Valentines Day Weekend

This past weekend was full of fun, although it did not start out that way. Noelle was not feeling well, so she stayed home from school. However, that night she was feeling better, so we got together with our friends Verne and Rachel Ward who were in town (Verne was a housemate of mine from University). They recently returned from PNG, after spending 6 weeks filming for the Church of the Nazarene. We had dinner with the Hane family and thoroughly enjoyed our time together over some great food.

Saturday morning we spent at the Clementi Sand Volleyball Court. We had friends and colleagues come play volleyball for two hours. The morning was perfect, quite sunny and no rain. After Volleyball Noelle and i showered up and met Verne and Rachel for lunch at our favorite Northern Indian restaurant in Singapore. It was great food, in fact, it was plain delicious; Lime Juice, Tea Cino, Mango Lassi, Naan, Butter Chicken, Chicken Tikka Masala, Palak Paneer, Aloo Mutter. We then drank coffee from Papua New Guinnea together and left their place around 7pm so that they could pack their bags for their early morning flight.

It was great to see them. It had been a little over two years since we had last seen Verne. And we might not see Verne or Rachel for a long time. We are remembering to cherish the moments that we have right now. A modest amount of time remembering the past is good, pondering the future is wise, but spending the bulk of our time living in the present, now that, that is beautiful.

Church on Sunday was good. I shared some about the importance of building solid relationships with students, about the importance of consistency; but I think my favorite moment of church (should we have favorite? sure, why not) was when I read the following quote by Charles Spurgeon: “To be laughed at is no great hardship to me. I can delight in scoffs and jeers. Caricatures, lampoons, and slanders are my glory. But that you should turn from your own mercy, this is my sorrow. Spit on me, but, oh, repent! Laugh at me, but, oh, believe in my Master! Make my body as the dirt of the streets, but damn not your own souls!”

My other favorite part of church (can I have a second favorite?) was when we sang the John Newton Song "Let us Love and Sing and Wonder". It is like my favorite song ever. If you don't know it, click the song title for a link to the lyrics..

After church I was able to get 12 friends/former students/current students to come to the school to play some soccer. It was enjoyable and some of my Malay friends are hoping that we do this every week.

Here are some pictures from this weekends volleyball fun.
This is Noelle and I with Harry. Harry is from the Philippines and works as a DJ here on Singapore's best FM radio station. I met Harry at the Tiong Bahru Food Court. Great Story! :)

Bhangra

Some of you have been asking to see Noelle dancing. Well this is a video from last school year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47aG6S2ebaM

when i get some other videos and photos i will put them on here too.

International Night

I have just returned from a trip to California. I was visiting California Lutheran University as their guest. Cal Lu is attempting to increase their enrollment of international students and overall quality of students and brought me and 25 other school counselors to campus in order for us to get a better feel of the campus. it was a great trip, not just because I was able to meet with representatives from Cal Lu, but also because I was able to get to California 4 days before the Conference at meet with four alumni from ICS. David at Point Loma, Hannah at Azusa Pacific and Sarah at USC.

Upon return I have found much work waiting for me. Noelle is also very busy with International Night, which takes place Friday night the 6th of February. Noelle is the teacher liaison with the Parent Teacher Fellowship in developing the International Night Program. She is very busy and has much work to accomplish today at school.

International Night is a time for our school community to come together and celebrate the diversity of cultures represented on our campus. We have 390 students (this # fluctuates daily) and approximately 25 different nationalities represented (primarily US, S. Korean, Indonesian, Singaporean). We eat finger foods , we watch performances and we play games from these and other countries and year after year it is an exciting time. This year we are doing it completely different, think of those makeover shows on TLC, that is what we are doing with Intl. Night. However, one thing that is not different is Noelle's involvement in the cultural performance segment of the show. For the third straight year Noelle will be performing Bhangra with her dance group. This energetic dance will surely bring much cheering from the audience.

Pray for us in this busy time of the year. After International night on Friday Noelle and I need to be at the school by 6:30 AM Saturday morning the 7th in order to administer the ACT for college bound Singaporeans.