We attend the Protestant Church in Oman (PCO). As new members, we were invited to attend the Newcomer's Fellowship last night (Wednesday). [See my first blog!] The country of Oman is a monarchy, and ruler is referred to as a Sultan. The current sultan, Sultan Qaboos (pronounced as caboose), has very generously donated land on which the buildings that house the church have been built. This is truly a gift to the Christians in this country.
In true Debi fashion, we arrived an hour early--I entered the wrong time on my calendar. I don't know why, but since we were an hour early, they looked at both Don and I and thought we would be good helpers to set up. Do we wear signs on our backs? Anyway, we had a fun time helping to set up the dinner. Countries and nationalities and locales may change, but Christian dinners across the world are set up just the same! I asked for permission to take their pictures to put on my blog. Of course, they agreed with a smile! After the pictures, I helped them blow up balloons!
The room that the dinner was held in is also used as the worship center on Friday (Sunday) mornings. We also learned at the dinner that 8,000 people from different churches use this facility on a weekly basis. Talk about your multi-purpose room! The front of the worship area is under the cross at the far end of the room.
It was a great Newcomer's dinner! They made sure to invite people from the home countries of every newcomer so we would have at least one person with a common background. We met a very nice young lady from California, Lydia. She is a high school math teacher here at the American School. Don and I were the only American newcomers, so does God plan things out or what?!! The existing members made a point of mingling around the room, introducing themselves to all the newcomers and making us all feel quite welcome.
We met Huw (pronounced Hugh) and Wendy, originally from Wales, Blair from Canada/South Africa, Sylvie from the UK via Qatar, Eddie--a young tax lawyer--from Indonesia via Amsterdam, and more. We also spent time talking to "oldcomer" Mele from Fiji. Mele has lived here for eight years. I asked her permission to share a story. We were talking about the soccer traffic (see my "Omani's love their soccer" blog), and she shared her first driving experiences when first moving to Oman. We see the roads and traffic as a nightmare, but compared to Fiji, she saw the roads and traffic as a blessing! Due to the climate in Fiji, the roads are constantly full of potholes and, as I gathered from her description, somewhat primitive. The roads here have no potholes, and there were roundabouts to help traffic move through intersections. Now that there are more traffic lights, it is even better to her way of thinking! Life is truly a matter of perspective!
You can see in the picture below how quickly the room filled up. There are at least three more tables that were cut out of the left side of the picture. It was a good evening, with good fellowship, and new friends! Oh, by the way, my balloon-blowing-up expertise earned me a request to help out on the Fellowship Committee for their next big fellowship!
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| Ladies and gentlemen of the Fellowship Committee preparing for the Newcomer Dinner. |
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| Laughter and fellowship while working for a common goal! |
The room that the dinner was held in is also used as the worship center on Friday (Sunday) mornings. We also learned at the dinner that 8,000 people from different churches use this facility on a weekly basis. Talk about your multi-purpose room! The front of the worship area is under the cross at the far end of the room.
It was a great Newcomer's dinner! They made sure to invite people from the home countries of every newcomer so we would have at least one person with a common background. We met a very nice young lady from California, Lydia. She is a high school math teacher here at the American School. Don and I were the only American newcomers, so does God plan things out or what?!! The existing members made a point of mingling around the room, introducing themselves to all the newcomers and making us all feel quite welcome.
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| Don received a sound board lesson from Carlo, one of the worship band leaders. I think they are hoping he will volunteer to rotate on the audio/visual team for Friday mornings. |
We met Huw (pronounced Hugh) and Wendy, originally from Wales, Blair from Canada/South Africa, Sylvie from the UK via Qatar, Eddie--a young tax lawyer--from Indonesia via Amsterdam, and more. We also spent time talking to "oldcomer" Mele from Fiji. Mele has lived here for eight years. I asked her permission to share a story. We were talking about the soccer traffic (see my "Omani's love their soccer" blog), and she shared her first driving experiences when first moving to Oman. We see the roads and traffic as a nightmare, but compared to Fiji, she saw the roads and traffic as a blessing! Due to the climate in Fiji, the roads are constantly full of potholes and, as I gathered from her description, somewhat primitive. The roads here have no potholes, and there were roundabouts to help traffic move through intersections. Now that there are more traffic lights, it is even better to her way of thinking! Life is truly a matter of perspective!
You can see in the picture below how quickly the room filled up. There are at least three more tables that were cut out of the left side of the picture. It was a good evening, with good fellowship, and new friends! Oh, by the way, my balloon-blowing-up expertise earned me a request to help out on the Fellowship Committee for their next big fellowship!
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| I hope you can see all the nations represented in this room. All continents were represented except Antarctica! One of my favorite parts of the dinner: singing The Doxology in unison, demonstrating God's unity across all cultural barriers! |
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