Two welcomes

On Saturday, November 17, Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church officially welcomed us to their fellowship following a speech by Prof. Engelsma.  Elder Wee Gim Theng led a very nice program, beginning with the following two slides:

After this and a short letter to our family, read by Elder Wee and displayed on the screen, our family was asked to come to the front to introduce ourselves and have a cake cutting. Apparently cake cutting is a custom here at welcomes and farewells.  The cake and its cutting are shown below:

After we returned to our seats, pictures of each family in the congregation were shown on the screen, and those present were asked to stand up so we could see them and find out who they were.  These introductions were followed by dinner with the whole congregation.

Last Saturday, December 1, the young people had their own welcome program for us.  The "youth" here are made up of two groups.  Covenant Keepers consists of those ages 12-16. Covenant Keepers Seniors are ages 17 and up.  One of the youth, Matthias Wee, gave a beautiful "exhortation," as they call it, on the first verses of Genesis 12.  He spoke of Abraham leaving behind his "country, kindred, and father's house" to follow the Lord's leading, and of God's blessing on Abraham, which was ultimately the fulfillment of His covenant promises in the sending of Jesus Christ.  He concluded that it is Jesus Christ in whom CERC and our family have our unity, and Christ Who makes us one.  It was a wonderful encouragement to us as we begin the work here.

The young people here have been learning to sing in parts, and had practiced a couple of Psalter numbers for us, which they sang after Matthias' speech.  I have included a video of them singing the first stanza of Psalter #367.  The video doesn't quite do it justice, but their singing was beautiful.

The following two pictures show how well the children are fitting in here.  Although they miss their friends back home dearly, they are making good friends with the youth here too.  We thank God for our friends in the U.S., as well as our new friends here!