"Love Hits You Blindside...

...like a bus in China."

That was a quote from long ago. (Shout out to the Ningbo peeps!) Tonight those words came to mind... as I was nearly hit blindside by a very large bus. Tonight I also got to walk up to a Taiwanese man, a complete stranger, and tell him, "I love you." I actually said, "I'm supposed to tell you I love you." It was a part of our picture scavenger hunt with the English club at the beautiful campus of Chung Chen (closer to the correct spelling?) University. Along with this, my team got to talk on shoes like telephones... with complete strangers, ask a complete stranger to pretend like he was sleeping on his bike, lay down on a road, pretend to have bird flu by a dead bird, ask a professor to take a picture for us, and ask other complete strangers for a hair, to arrange our bodies to spell, "I love EHC," and to pose for various other pictures according to the clothes they were wearing. I think we honest to goodness scared one girl.

Speaking of, I've discovered that just looking different sometimes isn't enough to get stares. What really works is buying a watermelon at the fruit market, and then putting it in your backpack to carry home on your bike. Or you can just ditch the bike (say if it breaks) and run beside it for a couple miles. That will get some people to turn their head. Or you can dress up like BATGIRL.

This week is Halloween-themed week. I have some great pictures for you. The students here (and by students I probably mean parents) know how to do costumes. Wednesday morning was my K-3 students' big celebration, and this late afternoon was the big party (including trick or treating to different offices around campus) for my E-3s. Here're some pictures:

My Crickets :)


My Ladybugs :)

(All the K-3 classes here have insect names, the K-2s have flower names, and the K-1s have fruit names.)

Ali Baba?


Stand aside, good citizens... we are here!


Pin the (magnetic) nose on the Jack-o-Lantern :)


Peter Pan and company :)




This fish was my favorite costume!


One of my students showing off his loot.


The CELA Dean (even though we call her our principal) talking with a K-1 penguin... hee hee


This is another picture of K-1 when they came into the office trick or treating this morning.... hee hee hee... you can't help but giggle when you take a look at that little teeny tiny super man dude.


And I didn't get as many pictures of E-3's festivities, but here are a couple:





It's been a busy week with the special activities, and I've once again realized I don't so much care for Halloween. But ah well. Candy and costumes are fun.

I just wanted to share those pictures!

Have a great day in the Lord and His love!

In a Nutshell

So I've always heard people refer to John 3:16 as "The Bible in a Nutshell." I always supposed that to be a pretty good winner of the title. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." It covers the basics pretty well.

But today, a verse hit me as an even BETTER "Bible in a Nutshell" verse.

You'll have to see what you think.

Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

WOW! It hit me like I had never read it before. It covers the whole expanse... sin and salvation! Genesis to Revelation!... Law AND Gospel!

That simple sentences expresses both the heaviness of our sin, and the greatness of our God's love given to us freely through Christ Jesus!

Hope you are all having a day full of God's love and peace.

And here's a shout out to the other Anna on the team, in honor of her 23rd birthday... which starts just about NOW Taiwan time! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANNA H. !!! May your day be full of many special blessings! Maybe even some singing, costumed, trick-or-treating little 5 year old blessings! :-D Hee hee... Oh, it will be, it will be! :)

This is the Story of a Grape

Little by little, I hope to fill you in on some of the going-on's of the past couple weeks. However, for the time being, I present to you, the story of... the grape.

I will preface this story with an explanation that grapes here are generally a good deal larger than the grapes known to us in the states. Also, this story would be much better with hand gestures and facial expressions. But use your imagination.

*ah-hem*

Each day proves itself to be a beautiful construction of many small, entertaining, interesting, humorous, touching, confusing, frustrating, thought-provoking, just down right funny segments. Friday was no different.

Here is a small sampling. My students are normally quite loud. This is just a fact. And most of them arrive a good deal of time before class begins. This gives them lots of time to get their loudness out before class begins. (Yeah right!) On Friday, the loudness was coming out in a new way. As I was getting things situated in the classroom, students kept running to the back of the room, looking into one student's school bag, throwing back their heads with a cry, covering their noses with both hands, and then running around the room in circles, simultaneously laughing and screaming out in Chinese.

