9 days into Singapore and...

....I now automatically speak in Mandarin when I approach any Chinese person

....I am accustomed to receiving instructions at work instead of giving them

....I remember that people don't understand what I mean when I say 'dodgy' 

....I realise that HOME is where the Family is

I am missing the parents and sister LOTS. Perhaps it's coz everyone I know here has immediate family to go back to and so makes the lack of family even more obvious to me. In a way it was ironic that when I visited Cell Group last night, the discussion topic was Families. I didn't dare say a word out of fear that I would get emotional and start to cry...i mean, I'm normally not talkative but I literally DID NOT SAY A WORD during the entire discussion. Now THAT is quiet even for my standards. 

 

Despite my lack of verbal expression, my mind did come up with some good thoughts. I remember a time (quite a long period of time actually) when I found myself wishing I had been brought up in a Christian family, not because my desire was for my parents to be saved, but because I thought it'd be nice to have gone to Sunday School, to be able to get some Godly advice from the parents and support for what I believed in. I'm still unsure where all that came from but have decided that at the very bottom of it, that way of thinking demeaned my parents. I was basically saying my parents weren't good enough, even though I didn't identify it as such at the time.

It has taken a while but I'm glad that I now no longer think like that. I would not choose to have it any different, apart from that if I had been brought up in a Christian family meant that my parents would have had the chance to know God a lot earlier. I am thankful for parents that have always loved the sister and I, and have always given us their presence and their time. I realise that not everyone KNOWS their parents love them, so I'm glad I have always known. I'm glad to be in a place where the Good times are good enough that they outweigh the Bad.

=)