Grace Church, Shanghai was a quick taxi ride from L&W's appartment. Smart and well maintained in every way. Crowded. Orderly. Formal. All in Chinese.
Something of the 'dust of death' seemed to have settled upon it. Certainly 'L' finds it so. Predictable and pedestrian were the way he described the services often to be. The tunes were familiar. The tunes my mum used sing to me as a child. There was a 30 minute sermon from a woman who could have passed for Chairman Mao's mum. Her subject matter seemed fine. We closed with 'Bringing in the sheaves'! In all, there was a distinct 1950's English Baptist Union church feel to things. (Don't ask me how I know what a 50's Baptist church was like!).
We were greeted, but no one spoke to us at the end. People left quickly. If this is all the church experience that L&W are getting (and it is) then the evening's event was very significant. (see next posting).
We went from there to one of the myriad of Starbucks in Shanghai - a consistently good latte. Then on to a couple of the most oppulent shopping plazas you could imagine. The number of designer shops beggars belief. Shanghai seems to be full of such places.

Lunch was my choice. A few days before, I had seen a "Uyghur" (pron. "weegur") restaurant and we were now just next to it. Fantastic. It gave me chance to meet some real Uyghur people (see 24 Nov posting) and sample their amazing food. Muhammed the owner, was delightful and filled me in on lots of Xinjiang/Uyghur culture. He gave me some of the spices his chef had used in our lamb dish. Mmmmm.
As we chatted it was strange how the experience was more familiar for me than it was for L&W. Although Muhammed spoke Chinese, he seemed to have more in common with M@slim/Afghanistan culture. We chatted in broken Urdu and smatterings of Arabic and got on really well. Anyone up for a missions trip to Uyghur country?!