Ok, I fear I have incurred the wrath of the fearsome Mrs. Z., so I guess it would probably be wisest for me to update, before she decideds to sick her son on me. (Don't fear the black belt...fear the lady who cooks for the black belt! *note: this has now offically been reserved by the Bavido clan as a fund raising idea for the mission trip...t-shirt that say "Don't fear the black belt, fear the one who cooks for the black belt!"*)

Wow, I've been so tired the last couple days I haven't been able to think all that much. I teach every night from 8:00 to 9:30 and then generally hang around at Sandy's visiting until 10 or so, so I get back here at around 10:40, then I take a shower (but there's only one, so I normally have to wait a while) then I read my Bible and visit with various folks and it's past midnight...then I get up at 7 or so and go back into town and go to school....and the processes has been repeating itself this whole week. On top of that you add trying to do homework for Chinese class, lesson planning, spending time with Lucy, emailing family and friends, working out, spending time with the team before they have to go to Taiwan for summer camps...ahhh! This morning I had planned on going to school with Lauren and I set my watch for 7:30...then I woke up at 9:30. Probably that was a good thing. I jumped on my bike and rode out there as soon as I could...only to find out the students were having tests all day and so there wasn't any English class. Sign.

Monday morning the family we're staying with wanted to go on a bike ride, so we went with them. At first they said there were going to go to a beach where they had some special birds of some sort...then when we got there they decided to go somewhere else....then someplace else for lunch....then why not to San why? The long short of it was that we ended up going on an almost 19 mile bike trip. With no sunscreen. Anna looked like a lobster. I got burned on my arms and neck, but I'm mostly fine now. Boy, my legs were tired on Tuesday...

Wednesday we got to see Susan. Wow. Susan lived at the dorm the whole time that BJ and I did...she's a very smart and amazingly mature girl who is a real hoot to hang out with. She was going from Shia Mun (China) to Taiwan for surgery on her knee and she stopped in Kinmen for about a day. We didn't really get to spend all that much time with her, but it was lots of fun to just sit in the living room and just talk. We told her we woudld pray for her surgery, which should be done by now...I texted her but haven't heard back yet.

Taiwanese people don't hug. Seeing Susan kinda brought this to my attention...when I first saw her she ran over and gave me a big hug. I hadn't realized until that point how much I really missed hugging people. Perhaps it sounds strange, but for the past month I've been seeing people that I love and haven't seen for a year or more and it really seems like a hug is the correct greeting. But people don't hug here. There's lots of people that i just want to wrap my arms around and say "I've really missed you!" but that's just not something you do over here...and if you try then it's like trying to hug a post. Sign. Oh well.

Here's something else I've been thinking about lately. Actually I first started to think about this when we went to the Phillippines. When I tell people that I'm a missionary they get this expression on their face of "Wow, you've decided to sacrifice a lot." Or if I tell people that I'm going on a mission trip over my spring or summer break they act like "Wow, this guy is giving up his break to work." I really find this kinda odd. I don't really feel like I've made some big sacrafice, or that I'm going to be missing on something by deciding to do these things. Sure, there's times I'm tired or feel kinda overwhelmed. But I think I've really gotten the better end of the deal. Nothing is better than being with the people that you love...and when you are ministering to people, God gives you a wonderful love for them. Nothing is more exciting than being where God wants you to be and seeing what he is doing.

Ok, here's some pictures...Anna and Lee and Daniel (in Nantou, from sevearl weeks ago.)


Me and Jane