Hello again,
My sincerest apologies for the delay in writing this update. I was away from Colombo and internet access for the past week- only to find my laptop has ceased functioning properly on my return here.
So as most people know I have been to Kandy- in the middle of Sri Lanka- known as 'hill country'- it's incredibly beautiful and I had a great time there.
I attended the Christian Medical Students Conference- the first they have had in 30 years- with so many students attending! I felt very pleased to be there. I know how much I enjoyed the conference we have back home. Attending the conference here has made me realise how important it is for Christian Medics to meet up like this. Some people have asked me why I did not get as involved with the Christian Union- and why Christian medics 'separate' themselves from the General Christian group at University. The answer i gave then I realised is the same as it would be here- we have different timetables, different expectations and we very often cannot actively get involved as fully as other students in CU stuff.
Many students here are the only Christian Medics in their university- they find it very lonely and miss having fellowship with other Christian students. The timetable that medics have here is also completely insane- I can't help be horrified at how we all used to complain about ours- either way- they cannot attend their universities Christian events- as they are often in lectures etc... which they cannot miss- as their lecturers are more strict about attendance that back in the UK.
The conference was great- students really enjoyed and appreciated it- as they never had a chance to meet up with other people their own age before. These guys are the future of the Healthcare Fellowship of Sri Lanka and they are going to be doing great work in their own right.
I also greatly enjoyed meeting doctors at the conference who dedicated their lives to save Christ through medicine. Some of these people have actually left medical practice but are still serving Christ in Medicine, via full time ministry. It was very inspiring and really enabled a lot of people to ask some tough questions about what it would involve. One of the upside of the conference was we were actually quite small in number- around 20 students which means we really got to know a significant number of people well, we were able to easily go and speak to the speakers during our lunch-breaks etc... This is quite different in set up to the CMF conference back home with an attending crowd of about 300 students.
However both conference have the same problems too, the timetable is PACKED- this was a weekend away. Lots of students cannot make it- due to exams- which all universities have at completely random times. I found that very confusing- their academic timetable itself was completely all over the place.
I thought that it would be a very good suggestion for the CMF back home to hold regional student conferences back home- I think they sort of do one, but they are not I don't think away trips. We were incredibly lucky that the students here had been subsidised by the doctors who kindly paid for the accommodation, food etc... we were provided with. A lot of student paid a contribution, however, it would be fair to say a great number would not have been able to make it to the conference without their help.
Overall the conference was a tremendous success. As I am due to be back home soon, I'll be meeting up with the Colombo students (who are all in different medical school) and meet up before I leave. Hopefully, it would encourage them to meet up of their own accords in the future.
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