Loving our neighbour at Canberra Sec School

The voted N7 Monthly Best ESSS for the month of Nov '08 goes to... Canberra Secondary: "Emergency Examination Packs for Sec 4 and 5 sitting for the O Levels".
It all started out when Joshua and I were thinking about how to bless the 'O' Level students in our cell group. We wanted to do something practical that would encourage them and let them know that the body of Christ cared for them beyond whether they came for service or cell group. We brainstormed and finally came up with the idea of putting together an Exam Blessing pack for each of them. Each pack would contain a standard list of items that include extra pens, mint sweets, 2B pencils, etc. and an additional Small pack for the parents which includes encouragement cards that they could use to bless their kids too. ... [+]

Since then, it became a culture to do these Exam blessing packs when our members or cell brothers were having exams. It was received well by our guys and we even extended it to the rest of our tribe people so bless them.

In Oct 2008, I came up with a proposal to Amos (Captain of 99th BB Coy) for Exam packs to be distributed to the Sec 4 cohort of Canberra Secondary School (the school where 99th is in). We thought it would be a good application for that week's Christian Education lesson. I was going to speak on 'Love Thy Neighbor' and believed that doing the exam packs for the students would be a great gesture of love to the school. By doing the exam packs, we will encourage the Sec 4 students and spur them on through our love and good deeds. Having the experience of previously doing this for the group of boys in church with a budget of $7 per pack, we did some groundwork to find out the School's Secondary 4 cohort's size and budget we would need to set aside from BB.

Since I had it all conceptualised, in the beginning I thought it would be something easy to carry out. But only during the execution, I realised that it was a major and tedious task. Nonetheless, we pressed on with the Boys and I was proud that we had completed 144 Exam packs (just in case we did 2 more extra packs) within 10hr 30mins and spent about $515, about $3.60 per pack. It was well below the budget of $710 set aside for it. Most importantly, many of the Boys verbalized that they enjoyed the whole experience. They found it fun, new (interesting) and meaningful to have spent their time doing the exam packs.

The following day, the exam packs were transported from one of the BB boy's house to school with the help of the BB Teacher-in-charge, Mr Chew. The boys proceeded to give out the exam packs to the students. The O level students were also informed to collect their 'Emergency Exam Pack' from the booth. We even kept the booth open over the next 2 days to ensure that all the students were covered. It was well received by the students and some of the teachers were pleasantly surprised as well.

On 2nd Jan 2009, we received news from Mr Chew that BB 99th Coy together with Canberra Secondary School had won the N7 Best ESSS (Education Staff Suggestions Scheme ) for our Emergency Examination Pack idea! The ESSS teacher-in-charge in Canberra Sec was so impressed with what the boys had done that she encouraged our Mr Chew to submit it in for this award. Indeed, it was amazing to see the Lord's favour upon 99th Coy all these years. I still remember how when we started, we were struggling with poor enrolment. Today, we are able to be a blessing to the school in more ways than one. I see this as an unexpected affirmation from the Lord to Love thy Neighbour. God is indeed good and faithful! May you be encouraged to go out and love your neighbour too as we begin this new year!

Narash