A Chance Encounter with a Dutch Anglican

Dear Diary,

As I was waiting at the porch of the church this morning (2/5/2010 at 11am) for the Chinese service to end, a Dutchman (his name is Max) approached me. He has recently graduated from a university in Holland and is now on a 3-month backpacking tour. His trip will include stops at Dubai, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand before heading back to Holland. He told me that he will be in Singapore till Wednesday next week. I asked him if he has a travel companion and he told me that for backpacking, travelling alone is the best so that you can interact with the people and enjoy the culture... errr... hahaha... A charming tall (probably 1.9m) clean-cut Dutch who is a baptised Anglican but attends Reformed church (Calvinistic) back home. He loves liturgy and we can see that from the questions he asked...

“Are the priests here male?” he asked, “I prefer male priests.”
I told him that they are male and he replied, “Great! In Holland, you may get female priests if the male ones are somehow not around. I still prefer priests to be male.”
Then he continued, “Do they wear vestments?”
“Yes, they do,” I replied.
“Oh cool! Do they have the Mass?”
“Yup, we will be having Holy Eucharist.”
“Sermon?”
“Yeah, haha...”
“Great!”

I thought I heard his lips smacking. Hmmm... We spoke at length and he told me about the Christian groups in Holland; evangelicals, Anglicans, reformed churches, Pentecostals, Charismatics and Catholics. He doesn’t like charismatic services though. He sat with me during the service. I took out a box of Clorets sweets. Popped one into my mouth and felt that I should offer to him... but before I could even ask him, his hand was already out-stretched for the sweet. Hahaha... Funny fella... and he told me about how he stayed in backpacking hostels and they kept switching on and off the lights etc... Hence he did not have such a good sleep.

Before the service started, he was already asking the order of service, browsing through the hymns we would be singing later... Preparing himself... During the service, he looked solemn, making slight bows when the Lord’s name was spoken. He seemed very contrite during the general confession and absolution. He probably was hungering for the communion too, since I assume that attending a church in Dubai isn’t that easy. He sang the hymns eagerly and looked so attentive during the sermon... until he asked me... is the preacher a priest? Or a deacon? I told him the latter... then his attention seemed to fade away as the sermon dragged on. Probably sermons don’t last that long in Europe. Hee...

When they asked for the newcomers to stand up so they could pass a brochure to them, he was shy and only barely raised his hand. He doesn’t cross himself or genuflect. However, he was a little disappointed that we take communion by intinction. He preferred to consume the host and then drink the wine from the chalice. I was like... okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy..... when the service ended, I shook his hands and wished him a safe journey. He replied, “Thanks, God Bless you... Are you attending the 5pm service later?”

Errr... huh? Is he intending to attend two services in a Sunday? Holy fella. “Probably not,” I replied with a wink. How do I rate this experience?

Interesting!

Have a great week ahead.

God Bless,

Andrew