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Singapore is an island which lies just off the southern tip of the Malaysia Peninsular between Malaysia and Indonesia. It is both a city and a country and it's a very modern, highly urbanised, clean city which imposes steep fines for littering and the chewing of gum. Singapore is a multi-cultural city with a population of over 5.5million people from many countries. The official languages spoken include English, Malay, Tamil and Chinese Mandarin.

Singapore is the commercial centre of Southeast Asia and its economy has been ranked as the most open in the world and it is the 7th least corrupt country in its business dealings. It has low tax rates and the third highest per-capita GDP in the world in terms of Purchasing Power. The manufacturing of electronics, chemicals, biomedical sciences, logistics and transport engineering contributes 20%-25% of Singapore's annual GDP and tourism is another high income source.

Singapore has tall skyscrapers of offices, high-rise residential buildings, lots of great shopping centres with regular sales, Chinese shop-houses, Victorian buildings, numerous Christian Churches, Buddhist and Hindu temples, great public transport, an enormous choice of dining out areas, extensive leisure and entertainment facilities, famous hotels like Raffles and good security. So Singapore is a safe pleasant city to roam and we travelled easily around the city because the train system is very efficient and many of the shops are underground and linked by air-conditioned-shopping corridors, which means that the city can be explored without having to spend hours pounding the hot pavements at street level.

This year, Singapore was our third port of call and we'd visited it last year where we enjoyed exploring "The Gardens by the Sea" which has a series of exhibitions of plants, ferns and orchids which are housed in huge glass domes which are air-conditioned and cooled by man-made waterfalls and mist clouds throughout the several storey high facility. Escalators, lifts and a spiral ramp are used to move around this beautiful installation and everyone who visits it raves about its beauty.

We left the Sea Princess at 8.30am and walked to the nearest railway station but due to a power failure we had to use a free bus to take us into the city. As it was a Sunday we planned to attend St Andrew's Cathedral in the centre of the city. Ken had researched the route on the internet before we left Sydney and we were surprised that we arrived in time for the 9am service. As one of the oldest churches in Singapore it was built in 1823 in the heart of the city where 'life began' in modern Singapore when its' fonder Sir Stamford Raffles founded the city. The beautiful white gothic-style original church building which is still in use today, was used as an emergency hospital before the fall of Singapore in 1942. The original building has a gothic design but over the years underground extensions of halls and sanctuary buildings have been added to provide for the various congregations. 

The church is open to the public each day of the week where people come to pray and worship and on Sundays it provides multi-cultural services throughout the day – not unlike WBC. There are Chinese, Filipino, Tamal and several English speaking services each Sunday and over 10 clergy who care for the huge congregations.

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On our arrival we were made very welcome at the service which was held in a large modern underground auditorium. A visiting Malaysian evangelist preached on forgiveness from Matthew 6. He challenged his Chinese brothers and sisters to follow Jesus' example of forgiveness demonstrated in his free gift of forgiveness won and expressed throughout his life on earth and from the cross. He referred to how hanging onto resentment, the family honour of 'payback' and the harbouring of bitterness is so damaging both physically and spiritually and cripples us inside. Forgiveness others sets me free, sets the other person free and there is emotional healing as expressed in, James 5:16. The singing was joyful and we were blessed by this service. Afterwards all visitors were invited for coffee at the church coffee shop where one of the welcoming members bought us coffee and talked with us as we filled in welcome /contact cards.

We'd met Brenda, a Filipino girl who had just moved to Singapore last week and is looking for a job in IT. She sat next to us during the service and we encouraged her to link up with the welcomers as this was her first visit to the church. Over coffee she shared her story with us and said she doesn't read the Bible often as she does not know where to begin. Our welcomer was able to show Brenda at least 2 home Bible Studies she could attend in homes near the area where she is living and Brenda became very excited about having found a welcoming church family. She also learnt that there was a 2pm Filipino service which she planned to attend so that she could meet other Filipino Christians. We exchanged emails and intend to keep in touch in the future. We believe that we were meant to attend this service because when we first spoke to Brenda she was not confident to meet with the welcomers but because we encouraged her she was so glad that she felt included. Maria, our welcomer assured us that the church would follow up Brenda's interest in joining a bible study home group within the week. How encouraging this day was to Ken and I. Several people in the coffee shop were interested in our HSM and took cards from us so that they could learn more about HSM and we asked them to pray for us on board the Sea Princess over the next2 months. We prayed with Brenda and took photos before saying farewell to her.

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Leaving the church area we headed straight down underground to cool off and do some "window shopping", to buy a few medical necessities and to see more of the city. We were amazed to find people having 'picnics" underground in wide-open spaces where the underground tunnels converge. Families and friends had bought blankets, plastic mats etc and food which they laid on the cool tiled floor spaces just like we do in parks or at the beach. Some people were dancing to music from boom boxes and others just sat and chatted together.

When we did venture outside it was extremely humid and hot and whilst there were several grassed parklands only a few people were sitting under the shade of trees

We eventually had to retreat back underground as it was so hot and we found a lovely eating place where we ordered Chinese dumplings for lunch. Later we travelled around on the underground railway to see other sites before heading back to the port and the Sea Princess.

We had had an interesting and satisfying day in Singapore but we were hot and tired when we finally walked from the station near the port (the power failure having been restored)