I honestly didn't think it was anything of consequence as the students are always making a game or excitement out of one ordinary thing or another. I figured it was, if anything, maybe a smelly sock.

The students were impressively quietly at their seats before I did my final countdown to the beginning of class, so the suspicious reaction to the bag was entirely forgotten... until break time.

At break time, the interest in the bag renewed itself. It would be significant to note here that when there is a great deal of to-do going on in Chinese, it's rather difficult to get anything you say in English to be understood, much less any response given to you in English. Walking back to the bag to take a look at it myself, two boys, one to whom the culprit bag belonged, had grabbed their hands FULL of tissues and kept taking "goes" (coming within a few inches of the bag, but never actually touching it) at the bag, before reeling back with a mixture of repulsiveness and glee. I asked again what was inside the bag, but again received no response I could understand. I took the bag and looked in it. The students went NUTS. All I saw were tissues stuffed down in a side pocket. I decided that it couldn't be THAT bad, and reached down into the pocket to pull out the mystery what-not. The kids went MORE nuts. Pulling out my hand, I saw I was holding a BUNCH of tissues, and on the tissues was, icky, browish unidifiable something. Definitely gross. Looking down into the pocket, I saw there was still a chunk of something, but before I gagged, I had to get what was in my hand OUT of my hand. I didn't do a smell check, I just ran to the bathroom (right next door to our classroom) to throw it all away.

Stepping right back into the classroom, everyone's attention was not-surprisingly still on the bag, eye brows up, jaws dropped, lots of noise. I picked the bag back up. "What is it?" *no response... just continued squeals of grossed-out-ness* "What is that inside the bag?" I was definitely using my teacher voice. If it was something outrageously gross, I needed to hear it. I didn't want to pull it out to find out for sure.

Finally, I understood someone saying, "Grape." "What?" "It is a grape!" "It's just a GRAPE?!" I said throwing back my head with relief, "Well, then, I'll just throw it away." I reached down with my bare hand, got a two finger grip on this soft, rottening, LARGE "grape" and pulled it out. This grape had seen better days. In fact, had I not been told that it was a grape, I probably would NOT have guessed that. I probably would have still considered it something that had been through a digestion tract. Granted, pretty gross. But still, I thought it was ridiculous the commotion this grape had caused. And I doubt I even have to explain the students' reaction to my holding, in my bare hand, this cause of so much clamor. You can imagine that part.

As I, the great, brave, problem-solving teacher (yeah right!) marched to flush the replusive item down the toilet, I felt a tickle on my thumb. Oh dear. Yeah, the grape was CRAWLING with MAGGOTS! ...and these maggots were starting to crawl on ME! Upon realizing this, I actually let go of the "grape" as quickly as I could, hurling it into a toilet from a distance, and ran away. I ran to the sinks and washed my hands REALLY well, but still felt like I had little white grubby things crawling on me. I went back into the room and handed Charlie his bag. He made some protest, mentioning "bugs." I'm afraid I was rather unsympathetic. I said, "Charlie, yes, there are bugs in your bag. You will have to wash it." Charlie cracks me up. I wish you could all meet him. He's just a really good kid. And he's a clown. There was still more commotion in trying to get Charlie to touch his bag, but now you've gotten the gist of this story... about a grape. We were soon able to move onto second period (Bible time!) and had a great class. But that's another story.

Good Just Got Better

I just have to share a little of this day's happiness on here. So Thursdays nights were my only "free" night of the week... except that on Thursday nights there is an English club at a nearby university (Jong Jen?) that Mike leads and some of the other guys help with too. And I had been really cuious what the college English club was like... and tonight, though I had planned on catching up on some grading and resting, brought something much better. :)

It all started when I heard the guys talking about the plans tonight including football and ultimate frisbee. It's ridiculous how much I miss fall. And both of those things make me think of fall and being outside and the smell of grass and wet earth and cool night air and throwing objects around with a bunch of friends... and so I thought to myself, "Well, that'd be fun, but rest is probably better." Plus, I didn't have a way to really get there on time as it would be about a 40 minute bike ride and I probably wouldn't get on the road till 7:00, the same time the club starts.

