Letter from the Chair in Sydney

Below is an email from Sue in Sydney...

Sorry it's a little late, but have fun reading...

Hey everyone,

I've got a bit of free time so I thought i'd share with you some thoughts n reflections of WYD 2008.

The first thing I realized is that faith is a life-long learning experience. Well, so is everything else, but this aspect really struck me when I got here and was exposed to so many things. You learn a little more about faith each day. Not faith as faith only in the bible or what you learn from Catechism, but faith thru actions and real life. If I were to complain about a 13 hour journey to Australia, there were people who took 35 hours to get there. If one were to complain about the tremendous amount of walking around, you should have seen the people who came in wheelchairs and crutches. Faith is such an amazing thing to unite all together. I tell you, although there were about half a miliion people around, all with different languages and cultures, the one thing which united us all was Jesus, and this was indeed one of the experiences I treasure. And seeing all these people, the same age as us, who probablly face the same challenges as we do in our lifes, but living it all up for God - that makes me realize that we should never ever give up. The same thing with CSS. It's our mission to live out a Christian life, and to witness to others. Being a witness was one of the major aspects that Sydney ppl got to experience. They remarked that Catholics were so cheerful, smiley, happy - and never complained! Hmm, an example. While working as a volunteer, there were days when there were communication breakdowns within the gates (25 gates!) So it happened that people who had to go thru Gate 1 were told to go to Gate 3 and cut thru..but Gate 3 was closed and so these poor people had to walk all the way back to my gate (Gate 24 - right at the other end!) and go thru another way to get to their gate. We're talking about almost 1.5 times the length of the pasar malam in cheras - one way! :S I mean, i imagined these people were gonna be so pissed and annoyed, and my teammates and I at the gates kept on apologizing. But they just laughed and said its ok, and they grabbed their bags, started singing and continued walking on. Now in my opinion, thats the true Catholic spirit!!

So yeah, never give up. You know how I used to be really worried about our attendance at gatherings? Now I know that instead of mainly worrying and fretting, we should just be living witnesses. And that's whats gonna matter in the end. Not our numbers, (it does count a bit too la!) but lets all work together to bring the message of Christ to our campus.

Ive got tons more of stories but it's really freezing here! Will share some more once I get back. Take care :)

Sue
ps: the pope says to focus on inter-ecumenical discussions!