Bulgaria with Noodles

China is a strange place, a seriously foreign place. If you are a Brit, then France or Germany are not so weird or peculiar. They are really just the same as the UK, except that the accent is different and food (or probably the weather) is better. But China is not like that. China is a strange country. I am not going to give the name of the church Irena and I attend here in Shenzhen. That would not be a sensible thing to do. As an elder in our international church here in Shenzhen, I do get asked to “do” weddings and this one was my second. First we had Hitched at the Hilton and now Married at the Mall . I “officiated” at Elmer and Lynn’s wedding on 1 st January, 2018. Well, it made an unusual way to start the New Year. A Church in a Mall Broadly speaking, there are two types of church here in China: officially-recognized government churches and “unofficial”, unregistered churches (often called “house” churches). There is no uniform policy towards unofficial churches...

On the MTR As an elder of our church here in Shenzhen, I was asked to officiate at a Chinese wedding. Sean and Dee, a lovely Chinese couple, go to our church, so I agreed. Well, I was a bit nervous about the whole thing, as I had never “done” a wedding before, but the actual event was wonderful. Christina was my translator Skyscraper backdrop The ceremony We had a “run through” the week before, as I wanted to get the words right with Sean and Dee. After a few small changes, we agreed on what I was going to say at the ceremony. It was important to get this straight, as the words would all be translated into Mandarin. The wedding was at the Hilton Hotel in Shekou and it really was quite a “do”. The ceremony was outside, in a garden on the roof of the hotel. I thought that this was a bad idea, as I was sure that it would be too cold, but in fact the weather was perfect, a sunny and blue sky with hardly a breath of wind. Irisha looked ...