Tuesday July 4, 2006

Happy Fourth of July! Quick question: does Taiwan have a fourth of July? Of course, every country does – but not because of our American holiday. The 4th follows the 5th on the calendar. Today did not feel like our American 4th but rather any other day. Breakfast followed by our group meeting started the day. We then began our classes with much of the same schedule. Don and I decided to try a new tactic today by taking the kids outside of the classroom and letting them repeat phases as we walked. The fall of man was the subject of our lesson today. A bit of fun for me were various sentences that the youth would repeat that had an exclamation point punctuating the end. For example, one phase was “God said: Do not eat the fruit!” It was my task to yell out these phases in hopes of having the children shout it out with me. It didn’t really do its job. Many times I would get looks like I had just spoken to them in another language and they couldn’t understand me. Um, scratch that thought.

For lunch today, we received a special trip to McDonalds® in a city about 15 minutes away. They serve many of the same foods offered in America, though there are a few dissimilarities. Take, for example, the shrimp burger. This is a patty with shrimp and a sort of “shrimp-paste,” if you will, with lettuce and a strange tangy sauce, sandwiched in-between rice patties (of actual rice). I must say that it was quite good (though they could have stood to dress it down a little in condiments). Other different selections include fried chicken, Sprite® with lemon and cherry Jell-O® chunks, as well as other items that I couldn’t quite figure out. It was, however, a very nice treat.

After our afternoon rest, we set out for another session in prayer walking. Today I had the honor of meeting Dora and her family. She has a daughter named Lisa, who is in high school, and a son, Peter, who is 15. Peter, it was decided, would prayer walk with Heather and myself (Heather, who is also quite funny – especially in some pictures – had the misfortune of sitting next to me on many of the flights to and from Taiwan. I’m not quite sure why it was a dastardly misfortune, but it bears telling).

Peter and I became good friends quickly and we conversed (or at least attempted to) about sports, weather, life in each of our countries, and prayer. Peter was a great help to us because he was able to help tell others about the upcoming English camp using Mandarin. Our encounters today began at an elementary school that moved to a Hakka village were we come upon a group of elderly people playing croquet, an elementary boy’s baseball team, and goats running down the road. And, naturally, a group of kids that wanted to play. Um, let me rephrase that – children wanted to play, not “kids” because “kids” might lead you to think it was the goats… Anyways, my newfound friend in Peter wanted me to play basketball concluding our time of prayer walking, but since he lived about a half hour from our hotel, we were (sadly) unable to.

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel (minus the adult teachers who, um, taught the adult class – makes sense, doesn’t it?) for relaxation and preparation for the next day. By the way, I did hear some fireworks tonight but it’s doubtful that they were for our American holiday. Many times fireworks will be set off for weddings or religious reasons. It was nice to at least hear a few on this day though…