Ok, so we are back from Taiwan. It was an awesome week and I am extremely, very happy to be back home in Kinmen. (For those of you wondering, we actually say "Going to Taiwan" whenever we leave Kinmen and go to the large island...the people here consider themselves to be Kinmenese, not Taiwanese.)

This past week was our Thanksgiving "break". I say "break" because it wasn't really anything of the sort...but it was still a very good week. Friday we left Kinmen and went to Taow Ywen county. They hosted us at a Jr high school for troubled kids. Friday and Saturday we did touring and Sunday went back into Taipie for church. Monday we had a press conference and then from Monday to Thursday taught in the schools in the area...some really awesome schools. Then Thursday we went back to Taipie for Thanksgiving with the Chen family (an IBLP family that does ministry over here) and then Friday and Saturday mornings we had meetings and then afternoons free...Saturday afternoon we went come to Kinmen (yea!).


After an hour flight, we go off the plane and where greeted by Ben. He took us to the bus we that we drove around in for the next several days. Once on the bus I sat down near Joh-Eric, who I worked with in Memphis doing CharacterFirst! It was really good to see him again.
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After taking us to the dorm to drop our stuff off, we were taken to this bridge. Walk across it and up the hill a little ways and you come to a really cool old street filled with tourist traps. I think they should send the Taow Ywen goverment people all over Taiwan to teach them how to give tours: they just told us what time to be back and let us roam. That was really nice. And very fun.
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Ben and Joh-Eric quickly found the play ground.
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Then Friday they took us to ??? (literally "Small People World"), which kinda like a theme park. The first half was a bunch of really cool minitures (some of which weren't all that miniture) and then the second half of the park had some rides (but only one really good one).
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great wall of china
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They even had a model of Kinmen...although, if you asked me, it doesn't look much like it. At any rate, this is a picture of Jing Chun, the town we live in.
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While I was looking at the Kinmen model, a college age girl came running up yelling "Kinmen! My home!" in Chinese. So I turned to her and asked if she was from Kinmen. She said yes and I told her I was also. So in very Taiwanese college age girl fashion, they all had to have their picture taken with me....which was kinda funny. I then snapped this picture of them...the girl in the bottom left is the Kinmen girl.
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Megan and Sandy by the Great Wall.
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Wouldn't you love to have one of those in your living room? This was at a tourist trap at the theme park. Pretty cool, huh?
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just being different
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then lucas punched her lights out...
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I didn't want a typical picture either...
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I've actually been to this place...really cool
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Sunday we went back into Taipie for church and then had lunch at the King Car office. This is me with Jack and Vivian, two wonderful Christians. I worked with Vivian during winter camps and Jack was my TA and roommate during summer camps. Both really cool people.
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Ginger...who is very cute-uu (probably only BJ will get thise one...)
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Ok, a little King Car/English teacher history. Last year Ben was the overall leader for our teams. And because of that, whenever we had a press conference, Sandy and Morgan Sun (our boss and the president of King Car, respectively) would make a very big deal of Ben's Chinese. However, the fact of the matter is, Ben's Chinese is very poor. So it always looked kinda silly when he would try to talk in Chinese after they finished saying his Chinese was so great. But this year Lucas is our overall team leader...so he gets up to talk and he's like (in Chinese) "Should I speak Chinese?" Everybody says he should. So he says (again in Chinese) "Ok. First I want to ask my brother to come up here and help me translate." And we're all like "Huh? Why does he need Andrew to translate? But then Andrew comes up and Lucas gives an amazing speech...very natural and relaxed. And after each sentance Andrew translates it into Taiwanese!

