Tuesday, October 16, 2007

More from Singapore

Hello friends and family!

Well, it's been over a week since our last post so we thought we'd give you an update of what we've been doing and what's coming up for 1421 in Singapore.

Last week we had several events with students from the 5 Singapore Poly's. During the week we went out in groups of 2 and met with the Christian students at their weekly prayer meetings to encourage them to share their faith with their friends. It is so neat to see the excitement of the students and to hear how they came to Christ. I have learned a lot about sharing the gospel by working alongside them at our evangelistic events.

Our first big event with the Poly students was an evening barbecue at the beach. Many Christian students came and invited their friends, and we ended up having a great turn out. We played some games, sang some songs, ate some food, and several of us had the opportunity to share the gospel with our groups. A few students said that they were interested in finding out more about Jesus, so please be praying for us and the SYFC as we follow up with these students at future events. And of course be praying for the students themselves, that God would continue to work in their hearts and bring them closer to Himself.

The next big event was our food tour! (Notice how our events tend to revolve around food... the YFC staff claims that eating is their favorite pastime!) This was a really fun evening. The seven of us "hid" in a clothing store in Chinatown, and students were given blurry pictures of us and they had to come find us in the store. We were each assigned to a group, and our group took us around several places in Chinatown and we got to sample various types of yummy food. I don't remember what any of them were called... except for carrot cake, which we renamed "radish omelet" because it's nothing like what we think of as carrot cake. During dinner (yes - we had a big dinner after we finished sampling all that food) we had another opportunity to share the gospel with the students that were with us. I got to "tag-team" with one of my new Singapore friends, and I was so impressed by her boldness in sharing her faith with a girl from her school.

On Saturday we had a breakfast with Chinese students that are studying in Singapore. (Again... food related! We are definitely not going hungry on this trip!) We had so much fun playing games with the students and getting to know them. We were able to perform a couple of songs for them, and many signed up to come to our upcoming events.

Another fun thing we did was film a short "MTV" (or music video) for one of our rep songs. We all got a chance to show off our melodramatic acting skills, and the finished product is quite nice! One of the student volunteers put it together - it was his first MTV and he did such a great job. Can't wait to show it to you when you get back. They will play the video behind us as we perform the song to help lead into our gospel presentation and our theme of "Alive."

Yesterday was our first official concert in Singapore. We played at one of the Poly's, which was a huge answer to prayer! The SYFC has been trying to get a group into the Poly's to perform for 5 years now, and this was the first time they've been given permission. We won't know whether or not it went over well with the students and teachers until next week, so please be praying for that. It did seem like we had a good response, though! We were there to publicize our "Garage" concerts coming up this weekend, and many people signed up to come from this school. We were not allowed to share the gospel or talk about our faith at this school, so we are praying that many will come to Garage so that we can share with them there.

Which brings me to today... today we played at a local Christian secondary school, which was a really cool experience. We played 3 times throughout the day for students on breaks between classes, and we got a chance to talk with them and hang out between sets.

Upcoming events:
*Evangelistic concert tomorrow (Friday morning) at a secondary school.
*Garage! Friday and Saturday night
*Church evangelistic event on Sunday
*Primary school chapel services on Monday
*Barbecue and Shopping Tour later in the month

I think that's it for now. It's taken me two days to write this update - hopefully it won't take you two days to read it.

Prayer requests:
*Besides a few very temporary and minor setbacks, we have all been healthy so far! No one has had to miss an event due to illness. Thanks for your prayers, please keep praying!
*We will be very busy for the next 2 weeks, so please pray for energy and endurance as we serve.
*Thank God for the awesome SYFC staff who are taking such good care of us, supporting us in every way they can, and teaching us so much in the process. We have been so blessed by them.
*Continue to pray for our boldness in sharing the gospel in small group or one-on-one situations. For most of us, it's so much easier to do from stage!
*And above all, that God would be glorified in every big or little thing that we do, and that lives would be changed.

Goodbye for now!

Renee

Ps. We miss you, 1422! We're praying for you!

2 comments:

Ethan, Gail, Seth, Ian and Nate said...

So thankful for the update! Sounds like you're eating well! We all miss you so much and Seth can't wait till you can come over with pizza again! He prays for you often and looks on the globe to see where you are. Miss you! Love, Gail, Ethan, Seth and Ian

Unknown said...

Thanks for the update Renee! I miss you! I cried when I read this.. I truely miss you and Brad... I'm Praying hard for you and So is our SS class! Love you and Many Blessings!