the completion of the surgery, God had been with us every

step of the way, giving us guidance and comfort. When we were

still hesitating over which surgeon to choose, we learned by

coincidence that this surgeon had just completed a string of morecomplicated surgeries on another one year old child of an ex-

colleague and that child was recovering well. Was this not Gods

comfort and encouragement?

With a wishful mentality of just trying, my husband submitted a

claims application to his companys insurer. We were told by our

friends in the insurance industry that in general, claims against

congenital diseases would not be successful. Thanks be to

God, a few days after the application, the insurance company

miraculously approved our claim. We were able to get back almost

all of the surgical fee, the surgeons fee and the miscellaneous

hospital charges.

After this string of events, we deeply felt and realized that God

was beside us all the time. He looked after, supported andencouraged us every step of the way. Whether it was our spiritual

or nancial need, every matter was pre-arranged for us by Him,

down to the minutest detail. Therefore after the surgery, I told

myself that I had to return to church. My husband also did not

object to returning to church. However, he had a request, which

posed a bit of a problem for me. Since he grew up in an Anglican

Sheng Kung Hui (SKH) church, he wanted to participate only in

SKH St. Johns Cathedral or St. Pauls Church services. One

day, I ran into an old colleague that I had not seen for almost

a decade. She informed me that she was dining with other ex-

colleagues and she invited me to join them. At the dinner I met

Carol. I mentioned to her about my husbands church preference

and she heartily invited us to join St. Pauls Church service.

Alpha CourseCarol also recommended the Alpha Course to us so that we could

get to know God more. In the class, we found answers to our

prior misunderstandings about Christianity, as well as responsesto some questions that had been bothering us. More importantly,

we met through the class a group of caring and enthusiastic

Christians. I thank my group members from the bottom of my

heart; they include Ellen, Sarine, Richard, Kelvin, May, Suen,

Tenny etc. Each time we heard their heartfelt sharing, we had a

deeper experience and understanding of God. Although I always

broke down in tears every time I shared how I returned to God

(and every time my husband had to nish our story for me), I

really wanted to share this testimony with others. Aside from

getting more people to know about God, sharing this testimony

keeps Gods abiding love for us fresh in my mind. Even though we

drifted away from Him, He never left us. Moreover, He arranged

everything for us even while we were wandering helplessly.

I want to especially thank Ellen and Sarine. I recall the day at Tao

Fong Shan, when the two of you found me crying like it was the

end of the world and then held Kin and my hands together and

prayed for us. I was deeply touched. Of course, I cannot leave

out thanking Carol and Denny our spiritual father and mother.

If we had not met Carol, we probably would not have become a

member of St. Pauls Church. I also want to thank my mom, for

bringing me to Sunday school when I was young. It turns out that

seeds of the Holy Spirit were already sown in me even though I

never noticed it.

I am very grateful that my husband and I, and our children King

Hang and See Hang are now members of St. Pauls Church. I

hope that one day God may also touch my father and brother,

so that they may feel Gods love and become baptized into His

eternal Kingdom as children of Christ.

Cathy Yip



4/8

200916()

?

?

Carol

Carol

Ellen,Sarin,Richard,Kelvin,M

ay,Suen,Tenny

EllenSarine

CarolDenny

Carol

(18/3/2012)



5/8

My name is Stephen and my wife is Yan. And we have a

six-year old daughter. We are very grateful to be invited

to join the inaugural Marriage Course hosted by SKH

the Church of Shalom. After completing the seven lessons of

the course, we learned how to get along with each other and

effectively communicate as a couple. My wife is a hot tempered

person with high expectations, and rush to resolve any problems.

Conversely, I would like to keep things to myself and avoid

bothering others. Our opposing personalities make quarrels a

norm in our family.

We run our own business together. Needless to say, our frequent

contact only brings more tension to our relationship. We would

ght over every single issue whether they are work related, aboutour child, or even about household matters. Because we insisted

on holding to our own point of view, we would say a lot of things

to hurt the other party out of anger, until the other party became

speechless. On one occasion, even the police had to come over

to settle our quarrel; both were hurt badly and had a sting of

anger deep inside our hearts.