Dude, our teams Chinese skills so totally rock. My Chinese is the worst on our team, and yet my Chinese is better than anybody on any of the other teams! Our team just totaly rocks!
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Nantou team...some really cool people. Top left is Daniel, who I hung out a lot with this past week...he's a really cool guy with a great heart for the kids he works with. Middle is Naomi, who is totally crazy and really cool. This last week was my first time to meet her. Then there's Joel, their very silent team leader. He is cool. Bottom left is Kristen, who I worked with for a few days before going home this summer. I hung out with her some this week and really enjoyed getting to see her again. Then there's Mia (said "My"), who is also really cool. Nantou also has one other team member, but her granpa died and so she flew home to go to the funeral.
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a strange team...
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one of the big reasons they are strange...
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Daniel...another reason they are so strange.
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So the Taow Ywen goverment gave each of us a gift at the press conference...ties for the guys and skarves for the girls. For the picture they decided to each wear it in a different way...and this is how Meagan chose to wear her's. Girl you so rock.
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I also love the way Ginger wore her's (second from right).
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Then Monday afternoon we went to our first school...they did a big performance for us before our large group...it was awesome. They did a really, really cool drum performance. It was loud, but it was awesome. They were really good.
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Then they did a dragon dance. I've seen better dragon dances (it's really, really cool when done well) but this one wasn't bad either.
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And then some of the 5th grader girls did a little dance they had come up with by themselves for our arrival.
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That night did a "party" for the kids at the Jr. high we were staying at. For the skit Daniel and I were twins, so we dressed the same and did some very crazy stuff together..it was a hoot.
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twins
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Then the kids did a smal performance as well...here's some of them doing their aboriginal dancing
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Then the rock band played. To be totally honest, they sounded horrible. They couldn't sing and their drummer had no sense of rythem. But it was a hoot anyway. It's really hard to describe if you don't know the culture, but just the fact that they would try something like that even if they weren't that great at it is reall cool. Problem students are so cool over here...the good kids tend to be boring. (BJ, you know what I'm talking about, right?)
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I left my heart back in Taow Ywen with these Jr. high kids.
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Really cute 7th grader
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Wednesday morning the Kinmen team got to actually teach at the Jr. High we were staying at (the one for troubled kids). I taught the 9th grade. It was so totally awesome and it really made me miss teaching Jr. high. The principle later told us that he esp. wanted to thank me, because he'd never seen the 9th graders so serious in class before.

Since leaving Taow Ywen these kids have been calling us really often, asking when we will come back. Sunday one of them actually called me at 1 in the morning. We are making plans right now to go back over there for a weekend right after Christmas.
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You can see so many things in these kids eyes. Both pain and an amazing openess to love and be loved. None of them have both a mother and father at home. Most have been abused, either physically or sexually. Many cut themselves. But show them just a little love and they flock to you like moths to a light. Half the school was crying when we left the school. I am amazed to see all these kids have come through and still have the ablility to love and to trust. They are truly amazing kids.
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with 9th graders (and one 7th grader in front)
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IYan...really cool Christian dude with amazing English
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Wednesday afternoon we taught a teachers conference. That was really fun. The teacher on the bottom left in the blue shirt was awesome. I really wish I could visit her class and just watch her teach and learn.
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Thanksgiving with the Chens! Awesome food!
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Charades.
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Jon-Eric dancing
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Ginger blowing a wistle
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Mia blowing a wistle
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Super with Janice and Julie, two TA's from winter camp. Oh, and Mia.
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English over here can be really funny sometimes...
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So, that was last week. Very fun, but dude, I am so glad to be home in slower moving, less crowded and less stinky Kinmen.

Here you go BJ...a picture of Susan! I don't know what I would have done without her help making supper on Sunday...dude, that girl rocks! Went to the store together, she told me what to buy and then helped me get it all put together. And it tasted really good too.
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Very cool thing...VeggieTales songs in Chinese! With bu pu mu phu! Yea!
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Michelle and Sophie from Monday night class.
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More cooking. Rebekah made grilled cheese sandwiches for us as well...thank you Bekah!
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And that's all for right now. Sorry, no time for a real update...I've got to plan for tomorrow's classes and get to bed at a respectable hour (ha! like that's going to happen...)

You are Romans.


Which book of the Bible are you?
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So...I am Romans. Interesting.

Ok, I totally don't get Kiwi. Would somebody please tell me what a Japanese horror movie with Chinese subtittles has to do with English class? Yes, I know it's the week after mid-terms and it's ok to maybe do something a little funner (is that a word?) and less serious...but a Japanese horror movie for English class? Please! I try to bring some control to the class room at times (in spite of his total lack of effort in that direction) but sometimes when the kids are going wild I have a hard time telling them they should pay attention to the teacher...why should they? He's not teaching them anything anyway!

I am now at over 170 character that I can both read and write. Also, today I found a person who might possible be able to help me with the writing side of things...she went though some of my writing and corrected some mistakes I'd made. Hopefully she'll be willing to do that every once in a while and make sure I'm doing it right. I used to ask James to help me, but he's gone now and Terry has horrible handwriting. And Joy doesn't really correct our home work...she just glances over it and makes sure it's generally acceptible. But I'm needing somebody to really make sure I'm doing it right.

Dude, pray for Claudia, a teacher I work with. She's been asking me questions about Christianity for a while now and last Sunday she came to Bible study. Now she's reading the Bible on her own and has been asking me some questions about that...and of course really cool things can happen when people start reading the Bible. So pray for her!