Judy, a teacher in the office, a dear person, and someone very interested in Christ, but not professing faith... heard that I was in a bit of a dilemma of what to do and immediately called her husband (a prof at the university and a leading scientist in his specific field of biological psychology) and then told me he'd be happy to give me and anyone else interested a ride there in their car and then pick us up at afterwards too. Wow. They are incredible people... this was the first I had met Judy's husband, but he's fascinating. He got his doctorate at Purdue, and among other things, teaches graduate courses at this university, does reaseach, and plays the "Chinese violin" (The "Chinese violin" is a two stringed instrument... he's learning from his neighbor who is the former lead "Chinese violin" player in the oldest traditional Taiwanese orchestra... like I said, really fascinating to talk with this guy... oh, and he's going to be gone a few days coming up as he's going to go hear the Dalai Lama speak on religion and psychology.)

But what a blessing the evening was as a whole. The car rides were wonderful conversation and then the club itself was a blast. There were probably about 40 people all together. We met in a room in the university's activities center first. Here is Mike teaching the rules of American football:


After the English language/American culture lesson (the students requested to learn about American culture), we went out to their sporting field to throw a football and to play Ultimate Frisbee. It was amazing. I can't even say how wonderful it was to be playing again, to be running on GRASS, to be under the stadium lights and yelling and laughing and throwing/cathcing/dropping the frisbee, and cheering, and turning cartwheels, and making connections through what I'm becoming more and more convinced is the greatest game of all time... okay, maybe tied with two other games. But the smell. It smelled like wet grass and dirt. And I could have soaked that smell in all night. A few of the college students have become coming to the Friday night Bible study event at Salvation Lutheran... and another person told me tonight, "I'm going to Bible study tomorrow!" Wow. I'm really excited to see them there now especially that we had that time to socialize and talk together and play ULTIMATE FRISBEE together.

Here is James, in the referee attire, explaining some of the rules... either of football or frisbee, I forget...


And some action shots. We had so many people, we divided into four groups and two played against each other in frisbee while the other two practiced some mad (as in very cool) football skills.... or cheered.




And another thing today that I thought was good but also got better.... someone came to the Practice and tuned the piano... AND must have scrubbed it down to make it what it is now... spotless, and SHINY. I can't keep my fingers off it.


And yet another thing that went better than expected was the camping trip that the CELA staff went on this past weekend in celebration of "Double Ten Day," a holiday of the Republic of China. But that requires more time to blog about (so hopefully I'll get some pictures and storeis from that experience up here in the next few days) and I just wanted to put this up quick and share a few of the blessings of this day.

Prayer requests:
*That God would continue to use His people to share His word. And that His Holy Spirit would ignite faith in the hearts of all these people we meet here... who have yet to know Him.
*That the English club would be a good relationship builder, connection maker, and outreach opportunity for those involved.
*That God would continue to give us strength and encouragement. That He would continue to build our faith in Him. That He would fill our hearts with love to share.
*That God would give comfort and peace to those dealing with pain or seeing loved ones in pain.

Maybe those are somewhat general, but they are much needed prayers. Thank you again for all your support through prayer. God is good. And as my university chaplain would say, "Don't doubt in the darkness what you know in the light." May we all be encouraged to remember that God is good through the times of overwhelming blessing and the times of overhwleming challenge and pain.

Alright, once again, a "quick blog" has turned into something a bit more lengthy. :)


"And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." - Philippians 4:19

Some Quick Pics

This shrouded form was the cause of much joy and excitement as it met us this evening as we stepped into the living area of the Practice! After Bible study this evening, I played an few inaugural songs on it (O Magnum Mysterium, Think of Me, I Dreamed a Dream, Anne of Green Gables, and then a finale of Be Thou My Vision - thank you Lisa for the gorgeous piano book with that in it!) and felt like it was the best stress-therapy anyone could ask for. Praise the Lord for MUSIC! Thankfully, many people here play the piano, so we will be blessed with its music often I think. :)




Here's a picture of Sam and some others as we circle up for prayer time at the end of Frinday Night Bible Study at Salvation Lutheran Church.


