Christmas Party 2023

21^st December 2023 — A different type of Christmas Party was organized this year with the help of a small group of singers singing many oldies to our dialect elders. I am sure it must have brought back many memories to some of our dialect elders as these songs were sung with their original lyrics and not the lyrics which have been converted to Christian praises. I noticed many of them were singing along with the singers. The lead singer of the group led Florence (Deacon Nathan’s wife) to Christ some years ago.

After singing about 7 songs, the leader of the group gave an evangelistic message, sharing that Christianity is not a western religion and connected the ancient Chinese pictograph characters to the records in the book of Genesis. Here are some examples:

For those who understand Chinese, it would make a lot of sense. However, for me I had to assume what was said because I can’t read Chinese characters so I don’t know how the word was constructed.

I am afraid that maybe some of the dialect elders are in the same boat as me because they too can’t read. At least that is the reason given why they are not reading the Holy Bible.

After the message, the people were led outside MPH1 to a buffet that was more than sufficient to feed the 70 over people who came to the party. Some of the people packed the leftovers home for their families and neighbours.

There was a small technical hiccup (which some may claim as Murphy’s Law) right at the start of the program when the singing group could not start up their computer system with the projector. Realizing the situation, some of the DLT (Dialect Leadership Team) went outside to pray. Suddenly, the computer system problem was corrected when they discovered that a newly bought piece of equipment had failed and they replaced it with an old one.

We pray for all the newcomers including 20 who are non-Christians, that God will touch their hearts. Included among them is Bee Teng’s mother and Chih Chiang’s parents. We hope they will come back for the Christmas Eve service.

Martin Cheah