Tomorrow is Ning Jung Shiow...oh boy. I'm always on pins and needles when teaching the sixth grade there. I think I've got the boys on my side and for right now the girls as well...but I get the feeling that the girls still haven't made up their minds about me yet. And I'd actually rather have the boys in a class (esp a 6th grade!) turn against me than the girls. If the boys are against you then you can still do alright. But if the girls turn on you...you might as well pack up your stuff and head a back to the teachers office...don't even try teaching them. Hopefully in the next few weeks they will decide they like me for sure...tomorrow I'm playing a game involving candy, so hopefully that will help.

The good thing is that I've got the 5th grade totally on my side. There's a couple pretty perverted kids in that class, but also some really cool kids.

But I feel real sorry for the kids...their English teacher isn't all that good. Her English is rather low level and she doesn't teach that well either. One time I was watching a girl write out her home work...she was writing a sentance over and over...then she turns to me and says "Low si...gu si shu ma ee si?" ("Teacher, what does this mean?") The teacher had given them sentances to write without even telling them what the words meant...how annoying.

Hey, Thursday I've only got to teach two classes! All my 4th graders are going on a field trip...so I finish class at about 10 o'clock! Wee!

I have devoloped an interesting hobby in the past months. That of buying pens. I don't know why it is, but I've become addicted and actually end up buying one or two every week. The above picture is the pens that I carry around with me on a regular basis. I have three times that many in my room. Ginger tends to buy pens when she's angry: but I just buy pens and I'm walking past a stationary store and don't know what to with the change in my pocket.

Yesterday all my kids had mid-terms. For the first class I actually did teah a little bit: I read off the list of spelling words as part of the test and then even worked with them on translating a short reading portion. It's really cool that my Chinese has gotten to the point that I can read something in English, have the kids translate it, and catch mistakes they made.

But then the other five classes of the day I did nothing at all. Kiwi had tried to ask if I could just go home since I wouldn't be teaching any, but the school insisted that since I was getting paid I had to be in the class room the whole time! So in the back of the class room I sat, writing Chinese character for most of the morning and afternoon. I learned how to write ?, ?, ?, ?, and ?. I now know enough characters to write a few basic coversations completely in Chinese! Cool! But I have actually decided not to focus quite so much on characters as I have been: I think I really need to work on improving my spoken vocab. I know a lot of sentance patterns, but I often find myself in the middle of using them and I come to a dead end, because I don't know the needed vocab. to use that sentance pattern.

But dude, let me tell you, if you ever feel bad about your Chinese, you should just go to Sanwhy! You see, of the foriegners here in GingChun, most of us speak some Chinese. Everybody on the team can speak some and is working very hard on learning. Andrew and Ginger can both read menu's completely in Chinese and Meagan and Lucas are close behind them. Rebekah has awesome conversation skills. And, if I may say so myself, I can do fairly decent in getting my point across as well. Gabe (a cram school teacher) has really awesome Chinese as well and speaks some Taiwanese as well. So the only forgieners in GingChun who don't speak Chinese are the two college teachers. So the GingChun Chinese level is pretty good.

Sanwhy, on the other hand, is an entirely different mattter altogether! The Chinese level in Sanwhy is somewhere between pathetic and non-existant. The Canadian lady who teaches at the Jr. high there and her family don't speak Chinese. The South African mine-sweeping dude doesn't speak Chinese.

So yesterday on my lunch break I decide to go shopping. I walk into a tourist type shop and I'm just looking around. The owner is hovering behind me, acting kinda nervous, obviously trying to figure out how to communicate with me. Then I turn to her and ask "what type of thing is this?" A very simple, basic sentance. She about goes nuts. "WOW! Your Chinese is so good! Your accent is so good! You don't speak in a flat tone of voice! Wow! Amazing! Super!" I actually carried on a pretty long coversation with her: probably because it was just so good for my ego!

Then I go into another shop and (you guessed it!) buy a pen. I pick up a pen and say another very simple, easy sentance: "How much is this?" The lady in this store about flips out too. It was really a big ego boost: I walked back to the school totally ready to sit through to more clsses doing nothing but study my Chinese! Wee!

Guys, I feel like I'm living a dream. It's not perfect (dude, I wish I was back in Jr. high!) but it's amazingly awesome. I'm always busy, I'm learning, I'm teaching (something I've enjoyed) I have lots of time to hang out with my friends, I'm seeing lots of them starting to ask questions about Christ...guys, this is so the life.

Ok, I've got to go now. The family is going to be calling soon. Oh, btw, I'm judging an English singing compitition up at the high school later today: let's hope that goes well. Bye, love you guys!


