Wednesday July 5, 2006

Much of the same ensued for the morning schedule. Breakfast at Beautiful and Breakfast. Devotion. School. The subject of teaching on this Wednesday was the birth of Jesus. From time to time during the week, Don and I would divide the group into two parts and have relays to see which team could put the story together fastest on the board using the pictures and sentence strips. One interesting turn of events that happened in class today were the students taking on the role of teacher – to me! A few of the kids began to try (and I do mean try) to teach me some Mandarin words, such as teacher and yes. It was a delight. Our recreation leader Jon (he’s a Phys. Ed. teacher in the States at 30 years of age) gave his touching testimony to our classes before play time. He explained how he originally was from Korea, in a children’s home there, adopted by a family in the States, and became a follower of Christ. Thanks for sharing your story, Jon.

During our rest time, I tagged along with Rob (a Missouri man who roots for the Chicago Cubs – he’s an okay guy, though. Nobody’s perfect) and Jon in their drive to the “McDonalds area” for a hat of some sort, but was a failed attempt.

Prayer walking was made more enjoyable since Peter decided to return to walk and pray with me. We had yet another semi-understandable conversation, this time delving deeper into our personal lives with favorite flavors of ice cream and soda. Our speaking became slightly enhanced due to the kids teaching me a few words in Chinese. Peter, who speaks a good deal of English, was happy with the progress and encouraged me to learn more. A trait that Peter, as well as many of the Taiwanese use, rubbed off on me. When struggling to find the word to say, either in Mandarin or English, one will unconsciously being to tap their head with their fist. It doesn’t really help much. Once again, kids on the side of the street were amazed with this crazy American saying “hello.”

Many of the villages that we visited consisted of many close, compact, and small homes that were fairly rundown. Some are just residences; others are part shops/ part homes. Most of the buildings have metal bars over the window areas – and not because crime is so high. The purpose behind these is for tropical storms. Taiwan is, after all, an island in the ocean. Also in the villages are temples, ranging in size from as big a US churches and small as doghouses. Crops of rice, bananas, or betelnut (a type of fruit/nut that is chewed and many Taiwanese find themselves addicted to – comparable to our “chew” in America. It turns your mouth funny colors, though) can surround a Hakka community as well. Shrimp farms are also popular among the Hakka communities.

For dinner tonight, we ate at Red Gate restaurant (it’s about time I made a few comments on the food…). Many times when we would eat at a restaurant, the servers would bring several platters of food out for our group. And, oh, what food! Nearly every meal (minus breakfast, though you could probably get it if you wanted to) was served with rice, fried or steamed, vegetables, and some sort of meat. Many times it was multiple kinds of the latter two. Occasionally, our food would be looking back at us (as in the cases of most fish) or it would be too doughy that it was virtually un-chewable (as in the case of a blob of peanut-flavored/rolled doughy type thingamabob); but overall, the food was outstanding. One of my favorite dishes was shrimp that was still in its shell yet was cooked in a way that it became edible – yum. Fried rice, fresh pineapple from the street sellers (okay, so that was in the mornings, but – it was still great!) fish – all wonderful. Don’t come to Taiwan thinking about forks and spoons because you probably won’t see them much. Everything is used with chopsticks (except for maybe soup) and if don’t know how to use them, you will if you want to eat. One thing I wasn’t too fond of was an almond flavored Jell-O. And don’t worry – you won’t find your dog Fido on a flood platter – it’s illegal to eat dogs in Taiwan.

This evening served as a somewhat frustrating and slightly embarrassing one as I sat in on an adult class. All went well during the teaching part. After the session was complete, a short fellowship time ensued. As many know, and this testament can testify, I love to play with kids. It’s some kind of magnet that is inside of my body that attracts them and it creates adrenaline. Don’t ask why – I didn’t make me. Anyways, there were a group of children at the fellowship, children of some of the adult “students.” When I began to amuse them, two sisters began to get out of hand and would not listen to directives of “no” (I was saying it in Chinese which is pronounced “may” so they understood me). I was aggravated because I could not control them and I did not want for the adult group to be broken up because of this. My fear was that one who needed to hear about God’s love would miss it because I had to play with these kids. Finally the group dismissed and we went back to the hotel, me being rather disappointed in how the kids responded and how I could have distracted from the real purpose, which obviously was not my intention.