Thursday July 6, 2006

School today, unlike days before, began to feel a little more relaxed among the students. As we began to start the day with our morning rally, we decided to take our students on a short stroll before we journeyed to our classroom. Imagine my shock and, initially, disappointment when two new students arrived late – the two sisters that had not listened to me the previous night and were so wild! My heart sank. Our only problem all week long had been communication, and that was a minor issue. But guess what? Those two would hardly even talk, much less create trouble! I praised the Lord deep inside my heart.

Our lesson surrounded the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus. After we had reviewed the story a few times, Tiffany, a young Hakka woman who teaches English in Meinong, came around to translate one teacher’s testimony for each individual class. I gave mine. Today was made entertaining further due to the fact that I was a “student” once again and learned a few more Mandarin words. By this time, most of the kids are participating in teaching me and playing with me or giving me hugs, not very Taiwanese-like.

I would like to share a rather funny story that happened during our devotion time before the classes began for the day. The night before, I had been talking with Ilda and Wendy (a wonderful Wendy at that – she originally lived in China for years and was able to help us immensely by translating Mandarin for us – and became a good friend) and somehow we came across marriage. I don’t know how but it did. Anyways, I said that it would have to be a call from God for me to be married, that He would have to smack me on the head to let me know. Low and behold, Wes gave his testimony in which he said he wasn’t going to be married and when God told him to get married, it felt like God smacked him on the back of his head with a frying pan. The two ladies merely kept looking at me, laughing silently.

This afternoon concluded our prayer walking outings in the Hakka villages. Peter thankfully rejoined us again. During this excursion, Jon joined Peter and me in our prayer walking. Of course, there was a group of kids, this time by a temple – I thought I’d go ahead and get that out of the way. This was one of the most enjoyable outings with Peter. We (Jon and I) took the opportunity to explain further what prayer was – how we can talk and call to God anytime, anywhere, for any reason. Somewhere later in the conversation, we began talking about karaoke. Peter wanted to know about me and Jon’s singing abilities, so we wound up singing some praise and worship tunes strolling past temples and rice fields.

We journeyed to another Hakka village following the first. It was here that Peter needed to use the restroom and the only one available was located by a temple. After he had finished his business, he came out running because he thought that he had heard steps inside, even though no one else was in the bathroom. He then explained that the temple made him nervous, as it does many Taiwanese (and I don’t say this to poke fun but to merely make an observation). He also explained some of the different symbols used for the different gods; that’s when I reminded him of the Only God that we serve and that there was nothing to fear since we had Christ in our hearts.

Since this was our last prayer walking time, our driver Dana (one of missionaries in Taiwan), knowing that I was a picture-takin’ fool, decided to drive out of the way to document some fabulously beautiful temples and locations. Those inescapable beautiful mountains… Sadly, this was my last meeting with Peter on the trip, though we did try to arrange another meeting and exchanged e-mails (We have been able to communicate through this blessed contraption).

The adult class this evening involved the entire mission team. While the teachers taught their adults students, the remainder prayer walked the school for God’s Spirit to descend and for understanding. Following the teaching, a fellowship was once again planned. Guess who was there? No, not the pope – the two girls that had created havoc (in my mind) and were peaceable during class. They tended to be on the havoc side. In order to compensate for lack of being able to communicate, I simply didn’t try to. This worked after a few minutes and when I tried to talk to them as a normal person to see if they had enjoyed the class, they just ran away. In any case, I was happy that I wasn’t creating an inadvertent problem by trying to see a smile.