School Society and Board

Following Prof. Dykstra's speeches this summer on Christian education, the Session of CERC called two meetings for the congregation for the purpose of beginning a society for Christian education in Singapore.  The first, on September 19, was an informational meeting.  My husband followed up on Prof. Dykstra's speeches, emphasizing the importance of Christian education, explaining Session's goals in setting up these two meetings, and explaining the purpose and function of a school society and a school board, as well as how these two groups work.

The second meeting was held three weeks later, on October 10.  At this meeting a school society was formed and a school board elected.  Twenty-seven men present signed up for the society; three who were not present but had requested to join were added to the list; and my husband was added pending the arrival of our family's membership papers in CERC. (The requirements for joining the school society were that the men be confessing members of CERC.  My husband has the call to serve as CERC's own pastor right now and will answer that call Sunday, Lord willing.)

The men begin to sign up to join the school society.

The line of those who desire to join the society grows.

Following the formation of a society, six men were elected to the first school board.  These men will now begin an incredible amount of work to determine how and when a school might begin here.

Four Session members counting the votes for board members

The first school board--Ivan Chew, Wee Gim Theng, 

Lim Seow Thong, Lim Beng Young, Daniel Tang, and Roy Tan

The board has its first meeting planned for Thursday night Singapore time--Thursday morning U.S. time.  We ask that you join us in prayer for these men and for the cause of Christian education in Singapore, that a good Reformed school might be established here according to the Lord's will!

More Homeschoolers' Outings

The homeschoolers in CERC continue to get together once a month for an outing.  In August we went to Jurong East Swimming Complex.

A great waterpark--and it costs our whole family less than $10 to get in!

Some of the kids in the lazy river

KFC for supper

Group photo of the kids at the end of the night

(not sure where Jessica went!)

In September we spent an evening at Gardens by the Bay.  I wrote about another outing there earlier, so this time I won't include pictures of the playground area.  The children's section closed early this time, so we ate supper in the center of the Gardens, by the Supertrees (see below), and the kids played around there for a while.

Devotions under the Supertrees
(It gets dark in Singapore around 7:00 p.m., year-round.)

Getting ready to play hide and seek

Jotham, Megan, and Elijah

Jessica and Jochebed

Some of the boys kicking a ball around

We had an extra outing at the end of September:  Kids Stop, a nice new building connected to the Science Center, with many fun activities for the kids.

Emily the pilot

Megan and Jotham

Jessica and Nichelle

Checking out groceries

We spent a lot of time by this big slide.  The kids (and my husband!) would lie down at the bottom of the slide, hang onto the handle, and be pulled up between 3 and 7 meters high, then let go of the rope and drop/slide down.  Eric's friend Johann is above.

Eric

We have another outing planned for next week and always enjoy these times of fellowship.

Another Year of School

It has been a long time since I posted a blog about homeschooling, and quite a bit has changed since then.  This year we have four kids in school:  Jessica in 6th, Eric in 5th, Emily in 2nd, and Megan in kindergarten.  The three oldest kids have rearranged their bedrooms to fit their desks in there, which is a better working environment for them--less distractions if they are not in the same area as the two-year-old. :-)

This year Jessica and Eric are taking science via DVD from Bob Jones.  This company and its science teacher came very recommended by other people from church, and our kids are learning a lot.  Jessica and Eric were also interested in learning Spanish, which I said they could do as long as it didn't interfere with their Chinese!  I loved Spanish myself, so it's fun for me to take it with them too.  That is also done on DVD.  So we moved one of the TVs that the owner of this flat had left here into the boys' bedroom and bought a DVD player, and now Jessica and Eric do their DVD classes in there.

Learning about chemical weathering  

Doing one of their science experiments on the 

balcony outside our flat--making a volcanic eruption

Jessica and Eric are also taking Bible from a different teacher this year--Mike VanderVeen in Randolph.  Mike has been videotaping his class lectures and putting those on a website for our kids, and has also emailed me worksheets and tests--and does the grading for me. Last year he also included Jessica in a reading unit he did with his class.  We cannot express enough appreciation to Mike for all the work he has done for our family!

My husband continues to teach Bible and science to Emily and Megan, and often Jason sits in on the classes too.

 

We have joined another homeschooling family from church for art class once a week.  We meet on Wednesdays, at our house after Bible study every other week and at their house the opposite weeks.  Nichelle Wong is in 7th grade ("Secondary 1" in Singapore) and in her first year of homeschooling, and her mom found some drawing DVDs taught from a Christian perspective.  Jessica and Eric are taking and enjoying that class.

Nichelle, Jessica, and Eric (and Jason!) taking art at our place

One of the youth from church, Tze Yan, comes to our house once a week to do a craft with the younger kids.

Tze Yan's mom, Jean, still comes to our house every Thursday afternoon to teach us Chinese.  In January we started learning the Chinese characters, and it is very fun to be able to read some words in Chinese as we go around the city!  We also understood a few more words at this year's Mooncake Gospel Meeting at church, where the speech is given in Chinese each year.  Jessica, Eric, and I take the class from Jean, and just this school year I started teaching the younger girls Chinese.