Many of the foreign teachers have become regulars at a wonderful, beautiful little restaurant called the Garden Kitchen. They are just down the street from the school and have very good more traditional Taiwanese food, but also offer such options as various waffles and a fajita. The honey waffle is my favorite. Thursday evening, after entertaining the crowded restaurant with our latest strides in learning the Chinese language, and then being shown up by a baby, Michael got a whipped-cream face on his chocolate waffle and I got "HONEY" (yeah, in English!) on my waffle. It's fun being regulars at a place. They even have a menu in English for us!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TIMOTHY!

This entry is for Tim, my little brother who turns 18 today. :)

That means you would be considered 19 years old here. (Traditionally here, a child is considered 1 when he is born and they may celebrate his birtday and say that he is another year old on the Chinese New Year rather than on the anniversary of his birth.)


Some Bible verses for you this (and each!) day:

"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness." - Lamentations 3:22-23

"...the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore." - Psalm 121:8

"The Lord is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation." - Psalm 118:14

"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and self-discipline." - 2 Timothy 1:7 (from the letter to your namesake :) )

"I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints." - Philemon 4-7

I love you, Tim! Happy and Blessed Birthday to YOU!

Praying for Daylight

Why is Wednesday spelled the way it is?

Today I saw my first street jogger in Taiwan. He was an inspiring older man.

Today, a guy on a scooter kept trying to ask me something (in Mandarin). I kept responding in Mandarin, "I don't understand. Goodbye." He kept trying to talk to me. I finally said in Spanish that I don't understand. Then he left me alone.

Today I had my first actual Chinese lesson and it was a beautiful feeling to be a student again. I love being a teacher. I love being a student. Roger that, though I've often doubted it, the field of education is the place for me.

I heard a country song playing in a bakery today. "Praying for Daylight" by Rascal Flatts to be exact. I joyfully sang along. The workers thought that was... interesting.

At the store last weekend, I found out that I now stare at other foreigners as much as I get stared at myself. They (we) really do look funny.

We had a semi-exciting power outage last night. You could here the students in the dorms yelling. One guy came and told us that they didn't know what to do because they had to study for a test the next day. I considered it a very fine excuse to go to bed early.

Sandra, one of my Chinese teachers and a member at Salvation church, informed me today that there is a PIANO on it's way to find a new home at the Practice!! Michelle and I had both been inquiring after a piano for a while now, and we were overjoyed to hear the news that there was an extra one we could put to good use! (This beats our plan B of purchasing a full keyboard at Carrefour. I wasn't sure how we'd manage to get that one strapped to our bikes anyhow.) All we'll have to do is move the dryer to get this fantastic new addition through the back door next week. YES!

And now the photo of the (yester)day:

It was air conditioner cleaning day at the Practice. Very much a surprise. Very much appreciated. Very glad I made my bed that morning.

This weekend, since Monday is a national holiday, "10-10," we are going on a camping excursion with the CELA staff. (Yes, camping-camping with tents and sleeping bags.) One of those who are not Christian suggested we have a Bible study on Sunday morning while we're out at "Sun Moon Lake"... amazing. :)

"Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail." -Lamentations 3:22

Monday

Yule is a tea MASTER.

(More pictures at the end of this entry... if you want to skip the verbose-ness and go straight to the visual :) )

One of the biggest blessings of being here is the strange fact that I love Mondays. They might be one of my favorite days. I have both kindergarten classes in the morning, so I then have the whole afternoon to focus on my E-3 class. And it's just plain fun to be teaching again. Today was one of the best Mondays YET. Kindergarten was amazingly fun. Those kids are so goofily enthusiastic and their English (I *think*) is improving! We made a chart today of different animals with different number of legs. It was a hoot. I wish I could video tape these children for you to see. The dean, Isabella, observed me last week, and I had been worried that it didn't go so well. Well, today, two of the national teachers asked to observe me, and I thought that was strange, but said they were very welcome. It turns out that Isabella had said they could maybe get some ideas from observing me. It was neat affirmation after going through another stint of feeling horribly inadquate (a plague!) and challenged this past week.

