Bulgaria with Noodles

Recently a teacher on the TES asked me about the cost of living in Sofia, compared to Shenzhen. To answer the question, I would say that Sofia is probably a bit more expensive than Shenzhen, but not much. When we were in SZ, the school's accommodation allowance covered the rent and it is much the same story here in BG. I can walk to school and back each day, just like I did in China. The metro system in Sofia is a lot more expensive than in SZ and also we have a car as well, so that bumps up our costs a bit. In the Middle Kingdom, I was usually drinking Tsingtao, especially with crispy dumplings fried in butter, whereas in Bulgaria this old hippo gets through those three-litre boxes of the local plonk. On the other hand, each month we are given 60 leva of Kaufland vouchers and that helps with the groceries. One big advantage in Bulgaria is the school food, the best I have ever eaten in more than thirty years of teaching. Very generous quality cuts of meat, cooked in d...

"The Leaving of Liverpool"   is an old song (and a sad song) by The Dubliners and it has the lines: It’s not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me But my darling when I think of thee. For the last twenty years, I have been leaving different places: the UK, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Romania, the UAE, Qatar and now China. Sometime leaving is easy because we never put down any roots and we did not like the place that much anyway! When we left Qatar, it was that much harder because we were there for five years and we really got to know people in our church, Doha Fellowship. Lunch at the cheapie noodlie place  China, however, is a bit different because we have enjoyed it so much more than Qatar. Green Oasis has probably been the best international school I have worked at and for the last two years I have been one of the elders of Shenzhen International Fellowship, so we have been very much involved in the life of the church, in lots of dif...

Baoan is on the other side of Shenzhen, quite a long way from our apartment in Futian. Getting there can take a while and Friday evening is not the best time to be travelling. Nevertheless, for the last four or maybe nearly five years I have been going to the English Fellowship at Baoan Church, maybe once every five or six weeks, and preaching for them. Last Friday was the last time. Baoan Church is rather different to my church, Shenzhen International Fellowship (SIF). Baoan is a “registered” or “official” church, so it can operate out in the open, as it has been recognized by Chinese government. This means that the Baoan Church can have a big building and a full-time minister.     Ocular, who really is the leader of the English Fellowship, was my translator. I did one of my favourite sermons, “What is so special about Christian prayer?” (If you are interested in such things, Christians have five special things when they pray: the teaching of Jesus, the e...

On Sunday 6 th of May we had a short service of baptism after the main service at our church, Shenzhen International Fellowship (SIF). We had five candidates of different nationalities and yours truly was “doing the honours”. The other elder who was helping me was Adam and he did the prayers and the Bible reading. I was the one who actually got into the water (a large inflatable paddling pool) and put them under the water. I first asked each one, “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?” and then I said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”. SIF is a non-denominational church. Yes, we do believe that the Bible is God’s word, but apart from that we try not to tie our fellowship to any particular denomination. (Part of the reason for this might be that the authorities in China get particularly nervous about Chinese churches that are linked to foreign organizations.) About six weeks earlier, we had arrived for the Sunday morning servi...

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 ...