Leadership and Courage

    - Yamen Cheung （LA09, Year 1, English Language and Literature, Hong Kong Baptist University）

Frankly speaking, I did not know what I had learned at the end of those seven days. Like sucking all kind of food in a buffet, I carried all these things leaving the camp. Until today, I was still digesting. From understanding to actualizing myself, I took so much time. In the camp, when I was talking to the trainer alone, I shared that I didn’t have any uniqueness, any ideal or any vision. I didn’t think of anything for the vocation mentioned in the camp. I thought my answer had perhaps scared the trainer? The trainer, however, looked at me and responded me that, as I still remembered, I actually had no courage to acknowledge myself. Who am I? Where is my root? What can we do and what must we do in the face of injustice? How can we respond to others’ needs? Often I recklessly and indignantly went ahead without thinking. Am I still considered as a leader? Often in school we used to be leader. Yet how do we define “leader”? How great actually is the power of life? In the camp I asked myself so many questions. I didn’t have all the answers when I was looking at my journal. I, however, recalled that the greatest is love. After one year, my companion and I participated in the phase two of the camp, Sichuan Cultural Journey. Personally I experienced what I have listened, seen and learned from the camp. Going to Beichuan High School, we exchanged with the Year 3 students in different arts activities and shared our joy and sorrow in life. In the scene I actually met and touched many real lives. They had experience the pain which I, living in Hong Kong, would not know and feel. Before going to Sichuan, my friends had asked me, “So many people have already gone to Sichuan. Why would you still want to go?” Servant leader is a leader serves like a servant, giving oneself up, responding to others’ needs and being willing to serve others humbly. I deeply felt I just wanted to spend those few days with the students, and walked with them with my heart and time. I knew what I could do is very little. Nevertheless, we, coming from different locations, presented ourselves as a gift to them, and I could bring back to Hong Kong so many gifts which I couldn’t buy, enabling me to have the strength to move forward. I discovered that lives, by coming together, were so tremendously powerful. Walking along with the LA community, I finally understood that LA Camp is a wonderful beginning for me to gain the courage and strength to face the lives of mine and others.