Creasmans World

Today the Parlato Family picked us up and took us to a national park that had lots of hiking trails along a river with several small waterfalls. Although it was low season for water, it was a beautiful hike and gave the boys lots of opportunities for climbing.

We had a leisurely day walking and talking and enjoying nature, which was exactly what we wanted in Thailand!

We also saw lots of Thai people enjoying the park, and stopped at a food stand in the park to have a big meal of roast chicken.

This year we decided to celebrate New Year’s Eve in public. There is a huge crowd that gathers downtown to watch the fireworks at midnight.

We invited some friends, packed some snacks, and got on the subway to head downtown. Tens of thousands of people! All shapes and sizes! What a lot of fun! Street hawkers, performers, and crowds. At one point, it took us about 15 minutes to move about 100 feet. Everyone was jostling and trying to stake out a good position to watch the fireworks. We finally made it through the jam and escaped to a less crowded area on the grassy field in front of Parliament, a little farther away from the fireworks, but a place to sit and relax and talk.

Kimberly had made up a handout of questions to discuss about highlights from the past year and dreams for the coming year. We talked, and at midnight watched the fireworks, sipped some champagne, and prayed for each other and for Singapore. Great way to start a year! (Even if we don’t get to watch the Rose Parade or Bowl games or eat donuts)

Life is all about people…

Since we don’t have extended family in Singapore, we want to share meaningful times together, like Christmas, with friends.

Today we had some friends come over and share Christmas dinner with us.

Here’s what Christmas morning looks like at our house…

We like to share one present with each other at midnight on Christmas Eve, then get up and listen to Christmas music and open presents and be lazy on Christmas morning…

Today we went to our church worship service after opening presents : )

Last year, I (Jim) realized that I love Christmas parties. I love the cookies, the music, the festive environment. I love mingling, seeing friends. I love singing Christmas carols and sharing stories with each other about meaningful Christmas memories. And I love reading the Christmas story by candlelight.

But we don’t normally get invited to any Christmas parties in Singapore! Singaporeans don’t do parties that way.

So last year I decided I was going to organize our own Christmas parties. We marked two evenings the week of Christmas, and invited our friends over for mingling and snacks and sharing memories and reading the Christmas story and singing carols.

And I loved it. It was the highlight of the Christmas season for me. And it was a new experience for a lot of our friends.

So this year we did it again. Only we did three parties, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. And two of them we took on the road, to friends’ houses. I printed up handouts with Scripture references and lyrics to corresponding carols, Kimberly organized the snacks, and we invited all our friends.

Again, it was the highlight of our Christmas experience this year…

We live on the fifth floor of a 25 story building. Virtually all Singaporeans live in high rise apartment buildings, and our neighborhood is full of them.

The areas surrounding the high rises are full of all kinds of shopping. Within a hundred yards of our building is our supermarket, bakery, hair and nail places, hardware stores, Chinese medicine shops, wet market for vegetables and meats, tailors, and lots of little specialty shops.

We also have two outdoor food courts, with stalls selling Chinese, Indian, or Malay dishes. We call them “hawker centres” for big ones, or “coffee shops” for little ones like ours, with 8-16 stalls each.

We can get a decent plate of noodles or rice with meat and veggies for $2-3, and we eat pretty much all our dinners downstairs. I (Jim) also like to sit at the coffee shop on Saturday mornings and read the paper and watch the neighbors go by.

There are two things that are noticeably different in Singapore in the month of December.

One, it feels cooler. No, the leaves don’t change colors and we don’t bring out our winter wardrobes and wear sweaters everyday. Living ON the equator means the days do not get shorter or longer through the year (sunup and sundown 7am – 7pm year round), and the weather does not vary much. However, on average, December is one degree cooler than June. It is a little cloudier, the days are rainier, and it feels cooler. We would still like a dose of winter, but even feeling a little cooler is nice.

Two, it feels less crowded. We have almost 6 million people in 250 square miles, by far the most densely populated country in the world except for Hong Kong. It is a crowded place, and it is amazing that we can all get around without constantly bumping into each other. OK, well, we are constantly bumping into each other. But it is a testament to good public planning that we are able to get around at all.

Because our school system runs on a calendar year, starting in January and ending in November, we have two primary school holidays – 4 weeks in June and 6 weeks in Nov/Dec. These are the times that families go away traveling. And not much can be planned during those months because a lot of people are away. Less people going to work, and it feels less crowded. Except for the gaming shops in the malls that are full of schoolkids on vacation.

So, we enjoy December in Singapore. Thank you, Lord for that one degree cooler weather and for those few less people on the streets!

Our first year in China, in 1997, we didn’t think we would have a Christmas tree. We had a few humble decorations, but in those days Christmas was not well recognized in China. In our city of a few million people, we saw maybe half a dozen signs of Christmas around town. Most of the people we knew were not conscious of the actual date for Christmas. Nowadays, as affluence grows, it is much different. Christmas is becoming a big commercial holiday all around China, and throughout Asia. And in Singapore, which is about 15% Christian (majority Buddhist/Daoist, with minority Muslims and Hindus), it is a huge commercial deal.

