The Lion Port, Singapore

On September 1, my wife and I went our separate ways. (No, not divorce.) She returned to Africa through Dubai, and I began to get ready to go to Singapore.

Antionette made a bet with Jason that his mother would remember to wish him a happy birthday. Ahhh, I don’t think she won. My Lover does not remember b’days, or anniversaries, not even her own. Our forty-fifth anniversary happened yesterday, on the 14^th. I was in Singapore, and she is in Mago, I think. The last I heard from her, (one sentenced in two weeks) she had misplaced some money and was frantically tearing her place apart to find it. Earlier, the kids, Jason and Antionette, were looking for her. She arrived a day late from Dubai, as far as I can tell. They were worried.

Dr. John Clark confirmed that he and his family will be coming to EVI for three months starting Nov. We are praying that it will all work out. We need to start worrying about other things than finding a doctor. I am truly blessed by the United Prayer Meetings we are having at EVI. True or not, I attribute the gift of a doctor as an answer to that new initiative. Also, our lifestyle center is full for this month’s session. I expect more, if the prayer warriors do not get discouraged and quit prematurely. It isn't easy to persevere in getting up to pray with a group at 5:30 every morning. It is especially hard when the president up-and-leaves every second week. In any case, I will keep pushing, and the Lord will reward.

What follows is a rundown of my trip to Malaysia and Singapore:

I arrived in Singapore at 12:05 AM, Thursday. (Lost Wed. in crossing the dateline.) I preached at 10am the same morning in Malaysia. There were about 300 in attendance at these ASI Asia meetings, which managed to fill the hall in the Grand Paragon Hotel. The place is beautiful enough. The food was good. For the first time I tasted dragon fruit, both white and purple. It has a mild flavor, the purple being stronger, something like papaya. The three preachers are Andre Waller from TEKOA, now residing in Mount Missionary Institute, Frederick Paul from India, going to school in the Philippines, and myself. They are good preachers and we were very much on the same page. The problem with these meetings was that everything ran late and I got the signal that I had 10 minutes left, ten minutes into a 35-minute talk. So I preached half a sermon, powerful non-the-less. In a sense, it was good. I ditched what I said I would do, and used the half sermon as an excuse to do what I perceived was needed. I think it turned out better.

I slept several times on the trip and still managed to read 100 pages in Volume Two of the Testimonies to the Church. I've got a new T-shirt that says Adventist on the front and ASI on the back. Everyone went for a tour of Singapore today, and I went to bed--slept three hours. Not good, I think, although, it felt great.

I reconnected with my cousin, Madeleine Farnell, in North Bay, Ontario. We spend nearly an hour on the phone, catching up. We had both lost each other’s contact info. I am sincerely grateful to reconnect. She expressed the same. My great hope is that we all can be in the kingdom of God in the end.

I'm in Singapore. Hit my bed sometime around 10:30 PM, but this was perhaps the best night's sleep I've had since arriving. The couple I hang out with drove me to visit a Lifestyle Center three and one half hours north of where I preached in Malaysia. The place is called Eanon. Hartland Institute started it. Just a young fellow (42) runs the place. Beautiful. The building is very modern. I wish we could duplicate it. It handles 34 patients and they have just that, 34. It's on the top of a mountain in a jungle, yet people come from everywhere to take their simple treatments. (Simpler than ours.) There are patients from America here, as well.

In any case, we returned to Singapore and went to a light show that evening. I am living in a guest room in the Singapore SDA Union Offices. I told the secretary to give me till noon so I can get some work done. After that, if someone wants to take me around, I'll be ready.

I ate a ton of Mangosteen?? (The Queen of fruit) and two other fruit I've never tasted before. Heaven will be like that, I think.

Today, I start doing a week of prayer at the Balestier Road Church in S'pore. I am toying with the idea of making it a real week of prayer and not a week-of-preaching. We'll see how it turns out.

