FAT FISH FRIDAY EXPLORES “WHY BE CATHOLIC?” WITH EAST DISTRICT YOUTHS
By Charlene Siow
28 May 2010 – Over 150 youths and young adults from the East District turned up for Fat Fish Friday this evening. Fat Fish Friday, an East District Youth Event, was held for the first time in the Church of The Holy Trinity. It was themed “Why be Catholic? (I mean, God loves everyone right?)” with humorous and inspiring speaker, Br. Gregory Chan, who managed to successfully enlighten the hearts of the many who were present in the Parish Hall.
The casual and fun dialogue session welcomed youths and young adults from all walks of life, for an evening of food, fellowship, praise, fun and most importantly, God. The air conditioned hall was dimly lit with candles, creating a ‘cafe-like’ atmosphere.
Singing their hearts out, the Christus Dominus Choir started and ended the event with a few songs where the participants joined in and sang along. Also, during the short break, participants helped themselves with a variety of finger food, and drinks.
Following up on last year’s East District Youth Rally held at C.H.I.J Katong Primary, Fat Fish Friday focuses on youths and young adults aged 17 – 35. This year, the event is of a smaller scale and covers more specific topics relating to youths of the specific age group.
Planning since January, the dedicated and talented organising team were made up of representatives from CAYC and the various Churches in the East District – Church of the Holy Trinity, Holy Family, St Stephen, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour and Church of Our Lady Queen of Peace.
During these 5 months, the organising team were focused on working out an enticing programme which strongly focuses on the theme. Taking each detail into consideration and with such an exciting programme catered to the youths, it is no wonder why there was such an overwhelming response to the event.
The event covered a number of insightful and relevant topics relating to the Catholic Faith and ended off with the importance of having a Catholic Community. Youths participated actively and shared their personal experiences in the discussions led by Br. Gregory Chan.
On a whole, the many friendships made and the engaging responses from participants proved the event successful. Being only the first Fat Fish Friday, the organising committee is looking forward to more Fat Fish Fridays in the coming years.
When interviewed, Priscilla Chong, 19, a Youth Ministry Member of Church of Our Lady Queen of Peace found the event interactive and added – “The whole event was very enlightening as it tells us things that we should know as a Catholic. It helps us to look at our religion from a different point of view.”
Stephanie Yap, 19, also added “This session has been very useful to me as it gave me the opportunity to learn more about my faith and cleared some of the doubts I had. The most interesting thing is that they've made it into a dialogue session where it's free and easy to voice your opinions. The speaker's both friendly and inspiring, hence he was able to captivate the audience's attention on the topics he discussed. All in all, I wouldn't mind to go for future sessions like this.”
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