Flight Details

Qatar Airways, QR638K Arrival at Terminal 3 on Sat, 26 June at 3:05pm.

Bye Bye Bath

I had a wonderful time in Europe with lots to thank God for. Travelling alone does force me to rely on Him more, and it does make me more sensitive to His presence and little blessings that He drops into my path. I thank God for he how provided me with a free bedroom for 2 nights through Kit's friend in Stuttgart. I thank God for how He lined up my itinerary so nicely that World Cup matches literally followed me around Europe (from cheering with the local fans for Germany in Stuttgart, with the Spainish in Valencia and the Brits in Bath). I thank God for how He provided me with a Aussie buddy in Paris, and FIVE Singaporean room mates in Valencia. So though I travelled alone, I never really walked alone. Pun intended.

And so the time has finally come for me to leave Bath.

I'm glad I did 70% of my packing the day before I left for my Europe trip. It did safe me a lot of trouble yesterday when I finally cleared out of my residence at Carpenter House. I marked my final day in Bath but going to the world acclaimed spa in the morning, and the Roman Baths in the afternoon. Suddenly it felt as if I never really did explore Bath as much as I should have. But then again, anything that I've missed will always be another reason to go back! I maintain that of all the places that I've visited over the past 5 months, Bath remains the most "liveable" of them all. It ranks high among my list of potential retirement places.

Now I'm back in sunny Weston-super-mare with the Page family. I led worship for the third time in Christ Church today, and in a way, it was a fitting farewell to the people I've met here. I can't thank Andy and his family enough for the hospitality that they've provided for me. As a token of my appreciation, I've given them my 3 pillows, 2 duvets and remaining supply of Milo :)

Summertime in June

I haven't had internet connection for a while, a update's long overdue:

I blog this from cosy YMCA hostel in Basel, Switzerland, now adventuring
through my (mini) budget-style European tour. The world cup starts TODAY. Walking around the streets, supporters are decked out in their team's jerseys, adding to the festive cheer. It's a strange sight to see a sea of green Mexicans here in Switzerland. In the background, a string orchestra livens the atmospshere with theme songs from Pirates of the Caribbean and Mission Impossible.

God has been good. Travelling alone does feel really different, and it has its challenges indeed. Today my train from France was delayed, which meant that I missed my connecting train by a matter of minutes. Fortunately the monsieur at the ticketing booth was kind enough to put me on the next train and upgrade me to first class on a fast train. And it worked out well, for I left an hour later but still managed to catch up with the earlier train that I'd missed!

Progress so far: I've gone through Amsterdam, Delft, Paris, Versailles and Nice. Within a week, I've spent 1 night at the airport, 1 night on a sofa, 2 nights on a train. Budget traveller style. With a very good bed tonight, it's time to finally catch some proper beauty sleep.

Paris was magnificent to say to the least. I can understand why the City of Lights is easily everyone's favourite European city - just so many things to see but much better organised than London! Pickpockets were on the prowl though, and their methods are so blatant its laughable. Every day a group of them camp along the steps of the Sacre Coeur, friendship bands in hand, waiting to stop passing tourists who already know what's on their minds. One of them tried so hard to stop me and bombarded me with questions which I avoided. When I totally ignored him, he suddenly asked me to "look there". So obvious. Well thank God I was prepared so he had a futile time with me.

I also got acquainted with this Australian dude from Sydney, Alistair. He's an interesting chap - an Atheist who majored in Aboriginal studies. We hit it off surprisingly well and he was a great travel companion in Paris.

Studies wise, my exams and papers have gone well. Results aren't out till August but I'm expecting decent grades. I'm really glad to have had a thoroughly enriching experience studying in Bath. A year would have been just nice, but yes it has to end somehow. Post Easter, I joined the Bath Christian Union, Bath's version of Campus Crusade, and managed to make good Christian friends here in the end. As much of my blog testifies, being a Christian youth in the UK isn't easy, and we should keep praying for them.

Until next time, au revoir.

Marriage at 22

This week has been a restful one for me. Classes have officially ended,
with exams coming up over the next 3-4 weeks.

I've had privilege to lead worship twice this week - once at the Uni of Bath Christian Union meeting yesterday, and once more in Christ Church, Weston super-Mare,
with Andy last Sunday. The congregation have been very friendly and welcoming to me.
Sunday was a bit o milestone for them as they finally put up projector screens in their church! Andy went through quite a period of 'campaigning' for the screens. Its still a temporary setup though, held up by prayer and bits of strings. Apparently you need a permit from the Church of England to drill a hole in your building, which could take a while to come through! Christ Church is still a very traditional, largely elderly Anglican church nonetheless. I'm glad to have introduced the congregation to a different style of worship. Usually their songs are quite stop-start, with intermittent pauses for announcements, Bible readings and prayer. Medleys and songs that flow right through seem to be quite uncommon in English Churches.