The rest of the classes are mine to teach.

Kindergarten work stations like Heritage has--Megan working on her "A" journal page

 (A is for animals, in case you look closely and see frogs on the top! :-))

Calendar work

Doing the "revise and proofread" part of Eric's English writing unit

Emily doing her math worksheet

We think often of the teachers and students in the Protestant Reformed schools, and pray for them when we begin our school day.  May God bless the education of His covenant children.

A Blessed Sunday

Today Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church celebrated its 27th anniversary.  The celebration theme was "Praise Be to Our Great and Merciful God."  The celebration began with a morning sermon from Psalm 89 on God's covenant faithfulness and continued with a program after the morning service.

Daniel Ong leading the program and reading letters 

from four Protestant Reformed ministers/professors

The program included special numbers by all of the Bible study groups in church.

Two of the Bible studies singing a Psalter number

Two more Bible study groups

The Covenant Keepers and Covenant Keepers Seniors

(young people and young adults)

The program concluded with a short exhortation by my husband and then the customary cake-cutting.

The Session singing (with the rest of the congregation) 

Elder Lee, Deacon Tang, Elder Wee, Deacon Lim, 

Elder Chan, Rev. Lanning, Elder Wong, Elder Leong

The program was followed by a lunch made by the youth.

American food :-)

Another wonderful part of the day was the presence in church of little Jonam Tan.  Jonam was due to be born this month, but was born before we left for our furlough in June. After a couple of months in the hospital, Jonam was healthy enough to go home; and today was his first day in church.  He is the first baby to be born in CERC in almost three years. What a special blessing that he could join us in church on the church's anniversary--another evidence of God's covenant faithfulness!

The song the youth sang for their special number was Psalter #425.  The rest of the congregation joined the singing on stanzas 5 and 6.  My husband and I enjoyed singing verse 5 again, remembering the many times we have sung that song at baptisms through the years; but this time verse 6 also struck me:

"The Lord His covenant people planted

In lands of nations which He granted...

Let songs of praise to Him ascend,

And hallelujahs without end."

Medical Care

Having had to take Jason to the doctor this past week, I thought I'd tell you about Singapore's medical care, as we have experienced it.  Of course this is somewhat limited, but it will give you an idea of at least some of the medical care here.

Doctors' clinics can be found in many, many places.  If we walk outside our building and cross the parking lot, we are already at one clinic.  There is another a little farther down the street.  These are both what we would call "family doctors."  Within a mile is the Bishan Baby and Child Clinic.  These places each have one doctor and one or two people at the front desk.  No appointment is necessary; you walk in and take a "queue number," and when your turn comes up, the doctor sees you.  The pharmacy is also right on site, so if you are the only patient at the time, you can be in and out with all your medicines within 10-15 minutes.

The clinic closest to our place

The family doctors here prescribe a lot of medicines.  For a fever and cough, we take home at least four prescriptions.  There are a few reasons for this.  One is that the pharmacy being in the doctor's office means that the doctor makes extra money for the prescriptions he sells.  Another is that people are anxious to get back to work or school, so they will take anything available to them to help them get rid of the sickness as quickly as possible.  We don't like to give our kids so many meds though, so thankfully Dr. Decker in Michigan has been willing to answer a couple of emails I sent him, asking which medicines our kids really needed among all the bottles on our counter!  We still refer back to those emails when we go to the doctor here.

These are the meds we had in our house at one time earlier this year--

one for Eric, two or three for Jason, and all the rest for Megan!  

We probably didn't use half of them.

For all that, we have only had a couple of expensive prescriptions given to us.  Much more typical is what we experienced the other day:  my husband took Jason to the doctor and came back with four medicines, having paid $35 for the consultation fee and all the meds combined!  You can't beat that! :-)

The hospitals here are known for being very good.  You can see from the following picture that they have some world-class doctors in Singapore.  This was part of a sign inside a hospital lobby.  (NHCS, KKH, and SGH are all different hospitals here.)

The heart/liver transplant done in 2009 was for Pastor Lau.

Our family has had to use the hospitals here a couple of times for testing and minor problems.  (For example, in our two-year-old's terms, explaining why he went to the hospital once:  "Bead in nose 'n doctor 'n bead out!")  I have stayed home with the rest of the family while my husband has driven the sick kids to the hospital, but he said the hospitals feel very much like those in the U.S.  Megan was hospitalized overnight once for observation and testing when she had a terrible rash all over her body.  The term "hospitalized" is not used here so much though--they would say Megan was "warded."  That is because most hospitals do not have private rooms, but patient wards.  Megan's condition required her to be in isolation, so she did have her own room.

Megan in the hospital in January

In the similarities and in the sometimes difficult differences in doctors' approaches here, we are reminded that doctors are only means in the hand of God, and that our health is always in His control.