On Christmas Eve that year, Kimberly and I were on our bikes riding around downtown doing a little shopping. Low and behold! We saw a Christmas tree! Green plastic, about three feet tall. We had to get it. That served us for two years in China…

And for our first eight years in Singapore, we also had a trusty fake 6-foot tree that served us well. But last year, Kimberly put her maternal foot down and felt that our children ought to have the experience of a real Christmas tree. So… we got one.

Tonight we went out and got our second real Christmas tree in Singapore! I am sure this is the earliest we have ever put up a Christmas tree, even when we had a fake one in the closet. (Boy, are we looking forward to a holiday!) We found out that it came from the US, so that means it must have been cut down about???!!!

It doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving without a family dinner…. but we still have plenty to be thankful for.

Kimberly decided to invite friends to come have a taste of the American tradition, learn about where Thanksgiving came from, and share some fellowship in our apartment. We had friends from church and the neighborhood, both foreigners and locals.

Kimberly bought a turkey and ham and made up the side dishes, and friends brought the drinks and desserts. We invited people to drop by between 7-10pm (Thanksgiving is a working day here) and 48 people showed up!

Before dinner we gathered around the table and explained some of the food and some of the history, from the first observation in 1621 to the presidential proclamations in 1789 and 1863, to today. Jim led in prayer, asking people to reflect and thank God silently for something this year.

For most of those present, it was their first taste of Thanksgiving, and they expressed how much they enjoyed it. That gave us a lot of joy, though we weren’t able to share the meal with our families across the world.

Here we are in our living room, with the dining room in the background…

CRM Singapore is governed by an Executive Committee of eight elected members, with me serving as President. Today we met for the afternoon to talk about International Expansion.

Part of our vision for CRMS is to birth apostolic mentoring teams in every country in Asia. We want to reproduce what we provide in Singapore, which is bringing godly and gifted mentors alongside church and mission leaders to help them in their spiritual and leadership growth.

Part of the calling for the Singapore church, and a factor that motivated us to come here when we first considered it in 1996, was to equip them to build leaders for the church in China, and for all of Asia.

Last month our Exco considered how to expand in Singapore, discussing what kind of staff we needed in order to grow. Today we brainstormed how to expand to other countries in Asia. There are a lot of questions we do not yet have answers for, but we are excited to start exploring in 2010!

I held a one day seminar today to teach mentoring philosophy and skills. Church Resource Ministries is primarily about mentoring Christian leaders. We create small groups and one-to-one relationships to focus on spiritual renewal, character formation, and leadership development. The result is not only leaders that benefit in their own lives and ministries, but leaders who in turn become mentors for others.

I have learned a lot over the years about the dynamics of mentoring and how to develop effective mentoring relationships. In the seminar, I teach the different types of mentoring and how to identify and grow mentoring ability.

Today, as always, it was a delightful group of eager and teachable Christian leaders who already have numerous mentoring relationships in their churches and ministries. We had a great time of learning through presentations, reflection, and discussion.

In Church Resource Ministries Singapore (CRMS), our goal is to not only help Christian leaders grow in their spiritual lives and leadership effectiveness, but to empower them to become mentors for others.

The primary way we do that is through training our graduates to facilitate our peer mentoring network curriculum, called Focusing Leaders.

This week, I spent three full days with a great group of network alumni who wanted to become facilitators for others.

We spent the first day talking through the Biblical/theological/philosophical foundations of Focusing Leaders – what lessons we are trying to get across and how to effectively facilitate learning. The second day we practiced facilitation skills, and the third day we practiced coaching skills.

With these six new facilitators (from six different churches), we have more than 50 who have been trained to mentor others with our curriculum. My hope and prayer is that the lessons they learned through the process and the training will carry over into other areas and relationships, not only in the Focusing Leaders networks.

A local newspaper (the tabloid!) ran an article on Tyler today. He is of local interest because of his ability to speak English with a local flavor, unlike most foreigners. His couple of clips on youtube have gotten nearly 280,000 hits!

The Singapore American Football League season has come to an end. The three Creasman males will now go into an extended period of mourning, and unproductive Saturdays…

Both of the boys had tremendous seasons. Tyler (11th grade) had his second year of starting quarterback in the 4 team league. He had a couple of very productive games, where he threw for two touchdowns, ran for 1 and 2 touchdowns, and threw for a two-point conversion, without any interceptions. He also made a couple of interceptions and had a couple of big tackles on defense, but only played sparingly as a safety this year. Last year, he played every down of every game, because they only had 14 players on his team. This year they had 18, and his coach wanted to save him for offense. His team made it to the championship game, but came up short and finished second.

Cameron (7th grade) played in the middle school league and was an anchor on the offensive line at guard, sometimes center (where he played last year). What he really loves is playing linebacker, though. The few times he played defense, he made a few sacks and tackles for losses. We expect him to be a beast next year as an 8th grader! His team was dominant this year, going undefeated through the season and winning their championship game in a blowout.

For the second year in a row, Jim was the announcer for the Middle School games, and has found his second vocation. He loves hanging out in the booth with other dads who are running the clock and scoreboard and “spotting” for him. He will miss the comraderie and the taste of America on Saturdays. Kimberly was a team mom and the music DJ for Jim’s announcing. We both led the High School Parents in cheering in the stands during Tyler’s games, and hope to keep up relationships with some of the other parents in the off-season.