Saturday afternoon, I drove all the way to the magnificent Tai residence at Burbank to attend the farewell party of Edward & Diana Backhouse. Both are going to the UK for a while, as Ed secured a job there with Barclays Bank (that's the bank that sponsors the English Premier League). Both are very excited about the move & look forward to their adventure abroad. Ed told me that they will end up staying about 500m from Davin & Irene's place!! There were heaps & heaps of food at the party, more than enough to feed those in attendance. Di's family (the Tai family) generously kept frying the spring rolls & bbq'ing the chicken wings. There were still people rocking up even as I left the place just before 6pm to pick up my very good family friend, Mark Wang, from St Lucia, as Mark was crashing over at our place that nite. Mark had returned to Brisbane for studies (he studies at UQ), after spending the uni holidays back in Malaysia. Mark & I got to the dining area just in time for grace (talk about timing) & Uncle Paul & Aunty Daisy were also our guests for dinner.
Sunday was a big, eventful one - I was out from just after 9am to just before 10pm. After church, I took Mark to the IKEA store at Logan, as Mark was looking for a bed for his accomodation as well as various other things. (He stayed at King's College last semester, then moved out to a unit in St Lucia & is sharing the unit with a couple of other students.) Both of us were accompanied by Ben & one of Mark's "flatmates". The first thing the 4 of us did upon arrival at IKEA was to head for IKEA Food Services for lunch. The cafeteria was really packed. We had to queue for 15-20 minutes. Luckily, we didn't take long to find a table.
It's my first time I had a Swedish meal. I ordered 15 meatballs (with gravy & strawberry jam), 1 bread roll, 1 butter portion, 1 orange juice, 1 jelly, 1 dime cake (which had chocolate & caramel) & 1 lemon meringue tart. The jam was lumped together with the meatballs & gravy. I made sure not too much of the meatballs touched the jam (otherwise, it'd be weird), & I had the jam with the bread roll & butter portion. Lunch was filling. After our meals (of which, all 4 seemed very satisfied), we then looked for the things that Marked needed. Whichever bed Mark chose was never going to fit my boot! However, Ben had told Mark that the Unicellers (Mark's Bible study group) will be coming to IKEA next Saturday & that Ben was going to join them in his wagon. So Mark decided to leave the bed for next Saturday. Instead, Mark shortlisted a few beds & will make his pick next Saturday. Mark managed to find a table for his laptop & also purchased quite a few kitchenware & a couple of other items for his flat. All those items managed to fit nicely into my boot.
After dropping off Mark & his flatmate, & then Ben, I headed to Yuan's place at Yeronga to meet up with a few Clay guys (BT, Yuan, Winston & Chi) to discuss this year's plans for the brothers of Clay. I thought I was going to be really late, but in the event, I actually got there before the other guys. The guys had been playing squash at a couple of courts in Acacia Ridge, which Ed Chee had booked. Obviously, I didn't join the squashers because of my time at IKEA. We ended having the Clay guys meeting at a riverside park in Yeronga (not far from Wanganui Gardens where Ed & Edith's reception was held a few years ago). Various ideas were bandied around during the group discussion, which lasted no more than 45 minutes. On the whole, we did get the ball rolling but we decided to go our separate ways & think up more ideas which we will communicate to each other, & we would then proceed from there.
After the meeting, me & Winston had dinner at Miss India, a new restaurant in St Lucia. I had quite a bit: Madras lamb with saffron rice, 1 samosa, 1 flat Indian bread (forgot the name) & 1 tandoori chicken - all for just $10. The Indian was not bad, but I wouldn't say fantastic either. I got to know Winston a bit more (& vice versa) & we talked about various stuff, nothing in particular, but our conversations moved from 1 thing to another to another, just like that.
Then we headed to church (Winston left his car there) for the Missions Encouragement Meeting, where a few people shared about their experiences from their short-term missions trip overseas. A number of people did presentations:
- Dr Peter Fung (Fayette's dad), on his time in China.
- Noelle Chan, of the HK Missions group (don't know their full name) - this group goes to Hong Kong each year.
- Sean, on his time in China as part of the MSI Dental team.
- Able, on his time in India.
- Mikey & Iggy on their time in Taiwan.
- Mag & her friend Rachel, on their time in China.
The presentations were excellent & very encouraging, although Sean had the misfortune of experiencing some computer glitch which needed the use of another laptop (not his fault, though - things just happen). While that glitch was rectified, Able did his presentation & thereafter Sean did his. The glitch also resulted in the MEM taking longer than anticipated. Nevertheless, it was time well spent listening to the overseas missions experiences of various people. Great to hear that everyone had such a blessed & enjoyable time overseas as they help spread the gospel of Jesus. Not long after MEM ended, I headed home as I was so tired. Tired, but very satisfied with how the weekend panned out.
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