Today was the first day of a small group that Michelle and I are co-leading. This is a group of middle/high school students, 17 students to be exact, 4 girls and 13 boys, with whom we will meet every Monday during "nap time." Yes, the students go to school so much here that there is a built in 40 minute "nap time." But at any rate, today was a ton of fun. Middle/high school students are hysterical... and they are an interesting, albeit very fun switch from kindergarteners and third graders. :) I am thrilled to get to work with them this semester!! I'll probably have more stories from this group of new characters in the near future, but for now, I'll just share it as an extra bonus to Mondays.

Then third grade went really well today. It was Larry's birthday. But Larry didn't know it. I mean, he could tell me that he had been born on October 3rd, but when he walked into class today and I said, "Larry! Happy Birthday!" he simply blinked at me with this confused grin on his face. I tried again, thinking maybe I had gotten it wrong. "Larry, when is your birthday." "October the 3rd," he responded... then kinda took a start and his eyes got a bit bigger and he pointed down in a manner that meant, "Wait, that's *today*??" Yeah, so at 4:45pm I was able to inform a child that it was his birthday. Birthdays, as exemplified in this brief story, are not always as big a deal to people here as they are in the States. Many people will not really celebrate birthdays, but will "turn" the next year older on the Chinese New Year and do any celebrating then. But we sang to Larry and he seemed pleased. I had worked a story about it being Larry's birthday into our main idea and details lesson today and the kids thought that was pretty funny. Timothy spoke up and said, "My birthday is on 26." Meaning, the 26th of this month. This sent a few of the students into a reprise of "Happy Birthday to You." ha ha...

Man, it was just a good day. Probably one of the highlights was checking the Friday folders for any notes from the parents. There was one father, who the past couple weeks had been writing, well, not so positive things about his students' performance, behavior, and such with suggestions on how I should be helping the student more and discipling him more. After first being indignant to these comments and suggestions, I realized that I did need to be doing some things differently, but also that the parent needed to realize that his son was really doing some good things in class and that I had already seen marked improvement from the first couple weeks. The father had come to talk to me in person mid last week, and after our conversation, I doubted that he had been terribly impressed. So, today, with dread, I saw another note from the father, but upon reading it, it was really encouraging! The note explained one more concern he had about his son, but said, "but I know he will improve with your teaching. Thank you." Wow. I was so grateful for those words!!

So again, though I keep messing things up and seem so often to be stumblig along as a first year teacher, God is my great strength. And somehow, He keeps blessing me with glimpses of how he is using me, even in my imperfections and doubts.

Another interesting thing is pride. I find myself struggling with it, both ways. When good things happen, I struggle with "Look what I did!" and when things are going poorly, my pride and confidence (and thus motivation) is hurt or lost. Both extremes are completely off. "Therefore, as it is written, 'Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.'" - 1 Cor. 1:31. Any good comes from Him, and accordingly, let us not doubt the good He can and does work even when the outlook is dim and we find our hands seemingly oh so empty. As I share different successes or struggles, I want them to be a reflection of that correct attitude... not boastful and not dispairing, but a reflection of God's work and the encouragement He offers as He works through all of us in our different fields of opportunity, challenge, and blessing.

This evening, a few other teachers and I were able to meet for dinner with "George," an American engineer who is here for a couple weeks on business and who we met at the "Golden Eagle" (the English pub and restaurant) this past Saturday. He and his wife are expecting a baby this coming February. He finds out tonight if it's a girl or boy. I don't know if George knows Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior... we did not talk about it tonight. But I pray that, either way, seeds of faith or encouragement in Christ were planted... as we prayed before dinner and as George knows we are here as missionary teachers. If you could pray for George too, that the Lord would be with him and his growing family and that the Holy Spirit would work in their hearts new or encouraged faith in Jesus Christ, that would be great.

Here are a few pictures from Sunday lunch. We went to one of Yule's (seen above, pouring the tea) favorite restaurants, despite the rather blustery weather brought on by the large, yet less than terribly potent, typhoon that came through this weekend.

Anne's orange-peely grin.


This is me, Yi-Wen, Yule's wife, then their daughter, Annie, who translates for us on Sunday mornings, and Anne.


Matt and Stanley, who had to get stiches on his face from a scooter accident, but who now wears a helmet... we suspect more due to a lecture from pastor than due to the actual accident.. or the law. :)


Sandy, Pastor's niece and talented hair-stylist, Jean, sporting her new perm, and SunRose.