Tamara and I stayed awake until about 12:00 Thursday night while I packed, and we woke up early Friday morning to drive to the airport about an hour and a half before my flight.
After eating breakfast together, Tamara and I forced ourselves to part so that I could fly to Singapore and she could drive back home. From a second-story window, I saw her getting into her car, so I pulled out my cell phone and called hers. I couldn’t even get onto the airplane before calling her! I do not want to travel internationally without her again.
The flight from Spartanburg to Detroit to Tokyo to Singapore lasted about 26 hours. I left at about 9:10 Friday morning and arrived in Singapore at about 12:30 Sunday morning. Kok Wah met me with a smile, and I slept for about three and a half hours that night at Jing Kok’s condo.
At about 8:15 Sunday morning, Jing Kok and I left his condo and ate breakfast near the place where the church meets. A family from the church was also there, so they and we sat at the same table and had some good fellowship. The fellowship would continue for hours.
We arrived at the church’s ministry center (like a church building, but in a larger building that has other rooms and stories used by other organizations) sometime around 9:15 and did some preparation for the worship assembly.
I think there were about 50 people present for worship, and the singing was wonderfully authentic. I felt a little strange in an all-English worship assembly because the Woodlands church, whom I have visited on previous trips to Singapore, worships bilingually in Mandarin Chinese and English. Different groups of people in different places—even different parts of the same nation, city, and island—commune with God in different ways. (Of course, the English that Singaporeans speak is different from the English that South Carolinians and Texans speak. Wait a minute—do South Carolinians and Texans speak the same English? I suppose they are more similar to each other than either is to the English of our northeastern states.)
Both the sermon and the adult class were enjoyable (at least for the speaker!) and seemed well-received. The men of the church usually take turns preaching, and they go through books of the Bible. There is an assigned passage for each Sunday, so the men don’t need to think of topics all the time. The assigned text for this Sunday was Philippians 4:1-9, so the core of the sermon was the same as the basic message in Philippians as it becomes clear in the first part of the fourth chapter: when people in the church disagree about anything, they should rejoice in Christ, for Christ has brought them together and has become their example of sacrificial living. I enjoyed connecting various parts of the letter, especially 2:1-11, with this assigned passage. The truth of Jesus on the cross showing us how we should handle conflict amazes me.
After the scheduled worship, we all enjoyed tea time (more like snack time—lots of goodies and no tea) and Bible class, during which I explored Christian conflict management more broadly. Then we devoured a congregational meal, visited, and played some games. I couldn’t play dodge ball because my leg was still hurt from an injury at a church flag football game in Spartanburg the previous Sunday. But I didn’t feel left out; some church members had questions to discuss with me. Maybe some of my responses helped a little, but some of the questions were beyond me. How can I know anything about raising children?
Jing Kok and I took some of the youth to their homes, and we got back to his condo at about 4:00. I was exhausted, but Jing Kok didn’t think I should take a nap. He was right. To help me stay awake, he invited me to watch the OU-OSU football game with him on ESPN. What a slaughter! Then I effortlessly went to sleep at about 9:00 after talking with Tamara through Skype.
I will save Monday and Tuesday for another post. Thanks for caring about my trip.
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