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Quote for the day:
"Wow, today we learn so many things!"--Joy in Chinese class.

Summer, Gloomy and Elly in Small Kinmen
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Super with AFL students at Three Dogs
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Lucy tries her hand at leather tooling
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4th graders
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more 4th graders
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this is one of those "capture a moment" pictures...
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This is why you should always look behind you before making a left turn....there might be a moped coming up behind you...
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getting ready for a party? That's a lot of 58! (local very, very strong liquor)

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6th graders
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me and Lucy's girl
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Me and Lucy's boy
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Lucy, Meagan and Lucy's girl
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Jack, Me, Barbarian (yes, that's her name) and Sophie. Really cool 9th graders who I taught last semester and are now coming to English Bible study
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If I may say so...this is a really good picture. 5th grade
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Ken
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9th graders, Small Kinmen
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Cooking class
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very smoky
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???!
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902
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very much Meagan
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Pictures from here are on are from Sept...


We got home and Lucas decided to totally tear apart the living room. We threw so much stuff away it isn't even funny.
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Moody...THE dude
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Sea food party at Cal. pizza
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Octopus...
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Riddick, one of the new dorm kids.
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Peggy...this girl is something else
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Anne, George and Monkey
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Dorm people
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The coolest team!
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Don't ask...
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crafts
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Jen
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Peggy
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Riddeck and John
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Lisa and Anne
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Dorm people
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Peggy, the dorm mother and George.
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Ok, I've only got about 20 minutes before I need to head out to Small Kinmen, but I will try to recap my bike crash really quickly...

Basically what happened was we were going to the beach at ?? to swim. I was on the far right side of the road, going down a steep hill. I needed to make make a left turn to go down another road...but I didn't look behind me before turning. At the last moment I saw a moped coming up behind me...I jammed on the brakes, which was actually the wrong thing to do...if I hadn't slowed down everything would have been fine. As it was she hit my back tire, bending it up really good and knocking me over. I actually jumped off the bike before it hit the ground rolled, so I wasn't hurt. The moped driver went flying and slid, hurting her knee. She quickly got up, hobbled over to her moped and drove off though...I'm not even sure who she was: she was wearing a face mask (lots of people over here do when they are driving their mopeds). At any rate, I was fine, but I had to walk my bike about 2 miles back home. And of course everybody stared and laughed...it was interesting.

Today I went up to the high school to watch their sports meet. That was really fun. They also had events yesterday, but I was teaching and wasn't able to go. I hung out mostly with my Small Kinmen kids, but got to visit a bunch of my other students as well. Lin (our friend from church) and his class did a dance routine to Audio Adrenaline's "Mighty Good Leader", which was cool. I asked Lin afterwards if understood the song...he said no. But he was really thrilled to find out it is a Christian song!

Oh my! There's a new Amarican here on the island! And get this: she's living at the dorm and will be teaching at the Jr. high here and in Small Kinmen...MY STUDENTS!!!!!! Dude am I jealous! She seems to be a nice person. But after meeting her, Lucy said she probably won't stay in Kinmen very long...and Lucy is very good at reading people, so I wonder how long she'll be here.

I think it's a good thing that I won't be seeing Sandy (our King Car boss) for a few weeks...if I saw her right now I think I'd slap her in the face. Maybe I'll have time to explain why later.

Oh good heavens! I had something really embarrasing happen to me the other day. I asked one of the dorm kids how to write a phrase in Chinese (??) so I could learn how to write it. So I was at school and since I wasn't teaching, I was writing Chinese. I wrote several lines and then decided that I had the last character down pretty good, but the first character still was hard...so I wrote several lines of just the first character by itself.

Then the bell rings and all my students came to see what I was doing...they started talking very excitedly and pointing to what I had written...I was totally lost until the teacher told me that the first character by itself is the Chinese version of the F word...isn't learning a new laungage fun?

There is a spider web going from my bottle of vitiam C to the wall.

And the spider in the web is dead.

Does that mean I should be taking more vitaim C?

I have nothing against spiders. In fact, I kinda like spiders. I'd much rather catch a spider and put it outside than kill it. Actually, right now I have several spiders staying in my room as guest because they help keep down the ants (dude, our ant problem is a whole diffirent post!) But when they get that big *points up* I'd rather they not live under my bed.

About an hour ago I was talking to my friend Jimmy on MSN when I looked over and saw this huge fellow running across the floor. I tried to catch him for some time, but he disappeared. I looked for a long time, but finally had to give up. Still, I wasn't happy about the thought of him being in the room. What if I stepped on him in the dark? What if he was on the bed and I rolled on top of him and he bit me? Not nice thoughts.

