Shanghai Church

Yup, it's about time I got to church...haha! I was "church-less" for like...2 weeks? Haha...My dad linked me up with his friend that used to work in China, Uncle Yew Keong and he linked me up with his son, Wayne, who linked me up with Denise, who linked me up with her mum, Jeh Ling, an expatriate in Shanghai. Haha!

Yes...almost NO LINK...LOL. After much arrangement and deliberation, we finally made it to our very first cell group! :D HAHA!

The amazing thing about attending cell group and services is...WE ARE ALL CHAUFFEURED!! HAHA! All our adult church mates have their very own chauffeur!

I guess the expatriate life ain't that bad after all! HAHA! They'll send their chauffeur to pick us up FROM OUR PLACE and drive us to cell group and church...and back home :D LOL.

Anyway, here's a picture of me in one of the member's house during cell group :D

Me in the place they have cell group :D

Take 2 without the dancing boy...HAHAHA! :D

That is their house basement, fully equipped with projector, laptop, guitar and piano. All ready for an acoustic worship session. Haha.

The uncle sitting on the chair is the host...if I didn't get it wrong...HAHA! They are all Singapore and Malaysian expats working here in Shanghai.

Uncle Coleman and Aunty Jeh Ling are Singaporean expats. They're the ones who really took care of us...Driving us around, treating us lunch, talking and making us feel comfortable.

Coleman gave us his number and told us "If you need any kind of help. Just call me. I will help you" in the affirmative, fatherly kinda tone. I felt so assured and felt like I found myself a Shanghai-Singaporean daddy. HAHAHA!

After a short praise and worship session, we headed up to hear a sermon CD sharing by Ps Benny Ho. After the sermon CD is over, they all took turns to share how it spoke to them.

I am amazed at their openness and spiritual insights. For adults to be that open is quite rare I guess. But when we meet in the name of Jesus, how can we not open our hearts? :)

After they all shared how the sermon spoke to them, we headed to another room upstairs to pray. We shared our prayer requests and prayed for each other :D

And of course, REFRESHMENTS! Singapore-style! What's a meeting without FOOD? HAHA! Below's a picture of us fellowshipping over food :)

The refreshment table :D

The thing about their house is...IT'S SUPERRRR BIGGGGGGG! It's like some bungalow/palace! Ok...the house has 3 floors.

You may think "3 floors nia...". The thing is, one floor is SUPER BIG!! 1 floor itself can fit 5-6 bedrooms! Ok, their first floor has a huge living room and a BIGGG KITCHEN.

The basement is as shown in the above 2 pictures, is where our cell group is held. The basement has a DANCE STUDIO!!! It also has a huge unfurnished area where you can fit 4-6 table tennis tables...That's a good place for kids to play soccer or something actually...HAHA!

The second floor has like 6 bedrooms? We didn't walk the whole floor but when we looked down the corridor, we know that there are at least 4 bedrooms, if not more. We went up there to pray for each other.

And their house entrance is...WOW. Here's a picture of it...it's like an entrance to some bungalow or resort. haha!

The house entrance

We conversed readily with them in our colloquial Singapore English accent and they were like asking us what are we doing here, working as what, paid how much, etc...

PAID HOW MUCH.

When we told them we were only paid a pathetic 1500RMB/month, they were like "WHOA, how you survive?"

Coleman, an executive in Exxon Mobil, told us "Why not you intern at my company? We pay our interns quite well, some more you're from Singapore. We pay at least 4000RMB to our interns"

My heart was torn to pieces...WHY DIDN'T I KNOW HIM EARLIER?! WHY NTU CHOOSE SUCH LOW-PAYING COMPANIES?! HAHAHA!

Another guy who was also chatting with us jokingly commented "My maid is paid more than you guys. We pay her about...4000RMB/month. You want you can work for us lor...still got the Shanghai experience." HAHAHA!

I would've accepted his offer to work as his house maid if not for my bond with NTU. HAHAHA! LOL LOL!

Ok, enough ranting. What's done is done. Where I'm supposed to be is where God has intended for me to be. Haha.

From our first meeting, we learnt that this lil' expat cell group was formed EVEN BEFORE the church was formed!

Because of that, some of them attend Thanksgiving English Fellowship (TEF), some of them attended Abundant Grace Church.

In spite of the different churches they attended, they'll still faithfully meet up every Friday for cell group. So yeah, the cell group is really the main thing for them which is cool.

Yup, we attended TEF on Sunday with Coleman and Jeh Ling. Their Sunday service is at 8am -__-" BACKSIDE TEARINGLY EARLY. KTHXBYE. HAHAHA!

But the good thing is, Coleman sent his chauffeur to drive us from our house to the church :D HAHA! Hallelujah! haha

Coleman was on duty. He was the sound man for that day and thus he had to go there EVEN EARLIER...Like 7am? Wow.

Here's what the church auditorium looks like :D

The TEF auditorium :D

TEF - Thanksgiving English Fellowship

As the name implies, the whole service is conducted in English. The pastor who shared the sermon is an ang-moh and he speaks pretty well and uses a lot of Bible verses in his sermon.

The service was good...very formal and somewhat reserved. Super different from Heart of God church where service is super lively, where everyone's responsive and alive, where the music and worship is pumping.

Here, when we sat down, we will just shyly smile at the person beside us and greet him "morning" and for the rest of service, would be found only listening and whispering the lyrics of the worship songs softly.

Really different culture...I guess we're too used to the hyped up atmosphere and the responsiveness & excitement of the congregation in Heart of God church.

Yup, after the respectful and somewhat solemn service was over, we decided to take photo in the auditorium :D

Me! :) After service

Can you see the guy clad in a blazer in the background? That westerner is the guy who preached. Haha. Not bad an orator...but his style was more of explanatory teaching than passionate preaching. Still good though :)

Chor Seng :D

The awesome thing about this church? They have a reception room which SERVES FOOD!! :D :D HAHAHA!

They serve cakes, cookies and coffee :) Below is a picture of the refreshment table...the lady was kinda taken aback by my camera I guess...HAHA!

The refreshment table of cakes! :)

The reception room was packed! Can you see Chor Seng at the left side? haha!

Outside the reception room is a very nice carpark garden. It also has a very nice side view of the church building :D

Carpark :D

Yup, here's a few pictures of the church's view from the outside.

This is the entrance of the TEF service :D

What it looks like from the outside :D

The cross

After that, Coleman treated us to brunch at some semi-fast-food chain at I don't know where. HAHA! We really don't know where we are because we were entirely chauffeured to and fro. Haha!

Over brunch, we got to talk to Coleman & Jeh Ling's kids - Denise and her brother (I forgot his name...kthxbye..haha!)

They were both educated in an American school in Shanghai. So they speak American English. Their accents are a giveaway. Haha.

Learnt a lot about their schools. Their schools have inter-school games with only the International Schools. So they only get to mix with international students and not the locals.

Most of their classmates in their American school are Koreans. So it's like a mini American-Korean environment in their schools.

Anyway, here's a picture of the pork chop noodles I ordered :)

Pork chop noodles! :)

Yup...after the first visit, I haven't went back in 2 weeks because we've been travelling...haha! So yeah, we'll probably visit another church the next time round.

Maybe Abundant Grace church or we'll visit our fellow NTU friend, Wei Jiat's church :) Yupyup, thank God for awesome brothers & sisters in Christ :)