I had a pleasant day, yesterday. A church member picked me up and brought me to lunch and then brought me to see some amazing gardens. We then drove around the most beautiful garden-like city you ever saw. Singapore is amazing, but it has its down side. The people are surrounded with so much wealth, and beauty and interesting things to see and do, that they cannot but lose sight of heaven. They have a little paradise on earth. They are becoming soft, and spiritually lethargic. The church is in dire trouble on this island. Spiritual Formation is a big problem. There is much complaining by the church members, and except for the damage they cause themselves; I would say much of the criticism is warranted. They most desperately need a time of trouble.

My preaching was strong last night--thank God. I organized the church to spend time in united prayer. It isn't really my place, I suppose, but I decided to employ a young Philippino to engage the church in prayer before and after the service. People seem to be so spiritually needy.

News from the island paradise of Singapore: I preached number two sermon last night. Only this time, I organized some in the church to come early to pray for the service. After the service we broke up into small groups to pray for 15 minutes. I believe it is effective in bringing the church to unity, and in bringing the Holy Spirit to work among us. I delivered the sermon with more than ordinary zeal. I've also been asked to do the devotional for the Union staff every morning, this week. They invited me to speak for one morning. After I was done, they asked me to speak every morning.

The person who took me to lunch yesterday, took me swimming in an Olympic-size swimming pool afterward. We had a better time, I thought, than going around tourist-ing. He, Paul Teo, is an old man of 64. He can almost swim as fast as I can overhand, except that he uses the breast-stroke. He can certainly swim farther than I can, as I get out of breadth too easily. (Well, not that easily. I can do more than two 50-meter pool lengths without stopping to catch my breadth.)

The lunches are always similar. We go to a vegetarian restaurant and we eat Chinese Vegetarian fare. Lot's of mushrooms--mushrooms in everything and soft tofu. Never-the-less, I am doing well on it. I have food in my room for breakfast, lots of bread, and fruit, granola and PB. What else can I possibly want?

Everyday unfolds much like the previous ones. I have my devotional time, I prepare, I exercise and someone takes me to lunch. Yesterday, four of us went to lunch together. We finished lunch with a feed of durian fruit, apparently the highest quality durian. It didn't smell, and it was delicious. I ate much more than I anticipated eating. I took a long walk in the park and preached my heart out in the evening. So much for Wednesday.

Today, I had a great lunch. We went to a buffet style restaurant. Finally, I could choose what I wanted, and I didn't want anything slimy, no eggplant, mushrooms and soft tofu. I even ate ice cream and finished off with too much sugarcane juice, too full.

There is a battle raging over Spiritual Formation here. I am in danger of being dragged into it. I hope not, but if I am, I am determined to hold no punches. Spiritual Formation may well be one of the most insidious deceptions ever foisted upon Adventism. Someone has to speak out. However, I will not invite myself into the battle. I am asked to have worship with the Union officials every morning, and the driver behind Spiritual Formation is there . . . looking pretty grim. We'll see how it develops.

September 15, 2013,

I am in the air between S'pore and Japan. I believe my preaching was with much power in that paradise city. I had a good time. It seemed long and was exhausting, but I had some really neat experiences. There seemed to be several non-SDA in the audience who were very interested in what I had to say. One wealthy couple belonging to a mega church, 20,000 members spent more than an hour with me. A very charismatic prosperity gospel preacher runs the church they belong to by the name of Joseph Prince. They question the man's motives and the validity of his messages. The couple came to my room. We talked about many of the man’s teachings, late into the night. They see much more depth in the content of our message than in the fluff of the prosperity nonsense. Another couple that wanted to talk had been led by God to the German camp meeting Janet and I attended just a month ago. Only it wasn't this year they attended, it was between the two years that I went to Germany. Anyway, the people at the camp took them under their wings for three months, and now they are close to joining the Advent movement. 

I guess you’ve all heard about the natural disaster threatening Colorado. I've seen pictures on the Internet. There are cars under water everywhere, over a hundred people missing, and five are confirmed dead. I've always wondered when our turn for a natural disaster would come. Apparently, there is no Internet at EVI or natural gas. Our lifestyle guests cannot get treatments--no hot water. So, why exactly am I going there? Dunno!

I don’t think EVI suffered any damage, but there is some doubt that I can actually reach my home. No matter, the God I serve only allows that which I need and which is best. So says the Preacher to his Tribe.