Eating as national sport, an AI expo, and secure remote logins

If you ask a local what the national sport of Singapore is, don't be surprised if the answer isn't running, badminton, or football. 'Eating!', almost everyone replies with a broad grin. And honestly: after a few weeks in this city, I completely understand why. Where in the Netherlands we casually ask 'How are you doing?', the standard greeting here is: 'Have you eaten?' (or in Malay: 'Sudah makan?'). Food here is so much more than just filling your stomach; it is the primary way people connect and show they care about you.

And that is special, because Singapore is a city that never stops moving. Workdays are long, students put in intense hours, and you feel the pressure to achieve everywhere you look. But no matter how busy everyone is, the moment mealtime arrives, the world pauses. People deliberately carve out time to sit down together. No fancy fuss or expensive restaurants, just everyone squeezing onto plastic stools at a neighborhood food court or hawker centre. Everyone picks up a dish from their own favorite stall and joins the table. Business executives in smart shirts sit shoulder to shoulder with construction workers and students, joyfully sharing dishes placed in the center.

By now, I am right in the middle of it all. At lunchtime, colleagues often gather together at the OMF office, and in the evenings I regularly head out with my housemates to a nearby food court. My absolute favorite so far is the sweet and sour chicken rice (see the photo above). Crispy chicken in a delicious sweet-and-sour sauce with onions, served over rice with a fried egg. So many flavors coming together, it really tastes fantastic! On Tuesday afternoon, we also had a teambuilding afternoon with the OMF team. It was great to get to know each other better outside of work and share plenty of laughs. And in true Singaporean fashion, we wrapped up the afternoon with a great meal together.

It also made me reflect on how meaningful those meals are. Throughout the Bible, you constantly see Jesus taking time to sit at table with people. It was the natural place for connection, rest, and genuine conversations. Especially in a fast-paced culture where everyone is rushing from one thing to the next, sharing a meal offers a much-needed breath of fresh air and authentic connection.

Beyond all the good food, there was plenty happening on the IT front as well. Yesterday I went to Tech Week Singapore, a massive technology conference. It was fascinating to see where big enterprise IT is heading. Almost everything centers on artificial intelligence (AI) right now. I attended an interesting session by Google about how a single software developer can use AI to steer an entire team of digital agents to build software much faster (see the photo below). It is intriguing to see how fast these developments are moving, and who knows, we might be able to put such smart techniques to great use within mission work in the future.

Back at the office, it was a productive week as well. The virtual workspace project is temporarily on hold, but I took another great step to make working remotely a lot easier. Previously, whenever colleagues worked away from the office, they had to connect through a separate and sometimes finicky security tool on their computer. That often caused headaches. I have now built a setup where they can simply log in to their familiar work desktop directly through a standard web browser, just like visiting a secure website. No more wrestling with complicated extra software: just safe, direct access to their work files. As of today, this officially enters its testing phase. There is always a bit of suspense over whether it will run flawlessly for everyone right away, but I wrote clear, step-by-step user guides, so it should go smoothly.

And how is our old, stubborn finance computer doing? It is wonderfully quiet! Since the cleanup script has been doing its work, I haven't had a single report of colleagues unable to log in or programs freezing up. It seems to just quietly chug along. And that is a relief: on January 1st we switch over to the new finance system, but this legacy machine needs to stay alive for another full year for official audits and checks. It won't have heavy tasks anymore, but it does need to keep running reliably. As for the security reports for the backup software, I haven't received a reply yet, though I stayed in touch with the vendor. I'll just send him a friendly reminder soon.

In short: plenty of good things to be thankful for. Thankful for our fun teambuilding afternoon and the great conversations around the table, for the quiet stability around the finance computer, and for the simpler way to log in securely. Will you pray along for the testing phase starting today, that everything runs smoothly for colleagues? And for wisdom and a prompt response regarding the backup software?