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I haven’t been able to blog much while here in Singapore. We have been in meetings all day and at our hotel you have to buy Internet in 30 min blocks. It isn’t terribly cheap and so I usually only buy one. I use it to call home to Budapest on Skype. After that, there usually are a few emails to deal with and then my time is up. Today, I have some more time since there aren’t any meetings so I headed to a local mall and found free wifi at a McDonalds. It’s nice to not have the clock counting down on me. The picture was taken 5 minutes ago.

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We had a great week of meetings. We met at the East Asia Area of Affairs office. They have a beautiful office on the 24th floor. It was a perfect place to meet. We made a lot of progress on the new Global Measurement Application. We were trained on the system in the morning and in the afternoon we had time to work on our own system. I’m very encouraged at the progress we made. At a few points during the week, I wondered if the system would be ready for us to use in Eastern Europe. I still have my concerns, but we are moving forward and trusting God. I’ve already had the chance to show a few of our Hungarian staff how to use it. Hopefully, on Monday and Tuesday, I will be able to train some staff in Ukraine and Croatia. Also, I will have a few more meetings this week with a few of us that are working on finalizing the list of enhancements that we need to the system.

Here’s the whole group at the end of the time with a view of the Singapore skyline in the background:
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Eating is one of the best parts of being in Singapore. The guy that is leading this project lived here in Singapore for 6 years and in Asia for 23 so he knows the food. I call it the Mark Griffen Food Tour. It includes Malaysian, Chinese, Indian, and a few others. I’ve never been much for Asian food, but I love the places he takes us. Here are a couple of examples:

Jumbo Seafood. Their specialty is Chili Crab which is crab with special Singaporean chili sauce. They also have wonderful Pepper crab along with other seafood dishes. The restaurant is right on the coast and we ate in the open air overlooking the harbour. I was watching the news after we got home that night and that very day they held the Singapore Chili Crab cook-off. Who won? Jumbo Seafood of course. We had the best chili crab in Singapore.
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We also celebrated a great week of meetings at a Chinese Restaurant that is on the 60th floor of the tallest building in Singapore. Not only is the food great, the views were unbelievable. The price wasn’t bad either.
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In a few minutes, I’m off to lunch. I’m headed to California Pizza Kitchen. Coming from Budapest, having a little American Cuisine is a big treat!!!

I know it seems like all we do is eat, but it isn’t much fun to tell you all the details of our meeting. Keith has a great summary of the meetings if you want to know more.

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I made it to Singapore! The flight was uneventful and I was able to sleep 5-6 hours! That means I arrived fairly rested and I feel great as we start the meetings this morning. We are going to have about 10 people from all over the world. There are reps from the US, Europe, India and various parts of Asia. It is always fun to get to interact with our staff from around the world. I have the sense that God is going to do something big as we partner together.

Here’s the view from the conference room. It overlooks Singapore Harbor. It is amazing to watch them unload and load the ships. Definately a meeting distraction.
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Pray that I will maintain balance as I try to stay connected to my job in Budapest while engaging in the training time here. I have a feeling that I will sleep well each night.

I miss my family already. It is going to be a long 10 days from that standpoint.

Yesterday, Larry returned to the office after some vacation. We realized that it was one day short of 2 months since we had seen each other. That’s a pretty long time considering we are supposed to work “together.” I’ve been in regularly phone communication, but it was good to get back in the same building so that we could roll up our sleeves and get some work done.

The major task for the day was a video shoot. A team from the US is here to shoot a video that tells the story of how our ministry began in Poland. Larry & Debby were the first staff to live behind the Iron Curtain, when they moved to Poland in 1977. It was amazing for me as a relative rookie to Eastern Europe to hear the stories of what God did in those early days. There were stories of KGB interrogations, phone tapping and war breaking out when Martial Law was declared. It is so exciting to see all that God has done in the past 30 years to draw Eastern Europeans to Himself.

It was a fun day and a day that renewed my vision for reaching Eastern Europe for Christ. I still can’t believe that God has sent me here to do this. Totally overwhelming.