Some time ago, Phil has written about his first impressions of working with CAT students. A couple of months later, Alex follows up with her Part 1. (We shall look forward to Part 2!)
Our CAT ‘children’ have been at IBTS for nearly a whole semester and now the time is drawing near for many of them to return to their own countries and homes for Christmas holidays. I think that the end of semester calls for some time of reflective on Phil and my roles as CAT ‘parents’. 🙂 It must be said that it has been a great first semester from our point of view. Our CATs are a wonderful group this year. In our first year here at IBTS (2006/7) we were constantly being told how great the CATs were, then last year again, the CAT group was a good group, so Phil and I were bracing ourselves for a monster of a group because three great CAT groups running seemed too good to be true! I was imagining all the personality clashes that would be going on, all the fights, all the trauma and angst that might be awaiting us… but, so far, so good! This group are the kindest to each other that we have seen in our time here, and they are not cliquey but enjoy spending time together. Many in the group are amazing at serving others, as well as contributing to wider IBTS and SVCC life.
Two things in particular are worth mentioning: first of all is the enthusiasm and commitment of a number of the CATs to social action activities like TeenChallenge, a charity working with children from difficult backgrounds; and Youth Praha, which is a youth group for teenagers (and their friends) from the English-speaking churches in Prague. Our CATs have shown great care and dedication to these activities that they are involved in, and we are very proud of them.
Second is the hospitality which they regularly demonstrate. There are a number of excellent cooks and hosts amongst this CAT group, and they enjoy cooking for and serving others with these gifts.
While it is only the beginning of December, and there are still many months of the CAT program to come, so far Phil and I are very proud parents. It is both a blessing and a privilege to get to know this year’s CATs, to hear their stories and experiences and to learn with them how we can walk the road of discipleship. I hope that not too many of them will read this post, or perhaps they will become over-confident and stop being so wonderful! More to follow in the coming months… let’s hope it’ll be more good news than bad! 🙂
– Alex