So I went running. When I came back I saw him again, under the bed. I tried catching him again, but it he simply didn't want to be caught. So finally I herded him out the open door. Whew! That is much better!
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lol...if you look close you can see that he's covered in lint from under the bed. Poor guy.

Ok, I promise the next time I update I'll tell you guys all about my bike/moped accident. For now I'll just tell you that nothing got hurt, except my ego.

Well, I just switched out keyboards. I had been using the keybaord that came with the computer, but then BJ gave me her erginomic keybaord when she left and I've had it sitting in the room here gathering dust for a long time. So today I started to write a blogger update, but got so annoyed with that straight keybaord that I switched out the keybaord instead. Most of the time that doesn't take very much time, but it took a little longer because I had to put all the bu pu mu phu stickers on this keyboard. I'm really glad they sell those stickers, 'cause I looked all over and couldn't find an erginomic keybaord made here in Taiwan with the bu pu mu phu already on it.

I just went and ate lunch with class 901. I was feeling kinda bored this morning, so I decided to wear the school uniform today, just to make things more interesting. I love walking around the school grounds wearing it: you get some really great reactions. Most of the 2 and 3 year students just laughed, but a lot of the 1st year students (who weren't here last school year when I wore it) where very, very shocked. Plus you get some really funny looks from the teachers.

I love Lucy. Last night Ginger and I spent a couple hours at her place, just hanging out. At first Lucy had a lot of customers, so Ginger and I just sat in the back and talked, which was fun. Then after closing time the three of us just sat and talked and listened to music for a long time. That was so fun. Esp. after a long week of teaching.

Guys, I have no idea what to do about teaching with Kiwi. Half of the classes I teach are with Kiwi. And he is a horrible teacher. Like really, really bad. His classes are totally and completely out of control. Their nuts. As in: kids running around the room, wrestling on the floor, yelling at each other across the room, throwing stuff at each other, not even looking up when he pounds on a desk and yells. They know he doesn't really care about them or if they learn and they don't have any respect for him. This past week I showed the kids some Amarican money that I brought here. Yesterday one class was so out of control that I stopped right in the middle, told them they were behaving too poorly and that they weren't going to get to see the rest of it. I then went and sat down in my chair. Another class was out of control, but there where five girls who were paying attention. So I told the class that I wasn't going to show them the rest of the money because they wouldn't pay attention. I then took the five girls to the back of the room and showed them. I'm not sure if that made any difference for the rest of the class, but I do know that there was a little change in mood for the class.

Ok, moon festival. That was fun and interesting. It was offically on Sunday, but things kinda got started for us on Friday morning (not this Friday, but a couple weeks ago). The minister of education (for Kinmen) came by the dorm and gave each of us a box of moon cakes. Now moon cakes are all good and fine, but six boxes is a LOT of moon cakes! We still have some left now. And that's after giving a ton of them to our friends. At any rate, it was a nice gesture, just perhaps a little too large of a gesture.

Saturday we had a b-b-q at the church. But a few hours before that Ginger and I dicided to go to the beach instead (we'd heard the waves were supposed to be big). Turns out the waves wheren't that big, but we still had fun. After it got dark we came on back to the dorm. The kids where having a b-b-q outside, so I hung out with them for several hours. That was a real hoot.

Sunday night (which was the actual date of the moon festival) we were taken to one of the schools for another b-b-q. There were quite a few people there and lots of gal-eeion liquior. One old guy who spoke a tiny bit of English wouldn't leave Rebekah and Ginger alone. Andrew did a very good job of trying to keep him distracted, but that didn't stop his drunken proffesions of love. "I love you...more than I can say." Then he would turn to somebody else and say "Is right?" That person would then nop his head and say that yes, his English was correct, prompting the drunk guy to say it again. He also told Meagan this his son loves her. Meagan replied (without the slightest bit if irony) "I don't think so, because your son has never met me."

At any rate, after maybe an hour and a half we managed to tell them we wanted to be taken home. But then as we're getting into the van one of the English teachers turns to the driver and asks him "Ni hu jo ma?" (have you been drinking?) He said "Yo!" (yes!) "Hun dwo ma?" (a lot?) "Way!" (yea!) And at the same time Lucas is saying "Oh my, he's driving us? I saw him drinking quite a bit!" So I stepped out of the van and said I wasn't going with them. That caused quite a stir. I told Terry he could just call a taxi for me, but they would have none of that. Ginger and Rebekah were kinda upset with me, but I figured I'd rather have them angry than be dead. Finally they found somebody else to drive the car. Rebekah kept on saying "bo how ea-si!" (the meaning is somewhere in between "I'm sorry" and "I'm embarressed") That kinda annoyed me. It was their "bo how ea-si!" The driver knew he was supposed to drive us back: what was he doing drinking?