When our daughter was studying K3, we had to choose a primary

school for her. My wife had a preferred list of schools she wanted

the child to enter. Because of this, she had arranged many extra

curricula activities for the little girl so that she could have a much

better prole when applying to the schools. We had put a highexpectation on the primary school interview result. Unfortunately,

that turned out to be a total failure. None of the schools we

applied for would accept our daughter. This caused us to worry a

lot and escalated the conict between us.

While we were waiting for the result of governments allocation,

we felt helplessness and the only thing we could do was to pray.

We are thankful for Pastor Chow Wai Man for his care for our

situation. He invited us to join some courses about parenting &

marriage and brought us to a fellowship as well. Through sharing

in the fellowship and in the lessons, we realized our problems.

Soon after, we were invited to the Marriage Course hosted by

the church.

We are thankful for the preparations that brothers and sisters

had done throughout the seven lessons, from decorating the

venue thoughtfully to preparing the food, we had warm and cozy

environment to share and to learn. The topic discussed in each

lesson targeted the problems faced by couples in our society andwe could easily relate to them .

We have learned that there are seven key issues to a sound

marital relationship : 1. Building Strong Foundations 2. The

Art of Communication 3. Resolving Conict 4. The Power of

Forgiveness 5. The Impact of Family - Past and Present 6.

Good Sex 7. Love in Action. Of course, just knowing them is

not enough, we must bring them into actions. Our relationship

improved gradually when we put them into daily practice, there

is no heated quarrel anymore. We have not only quarrel less

but also more willing to bear with one another. There are more

real communications among us. The most important thing is thatwe have learned to put any negative emotions or uncontrollable

situations into Gods hand through prayer.

StephenYan

[ Marriage Course ] Stephen & Yan&



6/8

[ Marriage Course ] Matthew & Jovian&

Getting along with others is a lesson which lasts for a lifetime,

be it relationships between couples or getting along with parents

and siblings. As for marriage, regardless of whether youve just

tied the knot or been married for 5, 10 years or much longer, it is

still inevitable to bump into problems.

We are heading into the seventh year of our marriage this year.

Ever since we got married, there had been a key problem in

our relationship which we had not dealt with. At rst, we would

ght over these issues. However, as these issues were never

resolved, they kept on recurring in our relationship. As time

passed they became a real burden in our relationship. Eventually

this got so bad that our marriage deteriorated into a housemate

relationship.

Our daughter was born in the second year after we got married;

this gave us more topics for discussion, all of our conversations

were around our daughter. Naturally, there were only two

occasions in the entire year in which we could squeeze a bit

of precious time for ourselves: birthday and Valentines Day.

Nevertheless, even when we were alone with each other, all we

could talk about was our daughter. After our son was born, all of

our time was consumed by our work and our children. There was

simply not enough time to resolve the problems we had at the

very beginning - We just put them aside.

So what was the problem? My wife is someone who needs a lot

of love. She wants to be able to feel her husbands love all thetime. However, I was not aware of this and did not nd it to be an

issue. I thought, Besides working, I have already spent all of my

time at home, what else can she ask for? Hence I would simply

ignore her complaints for I thought they were nonsense, hoping

that she would get over it in a day or two after she had venting

her emotions. So I never took this problem seriously.

But to my wife, this was a great problem as she was someone

who needed a lot of love. Of course she hoped that her husband

would continue giving her romantic surprises, endearing words

of love and feelings of intimacy one would experience during

courtship. It was because when we rst dated, I did treat her very

well and gave her a good supply of surprises and romantic words.

However, soon after we got married, this passion gradually died

out. Even though we were always together at home, we never

found time to just hang out and communicate. My wife would

watch TV in the family room while I would be playing computer in

our bedroom. Then we simply swap places she

played computer in the bedroom and I

watched football matches

on TV. No matter

how much my wife

had complained

repeatedly about

this issue, I

K3

!

!

!

1.2.3.,4.5.6.

7.!

!

!



7/8

remained indifferent. This caused the thorn inside my wifes

heart to grow deeper over time. Eventually her expectations for

marriage grew dimmer and cooler.

