The following was written some days ago and then lost due to a bad internet connection. At that time I didn't know that blogger automatically saves drafts for you...so I didn't lose the whole thing.
===================================================

Hey there folks. Thank you so much for the birthday greetings and also for the reminders that I need to update! Hey, at least it tells me that there are people reading! :)

Well, we're now in Kinmen. Wow. I realized before we came that there would be lots of people who wanted to hang out with us or take us out to eat or something but...wow, I didn't really expect to be this busy! Last night we had one dinner appointment and made two more...at this rate I don't know if we'll ever have to buy any food while we're here! lol

I think somebody must have been praying for us last night. God really opened some great chances to talk to several different people about him and there was no interference from the enemy at all. We had supper with the family that we will be staying with at the end of June. After supper we went for a walk with them and the oldest boy started asking me a whole bunch of questions about God and the difference between Christianity and other religions. In the meantime Anna got to talk to the mother about how Dad had changed so much since he was saved. It really was amazing. Keep praying for these people.

========================================================

Ok, now everything below has been written today.

I've been visiting some olds schools these past two weeks and have really enjoyed seeing my students again. Jing Who...well, it's still Jing Who! The school seems to have improved some because of having a new principle, but I'm still glad I don't work there anymore! But of course there are some really cool kids there and I've enjoyed going back. My Monday and Wednesday schools have been awesome! I've also spent some time at the school here in Jing Chun, helping with the after school English program. It's been fun helping, but I must say that I'm glad I left King Car when I did...there's no way I would want to teach the after school program!

It's been fun getting to know the new team members. We seem to fit in quite well and hang out in the living room with the team a lot. Of course it's been really great to see the old members of the team and I've REALLY enjoyed hanging out with Drew again. Drew is extremely hard to describe, but he is really an incredibly awesome guy.

I start working with Sandy tomorrow. Turns out I'm not actually going to be working at her cram school: instead she's going to have me teaching her and her little girl and some friends every night for about an hour and a half. Last night we talked about how much she is going to pay me...she offered quite a bit more than I had been expecting and it looks like I might be able to totally pay off my ticket over here! Yea!

Since I'm only working 1 and a half hours each day (not counting going to school with the team) I've been able to start looking for some other odd jobs as well. BJ and I are teaching a three week class at the high school. We've had two classes so far and they have been really fun. Then today I learned about a high school student who might want to do some tutoring and then Lucy said she wants me to tutor her two kids. So I've got two, or possibly three students already!

I've also restarted my Wednesday night class for some of my old 9th grade students. It's really great to hang out with them again...I've really missed those kids. Keep praying for them: I've explained the Gospel to them before and now I'm just praying that the Holy Spirit will work in their hearts.

Tomorrow I will be starting to have Chinese class with Pastor Samuel. We're going to focus particularly on learning how to present the Gospel in Chinese. I'm really, really excited about it and hope to learn stuff that will help me next summer on the ABKA China mission trip.

Friday we had supper with a friend from church and it turned out to be a really great encouragement for us. Vick has only been a Christian for about three years but he is very on fire for God and very firm in his faith. After supper we had a mini-Chinese lesson on how to explain the concept of free will in Chinese and then we had a culture lesson about the Chinese view of sin. To a Chinese person, sinning or not sinning really has nothing to do with loving God. We talked about several different ways that you might explain the concept of "If you love me you will keep my commandments" and I feel like I have a better understanding the way some of these people think.

Last Monday was the town's god's birthday and there was a huge parade to go along with it. Before the parade I walked around town and prayed over the town and then stood on a street corner with BJ and Anna and prayed over the people. The demonic presence didn't seem all that strong at first (although I do think that a lot of the people in parade were drugged) but then three men walked up and you could just feel that they were possessed. I'm not sure what their official tittle is, but they basically are the guys who self mutilate as an act of worship. In Kinmen they typically don't go very far (some places in Taiwan it's not uncommon to see them totally covered in blood, whereas in Kinmen your more likely to see them with just a few cuts or needles stuck through their face) but these guys where very much under demonic control. They stood there shaking their heads, but even though their eyes were closed they were always in time with each other.

Everybody over here says that I've lost weight...they say my face is thinner. But I think it's probably just having a goatee that makes me look that way. Don't freak out Dad, I am eating fine and I'm working out regularly as well.

Ok, it's midnight and I've got an extremely busy day tomorrow, so I had better get a shower and get into bed. Love y'all! Thanks for your prayers!