While in the states I went to a karate tournament. It was only five days after testing for my brown belt, so I was really nervous about being in the advanced division. For kata I did wansi-sho. This is actually an upper black belt kata, but I was taught it by the head of our system several years ago. For almost a year I worked on that kata just about everyday. Last year I used it to win both Octoberfist and Missions Tournament. So I did that for this tournament. Christa Bailey (very good black belt with beautiful kata) gave me a 9 (a really, really good score). Mr. Witticker, a 6th degree black belt who is very, very old school, gave me a 9. But his son, Witticker Jr., gave me a 7.5 (a very bad score). He didn't like the fact that I had done a kata above me. That really annoyed me. Had it not been for that I would have taken first. And I had every right to perform that kata: Mr. Houlzbaur taught it to me and Mr. Murry helped me prepare it for tournament. Oh well. I got 3rd at any rate. Which isn't that bad actually...even with one judge giving me a really bad score, I still out-did all but two of them. Cool.

Alright, talk to you guys later!

Hey! I'm going to try and make this a short update, because I figure if I write several short updates, then updates will actually happen. But if I try to write one long update it will never actually happen, and if it does, then nobod will actually read it.

I slept through my alarm this morning. The school van picks me up at 8:00. At 8:04 Bekah knocked on the door...ahhh! But by 8:07 I was dressed, had all my teaching stuff together and was getting in the van. Wow! Thank you Life Focus!

There are a million new kids here at the dorm. We've got two Taipie kids who speak English almost as good as we do...it's really strange to talk to easily to them. It's also strange, because now we can't say anything we want around the dorm kids. Last semester, if you used big words and said it fast, then you didn't have to worry about any of the kids understanding you. But Jimmy and Jerry can understand an amazing amount.

There's a new 7th grader named Riddick. He's taken a real liking to me and we like hanging out together. Saturday we went and got lunch together: that was really fun. One really cool thing was that we walked all the way to the lunch place and back talking Chinese! I also saw one of my old Small Kinmen students and carried on quite a catching-up conversaton with her, all in Chinese!

There's a little girl by the name of Peggy in 7th grade who's new here at the dorm. She looks like a 4th grader. She's very short and still has that round, baby-fat look. And she's a hoot. The other night she was with us in the living room and started to examine (sp?) the strange features of the Amarican's. First she stared at the back of Lucas's neck, noting the difference in hair color between his head and his neck. Then she measured the noses of everybody in the room: eye to bridge, bridge to tip, tip to face, all with her right index finger. Then she measured her own nose and compared. Then she just stared. She would stare directly at your face, then at your profile. Then she would compare what she just saw to somebody else in the room. All the while she hardly said a word: she simply made simple exlamitory (sp?) noises. Talk about a hoot! We were all just cracking up watching her.

The twins are gone! They said they would be back this semester, but apparently something changed over the summer and they now are living in Taiwan. Dude, I miss those kids!

Man, speaking of missing, I seriously miss Jr. high. Everytime I come back from school and see the Jr. high kids (many of them my old students) I feel like screaming crying at the same time. It's not that elem. is all that bad. But I just can't get into it. I've got lots of cool students, but it's just not like Jr. high. Jr. high you can actually get to know the students and be friends. But what can you do with 3rd graders that you see only once a week? On top of that I feel like I never understand what's going on in the classroom. I've only got two out of six teachers that can actually speak decent English. 10 out of the 20 classes I hardly do any teaching at all (very strange after teaching 45 minutes almost every class last semester).

Sure, I know it's better for my Chinese. None of the kids can even begin to talk to me in English. But I just really, really miss Jr. high.

Ok, in spite of that, things are generally going very good. Awesome, in fact. My monday night class for Sr. high students is going very good. Tonight I told them a story and had them translate it and we also did charades. Then we went to easy way and got stuff to drink. I've got a new class on Wednesday nights that's all students who used to be mine in Jr. high. Most of them are from Small Kinmen. That class is such a hoot! They're english level is a lot higher than my monday night class, so there's a lot more stuff I can do with them.

I'm working on characters a lot. I've got almost 100 characters that I can both read and write now. I like going to La Caffe and sitting in there for an hour or so and working on characters. Garry, the owner, speaks a little English and is always willing to help me if I have a question. He and his wife are both really cool.