This continued until one day our pastor introduced us to take

The Marriage Course. Strangely enough, both of us responded

positively to this opportunity. In this course we nally realized

that males and females often hold different perspectives on

relationships. I nally realized my wifes needs. Although our

problem was not solved over night, understanding the key

techniques regarding the marital relationships had helped

improved our marriage drastically. This also allowed us to

understand the importance of Application, application and more

application! as our instructor emphasized in our rst lesson.

Another unexpected bonus we reaped from this course, aside

from having improvements in our relationship, our relationship

with our children got better as well. The result was a more

harmonious relationship in our family at large. We still have many

areas that need to be improved. Whilst we continue to strive for a

better relation, we are reminded that our love ultimately stemmed

from God. If we continue to pray and apply what we learned

frequently and earnestly, our problem will one day be resolved.

We have no doubt in mind that this will make our family life even

more harmonious.

[Alpha in the Workplace

] MargaretAside from work, I had to organize and coordinate a 3-monthlong Alpha Course in the workplace. No easy task indeed!

However, with the concerted support and efforts of my boss,

Alpha Course Hong Kong, our human resources department and

the VTech Christian cell group, we successfully launched our rst

course in September 2010. With an average attendance of 46

participants, the course was not only conducted smoothly, all of

our participants were greatly moved and united in spirit during

our celebration partys sharing session. Everyone expressed

many genuine words of gratitude. At this point, it wouldve beenideal if we could provide a follow-up course for colleagues. We

opted to use a bible study groups study guide with a view that

we can engage colleagues in discussions about the Bible using

multiple contextual perspectives. Unfortunately, our colleagues

dont have much knowledge of the Bible to begin with. So the

implementation of our plan seemed a bit too challenging.

Time ew by quickly. When we began to prepare for the second

round of Alpha Course in June 2011, wed hope too that the

follow-up course would create an even greater impact on our

colleagues lives and further unite them. During our retreat camp,

three of our sisters introduced God at Work to us. During ourdiscussion, a core member of our cell group William said he had

already nished the book. He said the book is quite suitable for



8/8

being the tool of our next follow-up course. His full endorsement

gave us much condence to commit ourselves to preparing for

the course. The preparation work included purchasing books,

holding meetings, setting agendas, assigning work, inviting

speakers etc.

During the preparation process, our cell group experienced many

life difculties behind the scenes. Some of our family members

fell ill and some even passed away, while other fellow mates quit

the job due to career developments. All of these unexpectedhurdles kept us very burdened and occupied! However, the

loving support and encouragement shared amongst us helped

pull us through. Through reading God at Work, we know that

our daily work in the marketplace is no different from ministering

to God. One does not have to be a pastor to serve God. One can

just be a frontline employee in a commercial organization and still

serve God through his/her daily work. In this process, I personally

experienced how brothers and sisters mutually supported each

other with their own gifts and resources. Just as the bible says:

And we know that all things work together for good to them that

love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. It is

my hope that God greatly utilizes this book and help more peoplecome to nd joy and mission in their own work. Glory be to God

who loves us all!

3!

Alpha HK(VTech Cell)

2010946

20116

William

[ God at Work - Readers comments ]Sum

Id asked myself in the past whether or not I can serve God full-

time in ministry work

However, later on I realized that the workplace is also a place

where I can serve God. God had been guiding me to start various

ministry works inside my own company, starting from the Alpha

Course and now God at Work. Indeed this has been a grace-lled

journey.

Through reading this book, I now have a better idea of how I

can bring the Christian faith into the workplace. God does indeed

guide us every step of the way, including each of our decisions,

the weight and importance of each our endeavors, and of course

our purpose of life. As long as we entrust our path to our Fatherwholeheartedly and try our best, God will for sure guide and take

good care of us.

So, how can we come to know Gods Will for us? Studying the

bible and prayer is crucial. After all, His ways are higher than our

ways. In these times, God is often doing new things which are

completely over and beyond what we pray for and can imagine.

Let me share with you a bible verse quoted in the book:

But seek frst his kingdom and his righteousness, and all

these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33)

Therefore, the most important thing we have to do in life is to put

God and His kingdom rst! He will grant us everything else as

well when we do so.

May all glory and praise be given unto our father in Heaven.

Amen!

:

(6:33)

!!

Documents

Alpha News (April 2012)