Thursday, Zishan came round and we played some duets on our guitars for 40 min. Then, Patrick came and we had our first one-to-one meeting.. very official 🙂

Friday, Risa, her parents and sister came round for a bit and Jens, Tab and Ruth joined us. It was good to see them all again (Photos here). I then had to rush off to the weekend away that I was helping out with. It took us 3 hours to get to Wickham (south-east London) when it should usually take one and a half hours. We took two cars and one minibus – about 24 people in total. We had a nice meal with Liz (kairos worker)’s parents and were then dispatched to our various host families. I was in a nice family – the parents were Bill and Dawn and they had two children; Howard and Louise. Cheng-shi and I stayed with them and they looked after us very well.

On Saturday, we started the day with a Bible study on John 4 (the Samaritan woman by the well) which I lead. Later on in the day, Lisa lead a Bible study on John 10 (the gate and the Good shepherd). Our Bible study group consisted of people from Taiwan, China, Korea and Japan. There was a Japanese lady who was very eager to ask questions and also a Chinese lady who was very interested in engaging with the passages. Most people in the group seemed to understand well, which was something of a relief as these are quite difficult passages. We focused on how Jesus provides us with satisfaction – life to the full.

After the Bible study in the morning, we went on a short walk, had lunch and then went on a long and slightly muddy walk through some nearby forest (I didn’t know such existed within the M25). We then had the second Bible study and a meal. After this, we played various games (Jenga and I taught a Polish girl Othello). We were then taught various Greek dances by Tim, one of the Kairos workers for this year.

On Sunday morning, we went to the local church and were given a very friendly welcome. We watched some bell-ringing and joined in the service. We went for a short walk (20 min) afterwards and I chatted to a guy from Taiwan who has been looking seriously at Christianity for 6 months who said he was ready to become a Christian! I remember the first time I met him, he was not at all interested but then we got talking and I explained that I studied the Bible somewhat scientifically. I drew him a few ways of representing the trinity, and it seems from then on that even though I didn’t see him much, he went to one of the churches in Cambridge and discovered that the Bible actually makes sense scientifically. Praise God!

Cheng-shi and I went to another house for some Sunday lunch before setting off and finally returning home about quarter past six.

Photos from the weekend can be found here