by Jason Wildenation : a large aggregate of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory. I didn't get to see much of Singapore, but I got to see Singaporeans. Walking briskly through the rain under my little cheesy umbrella (who needs one in Texas, anyway?), I pass the Chinese Buddhist Temple with the giant tent covering, following a group of chatty teenagers from the local school to the bus stop. Being the small city-nation that it is, I guess that at least half of the kids' parents are from other countries, and yet they all speak the same language - apps, movies, who said what, etc. The bus shows up and I queue behind the crowd. Just as the first girl scans her card at the door, another girl yells "DOUBLE DECKER!!", and I look to my right and see another bus on the same route, but, you guessed it, it was the more impressive two story version. The crowd runs over, forgetting the girl standing in the doorway like a kitten stuck on the roof. One of them did notice, then says quickly "Well...you know...I'll see you later." Girl in the bus says "yeah", then watches her friend run away. Being in the 'in-crowd' is universal across the cultures of the world, as is loneliness. I touch my card to the reader, walk on the bus and scan the seats to find an empty half-row behind an older Indian woman in a purple and yellow sari sitting in the handicap seat, and across from a woman wearing a black hijab. The bus creeps forward, and as we pass the first mosque on my route home, I hear a man behind me quietly, yet very accurately, singing the chorus to a Bollywood love song to himself. At the next stop, a group of what appear to be nurses or maybe medical students arrive, raising the volume of the bus to a more chipper level. They stop in front of the old woman in the sari, and I must have missed the joke because they start laughing as soon as she looks at them, and then she turns and I see her face wrinkled into a hearty laugh as they camp out, standing in the middle section of the bus. We make the last turn, past the second mosque with the golden star and crescent moon atop, and life seems to move only as fast as it needs to on the bus. Not so fast that people have to compete with each other to get on and off first, but not so slow that we lose the spark that makes it all a little different each day. Even the ongoing subway construction along this road seems to progress just fast enough for me to see what has changed from one day to the next as cranes are moved in and sound barriers are built to protect surrounding communities, but it is apparent that this project is going to take some time. Past St. Patrick's Catholic school, and then I see the familiar cross of the Church of Singapore, high above surrounding buildings, which tells me that it's time to get off. The whole ride is maybe 25 minutes long, but it is this ride, each way and each day for the past two weeks, in which I got to see Singapore in all its glory - through its people. I'd pick a half hour bus ride any day over a trip to Universal Studios, or one of those 'Hop on, Hop off' buses with a recorded tour guide, because it is not the vanities of sight and attraction or power and wealth that make a country great, but the people.
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On a MissionTwo passionate parents and their four children are excited to bring His Word to everyone in need while living a life of Gospel poverty as missionaries. They invite you to join them on a journey to encounter our global neighbors that Jesus commands us to love through works of charity and service. Archives
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