HYC Jakarta: Devin Ong

Since the Jakarta, Indonesia HOPE Youth Corps this past June, three of the ten teens in the Singapore church who attended the program have been baptised. The latest addition is Devin, who will turn 15 next month. Devin had been studying the Bible for more than a year when he made the decision to go to Jakarta. These are his words:

“HYC helped in my decision to become a Christian. Being on HYC, there were times when I was down. It was hard for me to get out of my comfort zone. It was tough; I wanted my comfortable bed, my mom, I fell sick etc. That was when I really needed God. That pushed me to seek Him and build a connection with Him and that made me learn just how much I needed Him.

I’ve also learned so much about working with other people, and how teamwork makes so many things possible. I felt really encouraged by the community. Every morning, for the whole two weeks, you would hear someone say, ‘Let’s do a quiet time together’ and that’s not normal! You can’t get that anywhere else.

This whole experience can be summed up by the word ‘love’. The amount of love that everyone had for each other, the connection that we managed to build over just two weeks was just so amazing! At the very end I cried; we all cried as we were leaving and it’s really the love of God that brought us all together.

Since then, I’ve continued stretching myself to build friendships with new people from different age groups. I’ve also learned to take initiative. Sabrina (another teen who went on the HYC) and I felt like our group in Singapore was not meeting consistently enough, so we decided to plan a Bible talk that focused on helping the group to connect and be comfortable with each other.
If you want to be spiritually refreshed and build great bonds, go on HOPE Youth Corps. I did, and it changed me.”

Below are photos of Devin serving on the Jakarta HYC. The last photo is of Martin baptising him. Martin was the Global Service Intern leading the Jakarta HYC.