Find your faith

Chapter 85: Rendering our service to 你 (you)

Mrs Nur's POV
"Mrs Nur, can I take a photo of you guys later when the Chinese students arrive? Maybe a video?" Chloe asked me. "Crystal said she got herself and Ethan matching outfits for a trend so I want to do that. It will go on Crystal's account." Wanting to make sure everyone was alright with the idea, I ran to check on the hosts to make sure they were alright for the idea for Crystal's reel. When the buddies arrived, I also asked the group if they were alright to it, and apparently it sat well with them. I guess that's the extent of Crystal's following. I shuffled back to Chloe in my sari and greenlit the idea, and she did take the video.
-
Ok, I assume you want to know what actually happened. All the hosts gathered around to get a brief overview of today's activities, and then we waited to receive our guests. The exchange buddies and their teachers soon emerged in a bunch of colourful casual clothes, and everyone started looking for them. It wasn't long before everyone located their buddy and we started our first activity of the day—morning assembly.
Peiqi's POV
"You're so lucky!" I screamed as my exchange buddy Crystal led me into the hall. She then looked at me sheepishly.

"It's not like what you think," she admitted while stuttering. "We only use this when it's raining or for special events. We go to the parade square on normal days. But today is for you, so we're using the hall." We were seated in the hall by this tanned, big eyed but nice lady and her fair skinned small eyed counterpart, where Crystal started talking about her teachers on the trip. She made it a little bit of a big deal, because 2/3 of the teachers in charge taught her.

We were soon hushed by the school staff and the students came out to represent themselves on leading us in the school morning assembly. It started off by singing some anthem with a cryptic language and reciting the school pledge. Thankfully, they had a Chinese version so I was able to follow. Crystal basically continued her talk show about morning assembly in Singapore. She is definitely one kind of a speaker, and I think she's one that can snag 1st place in a speaking competition.
Junjie's POV
After a daily sharing that shared about the bible, the school staff asked us to leave first. Ethan accompanied me to the school auditorium as he told me about his interest in photography, which interested me since I never knew of someone with such an exotic hobby before. He told me how he ran his account online, and the kinds of photos he liked to take.

We soon reached the auditorium, which was a grand display. The seats were made of rug and the seats a grand red cloth. Did I forget to mention there was air conditioning in the auditorium?

Mdm Yeo, the organiser of the programme, went through a deck of slides of their school's history and the culture of Singapore. To be honest, it was so enriching learning about life in somewhere other than China. I didn't know they had a school musical as part of a yearly tradition to celebrate the school's founding. We even got to watch some behind the scenes videos, and nothing compared to the pure bliss on Ethan's face when Crystal appeared on screen. I eventually found out through him he was her childhood friend.
Xiaoming's POV
"And now we are at our school's food labs," the guides explained. "This is the place where we conduct Food and Consumer Education (FCE) lessons for our first and second years. It is not offered as a subject for those in the third and fourth years. Here, you not only learn how to cook but other life skills like how to sew and manage money."

"I'd say it's the highlight of lower secondary life," Simon admitted. "You get to spend it with your friends and you cook free food too." I stared at him in awe because of how much they are passionate about learning different things. Not like in China, where all we care about is our academic grades. Wished I had their sense of ikigai, if that's you call it.
Simon's POV
3 Peace
"Now we are receiving our guests from the Chinese schools," Mr Wang announced. "Mind if you introduced yourselves?"

"I'M XIAOMING!!" Xiaoming screamed, jolting me with his sudden outburst of energy. Mr Wang giggled and continued talking about the concept of Militarist Japan. Xiaoming was absorbed into the lesson, mumbling to himself differences between Chinese history lessons and Singaporean history lessons. When I told him Singapore history was covered much earlier on, he freaked out, thinking that we didn't cover it at all. Truth be told—it's not hard enough for a third year, but I'm glad he's absorbing the content pretty well.
Ethan's POV
Food lab
As I turned on the fire, Junjie helped me to pour the oil in before I transferred the sunny side up onto the pan. Junjie was quick to relinquish control of the pan, taking the spatula and effortlessly flipping the egg on the other side to let it cook. I was rooted to the spot at his sudden ability to cook, but turned out he was next in line to inherit the family restaurant. Naturally, he had cooking skills worth envying, and the inheritance was definitely insult to injury. Not saying from my POV though, he was great in helping me.
Crystal's POV
School chapel
The pastor shared his message like he always did, but something felt a little different. I was trying to explain what was going on to the Chinese students since they didn't really get the Christian jargon. After all, Peiqi's middle school isn't a mission school but a regular one, so she was accustomed to normal lessons without the need of religious lessons or activities. Yet I could tell she didn't mind this kind of life too, because it wasn't something she would experience on a normal day.
Mdm Yeo's POV
"This is the table tennis CCA," the student guide explained. "One of the best schools in Singapore for the sport, this is the arena our athletes train in."

I giggled to myself innocently. It was so fun watching the CCA I was in charge of unfold from the sidelines, but it was obvious the CCA was flourishing even without my presence. It was like all of them were on autocue, training hard but having fun. Then again they chose this CCA, so they should be having fun. And yes, you should be having fun with whatever you choose. If not, who are you living for?