Oldham Hall Thanksgiving

left to right, back: Gayle, Hugh, Lynn & Eng Kheng.

left to right, front; Vickie, Tina, Katherine, Lydia, Sylvia, Janet & Yinn

Left to right: Hugh, Yinn, Janet, Vickie, Eng Kheng, Lynn, Tina, Lydia, Katheine & Sylvia

Hugh and I with Gayle have been so blessed as a family to be able to serve as Befrienders to some Singapore scholars residing in Oldham Hall. Together with Lynn and Eng Kheng we have 6 beautiful PRC girls whom we have made friends with and they have made us feel so young once again.

Janet Ji & Sylvia Huang are from Chengdu Sichuan; Katherine Yu, Lydia Ya Hui, Tina Tian & Vickie Chen are from Yantai Shandong. They are all in Anderson Secondary School and are so hard working that they literally have very little time to spare for social gatherings. They arrived in November 2007 to embark on an English Language bridging course before the semester start in the New Year. Struggling with the language initially, I think they all have mustered the language the best they can.

As we got to know them better, we found out that these girls are very talented. All skilled with different specialty from music to arts and to sports, they all excel in their area of love. Yet, each of them is so different in characters but the dynamic mix is perfect.

From the time we got to know them, these were the things we have been and thru;

Ice Cream treat
Botanic Gardens
Birthday Celebration for Tina in January
Chinatown CNY light-up
CNY lunch
Oldham Hall CNY celebrations
Birthday Celebration for Vicky in April. We did it in Oldham hall because she injured her leg.
Birthday Celebration for Sylvia’s in May. A Cook-up at our place, that’s when we found out that these girls are quite “siao jie” (jiao zhe/dumpling soup)
Birthday Celebration for Lynn in August. A barbeque delight!
Singapore fireworks Celebrations in August
Oldham Hall Thanksgiving in August

We are sure there will be more activities to come and look forward to meeting and sharing with them.

During the June holidays, the girls went back to China to spend time with their families and friends. We also went off for a short holiday in Bali. When school started, I was back in routine with Gayle and was struggling to get back with the schedule. I realized that it is not good to over relax during the school holiday and have to struggle when school reopens. It is really difficult to get back to routine after that. I was pushing so hard to get back to the structure so much so that we forgot to check with our girls upon their return to Singapore and school!

However I begin to discover how much I missed our friends by end July when the routine kicks in. So we tried arranging for an outing again with a BBQ on National Day (that’s the same surprise Birthday Celebration for our dearest sister Lynn). Wow, you would not believe how difficult it is to organize an outing with the girls. Thou the above list of activities may seem long, but each co-ordination of their availability actually takes a long time to plan. No, I am not complaining but the fact is that our little friends are really very serous with their school academic and we totally encourage them to be.

Our first breakthrough in sharing the gospel with them, besides the outreach in Dec, was during Lynn’s BD celebration. The opportunity presents itself and the girls were asking lots on how the bible was put together, and who wrote the bible, etc. We were very glad that God has provided the openings for us and we will continue to pray for more opportunities to share God's love with them and pray for God to work in their heart.

May Jesus be glorified always!