One day outing to Scripture Union, ECR : Jan 26

This Republic Day was celebrated by the Yuvajana Sakhyam by spending a full day at the Scripture Union Campus on ECR. Around 50KM from our church.

It started off well, with enthusiastic members coming to church by 6:30 AM onwards. We even had the "food friendly" ones turning up at 6:05 AM. No prices for guessing right. Well everyone was there in church well before 7 AM. We had breakfast arranged by Ravi and Nirmala at the church premises. After some tasty breakfast, we left the church premises by 7:45 A M on a Van and reached Scripture Union by 9 AM.

We had 20 Youth members attending. Well the numbers could have been higher, but for the last minute cancellations of some of them, due to competitions they were participating in.

Rev. Sam Koshy led the team at Scripture Union. Its hard to do justice to what Achen comunicated via a blog post..because of his delivery style and timing.... For those (both married/unmarried) who did not attend it, you really missed some very useful insights about marriage / married life.

Well here is a summary of some of it. Those who attended can post their comments on what they felt were great takeaways from the meeting.

MARRIAGE

Understanding of ourselves: This is very critical and we should know ourselves well. You should know your positives and negatives, and do not forget to spend a few minutes for yourselves.
Write down your positive and negatives so that you know who you are better.
Titbits : Do not take decisions when in blue ! Take a deep breadth and wait till you come to normal state of mind before that important decision is made.

Negative feelings/events need healing : This can creep in to us due to various reasons like : A broken childhood, due to mental wounds created by someone else. These can have a big impact on how you behave later on in life. Why let something that happened years back, affect you when you are big now. Make sure you treat it by meeting a counselor or before that treat it prayerfully. The time during the Qurbana in church is a good time for intercession. Write down your negative incident / event and pray to the Lord about it. This itself can bring in healing.

Accept your weaknesses to your partner :
That point is obvious. However how to handle our limitations ? Negatives also have an option. Meaning it depends on how you want to take it. You could read it as :

• That is that how I am ?
• That is that how I want it ? This is a negative approach.
  

If we try, we can overcome any negative behaviour we have. There is no logic in saying your parents were like that or your family history have people who are short tempered etc. If you want, you can overcome your anger.

Do not let others negative opinion influence your life : If a teacher happens to say you are a very talkative person and slaps you in front of the class, do not let that influence you. Try to be in control of you speaking skills :-) but do not get in to a shell. For parents too there was a suggestion on how to help the child cope with these kind of event. Like a mother could tell the kid, hey even Mahatma Gandhi was slapped in a train unjustly... etc....

Marriage involves Marriage of VALUES:

The value system in every house is different. Like some homes give a lot of importance for church activities, to running their business, some value talking and interacting with parents and relatives a number one activity, some feel their job is king, there are others who feel praying full time is most important. Each person is different and the marriage hence involves the marriage of these different values too. So give it sufficient time and flexibility to gel together.

Titbits :

• Values of husband and Wife can be shared during Family Prayer
• There must be friendship in marriage
• Mother to a child : The mistake is not in doing the wrong, but not telling me.

Marriage of Emotions:
Do you know who can hurt the wife the most ? Its the husband. Do you know who can hurt the husband the most ? Its the wife. For eg. not smiling when seeing for the first time in the day and other such small things can make a big difference in family life.

Titbits:

• Don't tell your wife, hey that girl looks very good. No person will really feel thrilled to hear that.
• Appreciate in public, rebuke in private
• Appreciation should be genuine & to the point. This is applicable to other contexts in life too.

Here is another titbit with a warning ... .
MARRY ONLY IF YOU WANT. Don't ruin the life of the other person, by getting in to a marriage you are not interested in.

Marriage of the Body / Physic:
Every human being is different. Even physical aspects like body temperature, looks, shapes, color etc. So we must learn to adjust.
Also, for those who have the habit of watching porn. That will create tensions in your sexual life later. Porn is crap and what you see there is far from what real life is. Donot disappoint yourselves and spoil your marriage later on by wrong conceptions.
Additionally, there are lots of changes after marriage. You will have children, so you will have to adjust your priorities too.


Marriage with the Society:
You will interact with various persons when in a society and its very important to balance out each of it.

1. Relatives
2. Blood relations
3. Neighbours
4. Job
   

Know the boundaries between what is public and private in a marriage. Any person other than the husband and wife is almost public. Its always best to keep your arguments within the private domain. Not even have arguments in front of your children.

• Honour your parents at any cost.They made you what you are.
• Neighbours are critical for our day to day activities. Know the attachment and detachment points.
  

Friendships at workplaces should be handled very carefully. You know the anecdote of the boiling frog. This happens just too often nowadays at work and even with the neighborhood girl / boy. When you have lunch, work 9 hours together with other collleagues in office, there are chances that you slowly begin to adore someone, without knowing it, more than you should.


Bible Study: Ephesians 5:15 - 6:9
Pray : Lord, give me a good partner. Above all, make me a good partner.

Thank you Achen for this great session.
Well, the morning session ended exactly on time for lunch, we had lunch just after 1 PM.

After lunch we had 3 games :

Game I :
All participant had a sheet with their name on it. Every other person could write any comment on it. After the whole exercise was over, the individual can take home their own papers.

Game II : We had a two great games of cricket too played out. Every member participated in it. Deepti too a wicket too. Christo and team ended up as the runners up both times :-) Hahah ha....

Game III : Balloon + water is fun. It was a unique gavan me.

By 6:30 PM, the van returned to church.

Thanks to all organizers and participants for making this a memorable trip.