A new school year at St. John’s University and 1,036 brand new first-year students have arrived and are settling in.  Classes started last week, and this week all the clubs and societies have launched forth with concerts, discos, welcome parties and dinners to attract the new students to join up…. there’s a lot going on!

Our SJU Chaplaincy Student Fellowship has also been busy every day, and the main events were these last 2 evenings, Tuesday and Wednesday, when we welcomed the new students to a party in Advent Church, different days for different departments. More than 20 of our student fellowship team organized themselves to run the events, everyone knew exactly what job they were doing, it was fantastic!  Even I was assigned a job – taking photos, ha ha! So on the first night we had about 20 new students, and then last night over 70.  There were games, food, dancing, singing, more games, more dancing, group photos and then sharing in small groups.  Ah, it was great fun!

One of the new things this year is that among all those first year students are 96 in the junior college section, which means that they are only 15-16 years old, here for the next 5 years studying English or various kinds of engineering. Their group was assigned to the first evening, and one student enjoyed it so much that he requested a ticket for the second evening too ~ YES!  And then there are 50 first year students from Malaysia, Hong Kong and Mainland China….  some of them came too.  And of course there were many who tried to attend all the events on the campus in the same evening, so they disappeared half way through ours.  Ah, but it was still great fun!

Tuesday evening….

And Wednesday…..

And not being ones to sit around doing nothing, the regular Thursday evening fellowship meetings start tonight with a trip to the beach and food and sharing – up the road in the garden of one of our church members.  It’s all non-stop action!

Prayers for all our activities welcomed, thank you!