Flat3D

The Zoo, James Bond and other things

The course is well underway now, we started on Thursday with an introduction service and continued on Friday with some introduction to OMF, to the health system and other delights.  Friday night was a “getting to know you” night with the usual kinds of games and some icecream to follow, more than welcome in this climate.

Saturday and Sunday are days off,  spent Saturday at the Zoo with some other guys on the course…

Zoo

The evening was spent at James Bond.  The movie itself was good, as most of you will know!  I had heard that Bond’s usual dry wit didn’t make an appearance, but it reared it’s head quite a few times. It was also my first time to see a movie at a theatre using digital projection, which was nice!  Lovely smooth gradients and transitions in the CGI sequences!

Later today (Sunday) we are heading to Little India for a “cultural experience” no doubt there will be more photos ensuing!

Singapore…. back online

The internet is now up and running in IHQ, so I can post a bit more about things here!

I arrived early on Monday morning, the first of the OCers (OC = Orientation Course) and have been looking around and getting to see a little bit of Singapore as I recover from jetlag and settle in.  The weather is hot and humid, it isn’t as hot as I thought it might be though.  High 20/low 30s most of the time, but it is pretty humid.  This is the rainy season, though there hadn’t been much rain on Monday or Tuesday.  Today is a different story, after a clearish morning there was a burst of thunder and the skies opened!

Singapore itself is interesting, the OMF IHQ seems to be at the swanky end of town, yesterday I headed up to Little India to see an electronics store and stepping off the train felt like stepping into a different country!  The most curious thing is that English is the common language, and signs, labels etc are all in English.  Which almost makes it feel as though it’s somewhere tropical and American, like Guam or Hawaii or somewhere, but the English is all British!  There are all kinds of hints to the colonial past as well…  My only experience of Asia really has been Japan, and so to arrive in Asia, go to a shop and be able to understand everything, be greeted in english and answer seems a bit weird!

So that’s about it really so far, it’s been quite uneventful, but the real stuff starts tomorrow!

Singapore

Just a quick post to let everyone know I’ve arrived in Singapore ok!

The omf web connection is down as they work on a systems upgrade, but I’ll reply to emails etc when it’s back online!

Thanks for the emails though!!!

Small groups…

Marky wrote about small groups on his blog recently (Voiced Thoughts in the Blogroll list on the right).  My own experience of small groups varies from church groups like the group Mark was writing about, but I think the period that small groups affected my life the most was while I was an undergraduate at university…

My experience of small groups at uni was a little more wide ranging than most perhaps.  I was living in Queen’s Elms in first year so I went to Halls Group that year, the next year I helped out leading the group, so I was in it a second year.  At first I went to an English dept small group because I had friends there and they were encouraging me to go along to a small group aside from the halls one…  But I switched over to the Engineering group in the Ashby a little later.  It was through the engineering group that I met Mark who spoke at my commissioning, Budgie who commented on the last post there and a whole bunch of other folk.  But there’s more!  Between second and third year in my degree it was required to take a year of professional experience.  This interupted small group attendance for most, but Ben (Later of SU Presidential fame) lead a small group for those on their year out working.  It was all guys, but we had an awesome year, heightened by the lack of CU attendance and department groups and so on due to work, meeting later than normal and discussing how things were relevant to working life rather than student life was probably one of the most benefitial years I had in small groups…  Then more recently, while I was at Union I attended a small group at my home church, this was very different to the previous groups as people were from all kinds of backgrounds; nurses, drivers, designers, programmer-cum-theologians, missionaries to the Philippines…  And again it was great!

So now I am pining for small groups!  There is a reason for this though…
Irene approached me a while ago asking if I’d be willing to partner up with a small group from Queen’s University, the small groups were going to partner with missionaries and pray for them etc through the year.  So tonight I went and met the group who got (landed with) me!  The group is Steve and Sam’s medical small group (as in medical students) and is part of the CU at Queens.  The meeting tonight was great, there was, of course, a time of bible study, time to spend together and chat (with unpaid for coffee…), time for prayer and all in the kind of relaxed attitude I remember of small groups!  It’s a time when bible study mingles with banter, when fellowship mingles with accountibility, when prayer mingles with honest concern and love for those you are praying with.  It is an excellent small group with great members, pulling together Christians and making it a quality time.  It’s great to have been able to meet them, and it’s great to know they will be partnering with me in prayer as I head off.  Thanks guys!

So yeah, now I’m pining for small group ministry.  I can’t wait to see what God will make me part of out in Japan!

Christmas…. In October?

I had a great weekend this weekend!

Firstly, as every good weekend does, it began with FAYC on Friday night.  It was a little sad as my club nights are numbered before I head off in November…

On Saturday I was determined to go kayaking, I had thought of surfing, but the forecast wasn’t great and so my heart was sinking as I knew most people wouldn’t be too keen to go.  But thankfully it rained all day Friday and come Saturday the river was nice and high, not so high that it was life threatening, but high enough that it was exciting and there was plenty of potential for fun at the weirs.
So Andy, Tommy, Jake and I set off on a great trip down the river.  It is probably the last bit of kayaking I will get to do for a while…

Following that I headed home, got washed down and Jonny picked me up as we headed over to Steve and Emma’s place for a night of foof and fun.  I was expecting a chinese take away and a game of cranium or a DVD or something.  When we pulled up at the Little’s place, Jonny reached back to me and said “Here, put this on” and thrust a red hat with a white bobble on the end in my direction…  Surely not…  We walked in and found a fully decorated Christmas tree, Christmas tunes on the stereo, the smell of hot apple punch and a fresh log fire.
If that wasn’t enough, we filed through to the dining area and sat down to a full Christmas dinner, including turkey and ham, sprouts, stuffing, the works!  Followed by a veritable feast of desserts.  All of this was provided by an array of talented chefs, who had slaved for days, well at least hours, to get it all ready…
After dinner we retired to the living room for a suitably fixed game of pass the parcel.
The most incredible thing of the whole night was that once in the house with the door closed, Christmas music on and punch in hand it actually felt like it was Christmas!  It was almost a disappointment when the reality of October would resurface.

The Sunday morning saw a youth club service at the church involving stories of mountain biking accidents, plenty of fun to play songs and jam doughnuts!

In the evening it was my commissioning service.  Mark came to speak, I had asked the band to choose the music and I was commissioned as a missionary with OMF to Japan!  So now I’m actually a missionary I guess…
It was a great night, a lot of meaningful people took part and my friends and family were there.

Thanks to everyone involved at any stage of the weekend, particular thanks to those responsible for the Christmas extravaganza on Saturday, something I doubt I will forget any time soon, and those involved in Sunday evening, thanks for a special, memorable night!

You can see photos of my commissioning on First Antrim’s website.  Hopefully I can get some of the Christmas night to put up somewhere!