We had tea with a very friendly and chatty group of Andy's neighbours. I'm pleased to have met Jason (a 22 year old mechanic who tunes Rolls Royce engines for Airbus!) and his fiance Steffie. Both of them are into music too, and they lead worship at their church. They are such a lovely couple. I understand that they are going to get married really soon! Marriage at 22!? (Btw, Steffie's only 18)

But before anyone makes any hint of moral judgement, let me set the record straight that getting married early is not something to be frowned upon in this culture. Steffie graduates from music college this monnth, so both of them are of working age. Considering that Jason and Steffie have been going steady for 3 years now, they are both mature enough to acknowledge that its time for God to take their relationship into a higher level. In fact, praise the Lord! For marriage is fast becoming a dying institution in the UK now, that its so common for the current generation to cohabit, have kids and not even think about marriage! Trivia: 45% of all children in the UK are born to unwed couples. No wonder society's in decline.

Evidently, the UK culture is very different from Asian culture. Unlike us who move out only when we get married, the kids move out of their parents' house the moment they turn 18, or go to college. In some sense, British youths are forced to grow up faster. So really, marriage at 22 is no big deal. Suddenly, the fact that my RI buddy Joel is getting married at 24 in October this year is not such a big surprise after all.

And to think that I just turned 24 last week!

(The Brown Family - Jason & Steffie are in the middle)

An unconventional birthday celebration

Thank you everyone for your birthday greetings!

The chaos caused by the ash cloud was a blessing in disguise for me. The travel frenzy led to Ryanair slashing their prices down to as low as 3 pounds per ticket. Suddenly, it was cheaper to jet across Europe than to take a cab to school.

And so I found myself spending my birthday in Krakow, Poland, ‘celebrating’ it in a rather unconventional way in Auschwitz – the Nazi concentration camp that housed the gas chambers which claimed the lives of 1.5million Jews among many others. Walking through the compound made me sick in the stomach. It’s unthinkable how cruel mankind was during that time. The whole experience made me look at my birthday in an entirely different light, seeing how blessed I was to be born in Singapore in this generation and not 60 years ago during WW2. Although we so often tend to complain about life in S’pore, I’m thankful that the struggles and problems we face are nowhere as near to the life-and-death hardships that the Jews had to go through then. All our worries seem so trivial. It was a poignant moment. Not the happiest way to celebrate a birthday but very meaningful nonetheless.

I’m back in Bath now. Tonight I had a potluck with my fellow exchange friends. It was nice to have Asian food all over again. I cooked mutton curry =) And my friends were so nice to surprise me with a cake and a Bath Rugby jersey. I’m so gonna miss them and exchange. Exams are coming in 2 weeks which means it’s time to hit the books. It also means that my time in the UK is fast coming to an end! Sigh =(

Amazing Easter

Hello, I know it's been a month since I updated. I have been busy traveling around and writing essays. So here goes..

I've now just passed the midway point of my exchange adventure. Unlike the 1 week mid term break we have in Singapore, the British system gives us 2 weeks off for Easter! (btw..I hear that Daniel had a month off!) So whilst most of my other friends flew out to explore Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Rome and Amsterdam, I decided to do a comprehensive tour of the UK.

Naturally, my first stop was Liverpool, where I caught my first ever Premiership game at Anfield - Liverpool vs Sunderland - with Raja, Andy & his son Tim. Being a matchday Saturday, the atmosphere was much different compared to the Thurs night Unirea game. It had a family-outing, carnival-like atmosphere. The stadium was packed to the full, which probably explains why we were unable to obtain Kop tickets this time round. How I managed to get tickets in the first place was quite a miracle to be thankful for in the first place. They were sold out on the Liverpool website within 10 minutes! We were seated directly behind Pepe Reina's goal & had the sun in our eyes throughout the game. Well, of course Pool won, 3-0 the final score with Torres scoring a beauty in the 5th minute. Raja & I went nuts celebrating (see FB video).

Raja & I then joined Desmond in Ireland for a homestay with a nice Irish family. Their daughter is a phD student named Ellen, Desmond's flatmate who's writing her thesis in Bath. They live in a cosy cottage in Sligo, a little town by the coast in the northern part of Ireland. We saw snow capped mountains, a waterfall, and lots and lots of sheep.

Silas came to visit on 1st April. While Desmond & Raja proceeded to Dublin, I went back to London to pick him up from Heathrow. Was really delighted to meet him, as he restocked my supply of Bak Kut Teh and Chicken Rice. From there we spent a couple of nights at the Berrys and had a really wonderful time exploring London, covering all the major tourist sites like Buckingham palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, St Paul's Cathedral and Trafalgar Square.

There are so many things to write about our subsequent excursion, it would probably take me days if i wrote it in detail. A picture speaks a thousand words anyway, so I'll upload the backlog of photos in due course :) In summary, we toured historical York, went for Easter Sunday service in the grand York Minster, climbed up to the castle to view the Scarborough seaside, ventured through fairy tale land in mystical Edinburgh, wandered into Callander village where Silas experienced his first snow, scaled the mountains and trekked 24 km in the scenic Lake District, had a swinging good time at Go Ape Grisedale, before finally spending a day of rest back in beautiful Bath. Not bad for a self-catering, budget backpackers holiday huh. Had we signed up for a tour package at the NATAS fair, we would have spent 3 times more money!