There's a couple new forigners on the island. One is taking Tim Nall's place at the college and another lady and her husband are teaching at one of the Jr. highs. I figured it up and I think we still have about 14 forigners on the island total. Not that many. Which is very cool.

Ok, I'm going to get off now. Plan on hearing about our moon festival sometime soon. Drunken proffesions of love, moon cakes coming out of the ears, b-b-q with the dorm kids...all sorts of cool stories.

Love you guys! Bye!

This, my friends, is what you call a tall guy. Say hello to Greg, the 7 foot man.
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Hello! Greatings from the middle of nowhere! Yes! I am back on my little back water island that nobody has ever heard of! Wow-who! I am a happy camper!

Getting here wasn't all that fun. From the time I went to the airport in Tulsa to the time I landed in Kinmen was 34 hours...bleh! Not fun!

First thing I did once we got home was run over to the classrooms and see my students. All my 8th graders (9th graders now) said that 9th grade is very ?? (bad). Poor kids. All of the new sixth graders are so small! It really shocked me!

Wednesday I went to the high school dorm and visited with my ??? (small Kinmen) kids. It was so awesome to see them again! Sunday I am going to be meeting with Selena to get things figured out for my new high school conversation class...a lot of those kids will be from Small Kinmen.

Today we are going to the beach. A typhoon is headed this way, so the waves should be big...Ginger is going to borrow some boogie boards and possible even Chris's surf board...so that should be really fun. Tomorrow Andrew and I are going on a bike rie to explore the south-western end of the island. I don't think I've ever been down in the area before, so that should be fun.

Ok, a coupel things that happened back in the states....I got my brown belt! Wow! I went to three or four classes a week while I was home and Mr Murry let me test! It went very well. I got real good scores on my sweeps and pretty good scores on my jump kicks. Fighting for 10 minutes wasn't too bad (I'd been running about 30), but I just about died in plural fights. During my 3 on 1 fight I fell down and somebody put his heal right in my calf muscle, frogging it really bad. Then in my 4 on 1 I frogged the other calf...ouch! Other than that it all went really well. The next morning I could barely move and had a really good looking black eye, but I was a brown belt! Then on the following Saturday I went to a tournament, which I was more than a little bit nervous about, since I would be in brown belt devision. But I took third place in kata (more on that later...) and second place in sparring! So that was cool!

Ok, I need to go get breakfast now. Talk to y'all later!

8-5-05
I love Newsboys. Such great words and good music.

I also love my new ipod. Yep, I have an ipod! 20 gigs baby! Yes, I am happy! Got it on ebay for $230. Not bad.

Kuyu is gone now. He left on Friday morning. What a hoot having him over! Me and Bonnie took him to Oklahoma City to the Cowboy Museum and Frontier City. That was really fun. The roller coasters weren't really the greatest, but I enjoyed it. They have a ride called The Eruption that is something else. I liked that one a lot.

Anna bought herself a nice digital camera just before I left for Taiwan. But she pretty much spent everything she could on the camera, and so has been living with a 16 MB picture card for the past six months! Poor girl! So I got her a 256MB card for her birthday. She's going nuts taking pictures now.

Dude, I'm loving being home with my family. But man do I miss Kinmen! I miss hearing Chinese, I miss EasyWay, I miss going to Small Kinmen (that place rocks), I miss going to Monkey's for supper, I miss my teammates...

Thursday night we stayed up all night. Kuyu had to leave at 4:30 Friday morning, and Mom, Dad, Isaac and Caleb have all gone up to Chicago for a wedding, so we just stayed up and watched movies! We watched Ice Princess. That was interesting. Don't think too hard and accept that you can see right through the plot and it's a fun, mindless watch. Having been in gymnastics, I've seen a lot of girls pushed the same ways as the skaters in the movie.

Random note: Even though his Chinese is so marble mouthed I can hardly understand a word of what he says, I love listening to music by Jay.

Then we watched part of Fat Albert. It had some pretty funny parts in it. But we didn't finish it because it was getting late into the night and we wanted time to watch Con Air.

I had seen the end of Con Air in Kinmen on TV and thought it looked like a really cool movie. So we watched the whole thing. Very cool movie! Not something I want the little kids to see, but I think Mom would like it. I just think the ending with running into all the casino's in LA was a bit over the top. And while I don't normally approve of face smashing, I really liked the part where the main character smashes the rapist's face into the wall. You have to have seen the movie to understand. It was totally deserved.

