SJCF

A month ago, we decided a pay a visit to the Singapore Japanese Christian Fellowship (SJCF) in St. George's church along Minden Road. We've known about this church all along because this is the church that most OMF missionaries to Japan would go to at least once during their time in Singapore for Orientation Course (OC). We were the exception during our OC in 2007 because we were still too busy packing and saying our goodbyes. The other missionaries coming in from various countries have already done that before coming into OMF IHQ. Anyway, last month was our long overdue visit to this Japanese fellowship.

St. George's church is only a 15 minute walk from Botanic Gardens. We walked up the hill to find a rather quaint looking red brick church building. This Anglican church was originally built for the British forces in 1911 and still retains most of its colonial charm. What surprised us pampered Singaporeans after trudging uphill in the hot sun, was that this church had no air-conditioning!

SJCF has about 50 members, mostly families of Japanese expatriates and a few Singaporeans who either worked or studied in Japan. The worship style is typical of most traditional Japanese churches: hymn singing, scripture reading, sermon preached in polite language etc. We even had to stand and introduce ourselves to the congregation, albeit in our rusty Japanese. However, because everyone seems to know each other, we can sense the warmness of the fellowship there. We adjourned to the adjacent shed for refreshments, and got to meet many people.

It was nice to be in a Japanese setting once more after a long break. We hope to visit other Japanese ministries in Singapore and blog about it.