There are so many things to thank God for. Silas literally brought the sun to Britain. Since the 3rd of April, it has only rained for ONE day, which is amazing by UK's standards. God sustained the weather, our health and safety throughout the trip, providing us with good lodging and company. Everytime I'm with Silas, we 'just whack' when it comes to food. Haha, Silas probably put on 3 extra kilos during the trip. My appetite hasn't been the same since, which is probably not a bad thing considering I haven't been exercising as much since I've come here. (The 24km route march is our saving grace really!) God's manifest presence and beauty was revealed through his creation. From the mountain to the valley, from the city to the countryside, from the waterfall to the sea, from the snow and blistering rain to the sunshine, we experienced it all. To top it off, the Icelandic volcano erupted a few days after Silas left, bring all flights to a standstill.

As I write this, the airspace just re-opened, so you can imagine what it would have been like had Silas been grounded here. We'd probably have put on a couple more kilos. Haha.

If I were God, I'd end all pain

A speaker from Australia, John Dickson conducted a seminar series entitled a Passion For Life. He presented Christianity using an unbiased historical and academic approach, dealing with difficult topics like atheism and suffering. I like the way his puts forth his defense of the faith by using historical and academic evidence, to tear down the attacks of supposed 'scholars' who published their arguments based on seriously flawed premises and laughable school-boy errors. The second seminar on suffering was conducted using a cross-sectional analysis from the points of view of the different religions: Hinduism views pain as part of the balance of reincarnation; Buddhism attributes it to the presence of desire, Islam sees it as the will of Allah, Atheism boils it down to pure coincidence, Christianity explains it as part of the physical disorder and decay of creation due to human evil.

The difference is this: the unique Biblical perspective allows us to bring our suffering to God, unlike the other religions. In categorical terms, the God of the Bible would himself completely fail the test of the Buddha, as passivity in the face of suffering and immunity to the experience of pain are concepts utterly foreign to the portrait of God revealed in the Bible. For God Himself knows pain. The story of the Bible unfolds like a tragedy - The Creator designs the world for independent relationship with him. Human beings take that independence, transform it to autonomy and say no to God. God sends prophet after prophet pleading people to return to Him. Prophets are refused and rejected. Finally God himself enters our world in the person of Jesus Christ only to be resisted, rejected, insulted and ultimately tortured and crucified by the very people He came to save.

The anguish of God in the person of Jesus is captured in Mark 15, consistent with the poet of Psalm 22, an uncanny connection made explicit when Jesus cried "My God, My God why have you forsaken me?" the opening line of Psalm 22. To clarify, these words were not a cry of self doubt questioning His identity as the embodiment of God, or questioning His mission as the Saviour of the world. His words, chosen carefully, are a deliberate and agonizing identification with the suffering of the famous poet of Psalm 22. And therefore with anyone who has ever felt like crying out "my God, why have you forsaken me, there on the cross God in flesh intentionally enters into the pain and misery of the world. This is God at His most wounded, and yet at His most glorious.

God is able to comfort those who suffer, because He knows it firsthand. That God himself knows and understands pain - what the Muslim defines as blasphemy, and for the Buddhist as unenlightened - is for the Christian, precious.

http://abmp3.com/mp3/john-dickson-if-i-were-god-i%27d-end-all-the-pain.html

Go Ape

It's 430am.

Some drunk blokes are making a ridiculous amount of noise in the kitchen and waking up the block. Alcohol.

Last week has been a thoroughly eventful one for me - quite a week of up & downs in fact! I had a bout of food poisoning upon coming back from London last weekend and had to bear the effects of it while going through an individual presentation on Monday. Thankfully I made it through by God's grace. I've submitted my two 1000+ word essays too, so I can breathe a bit easier as Easter draws near. I'm anticipating Silas's visit too!

I had a very enlightening time attending a series of night talks by John Dickson (see subsequent blog entry). I've also attempted to make new friends by breaking out of my circle of Asian friends. While the rest of my mates went to visit the Stonehenge, I went alone for a Go Ape trip at the Forest of Dean on Sat. Its basically a high-wire adventure course that takes you from tree to tree, 15metres above ground. It was a spectacular and thrilling experience - videos & more photos are on Facebook.


Finally on Sunday, I was invited by Andy Page to lead worship at his church, Christ Church, in Weston-super-mare. Its amazing how God works. The 3 songs I selected were entirely in line with the theme of the service and the preacher's sermon, to the extent that the preacher even quoted the last verse of Servant King - one of the songs which I led - as a challenge to the congregation. This is one of those "God is so good" moments that sends chills down your spine. Thank you Lord.