Five NCOs and our Captain represented the First Penang Company to the Trinity Methodist Church Planing Retreat held at the Crown Prince Hotel on the 20^th of December 1997. The retreat was from 0800 hours to 1800 hours.

During this retreat, NCOs were given a chance to express their views to the church leaders both in the main session as well as in the different workshops. Most of the NCO’s present were very tired as they had just return from Youth Quake II in Sitiawan nevertheless all of them were attentive and alert in planning for the coming year.

The retreat started of with a time of Praise and Worship. After a time of prayer in small groups, Mr. Khoo Cheok Sin (Church Lay Leader) gave an outline of the mission and vision of the church. Then all participants were broken into 4 different workshops such as church administration, development and finance, worship, prayer life and deepening spirituality, leadership development, Christian education and youth and finally missions outreach, evangelism and social concerns.

Then it was lunch time where all present were treated to a buffet lunch in which some eating competitions took place but most of the time the NCOs reminisce the experience of the past few days in YQ II.

After lunch, each groups were asked to present their discussions to the rest of the participants. Later, after consuming some beverages, the church calendar was prepared before pastor closed the session with a message and prayer.

At the end of the day all went back glad that they had some way or another contributed to the growth of the church in the coming year.

By : Sergeant Vincent Matthew Malayapillay