8-14

Ok, this has been sitting in drafts waiting for me to finish it...I guess I should.

Today I talked to the church for evening service. Showed pictures and basically talked about what's going on in Kinmen. I think it went pretty well, although I was stuck standing behind the pulpit: if I moved then the speakers would start screaming. I really like moving around while talking to a group, so it made me a little nervous to just be standing there talking. Still, they seemed to like it and I covered most of what I wanted to (I only had twenty minutes...although I think I may have run over and done about thirty without realizing it).

Man, life callings are difficult things. I'm really wondering about some things that I feel like God has called me to that seem to conflict with each other. When I was ten years old I felt God call me to make movies. It was a very strong call and I've had that goal in mind for years and years. But between Feb 5th and Feb. 7th (I even know the exact date) that goal was been shaken. God placed Kinmen on my heart. It's not something I can describe or explain, but God gave me a supernatural love for that place. I can't seem myself going anywhere else.

I know I need to be there for this next school year. Will God lift the burden after that and will I move on to something else? I don't know. But I don't think so. So now I'm starting to look into staying in Kinmen on a more long time basis. I'll need a 4 year degree (which I can probably get in three years with hard work) and then I can go back and live in Kinmen (instead of being on a six month visitor visa and not really being a teacher). That means I need to start work on this college stuff soon.

What would be really cool is if BJ and I end up living and working together in Kinmen.

Ok, I'm going to get this posted and get ready to leave for karate. I'm going to be testing for my brown belt in two weeks! Yikes!

Good heavens. It's been forever since I updated. I've actually been wanting to update for quite some time, but our internet has been totally down for almost a week now. Even our network is down (which means me and Shawn can't play CS together! How horrible!)

At any rate, Thursday was my last day of teaching this semester. Now it's on to camps and then home. I'm really, majorly bumbed about the semester being over, because we have now been told that we will not have Jr. high next semester. I am going to miss my kids so much. Each class has become so special to me. Two of the classes gave me a huge bunch of beautiful flowers. Another class gave me gifts as well. Next Thursday I'm going to be taking sticky pictures with my "daughter" and some of her classmates.

Oh yea, my "daughter". She's an 8th grader who started calling me "Ba ba!" a few months ago. So I started yelling back "New er, gamma?" (Daughter, what do you want?) in a very annoyed voice. She and a few of her classmates have become my good buddies.

In fact, maybe I'll try and post something about each class.

Monday:
707. Really interesting class. This was Big Angel's class, until she moved to Taiwan. There's an interesing boy who sits in the back left (or right, depending on the day) that's a friend of Lucas. He comes to chuch sometimes.

806. AHHHH!!!!!!!! This is the only class that I do not like to teach. I actually like a lot of the kids in the class, but teaching it can be really tough. You try teaching with four kids yelling obscene things in Taiwanese at you while the teacher literally roves the aisles hitting students with a broom stick. The general English level is pretty low in this class, but Micheal and Peter have REALLY good english.

902. Really cool class. I teach this one with Susanann, who is really cool. There's one boy in this class who had an attitude problem. He was not going to enjoy the class, no matter what we were doing, or how fun it was. Sometimes I would make a joke and he would start to laugh, but then remember that he couldn't have any fun in class, so he would go back to frowning. So I talked to him (through the teacher) after class. I told him that I could tell he was trying really hard to be miserible. I told him he was being really silly to work so hard at not having fun while the rest of the class was enjoying themselves. The interesting thing was that after that he didn't have such a bad attitude after that.

801. Wow. Super awesome class. They have the best english scores in the school. Their teacher, Mr. Choung, is super awesome. Jason, Una and Lucy and three of my favorites in the class. Una and Lucy always steal my stuff after class. One day I came into class and found them playing cards: with my cards that they had stolen the week before! I love this class.

706. Probably the class with the lowest English level that I teach in big Kinmen. But they are super awesome. There's a special needs kid in the class and I just found out a few days ago that he won't ever speak English when I'm not there...but he always does a lot when I'm there. Nicole is in this class: she always tries to teach me how to say stuff really fast in Chinese after class. Actually she's a pretty good teacher.

Tuesday

My favorite day! Small Kinmen! ???!

802. Rather difficult class. Two or three boys who have very bad attitudes and fight with me almost every week. Abbey is in this class. She has the best English of any of the Small Kinmen 8th graders. She's really sweet. I'm going to miss her alot.

702. My hat girl is in this class. She always wears a hat. Turns out she actually has some sort of scar or something on her head, but I can always tell who she is when I see her in a crowd, because of her hat. Very cool class, but they are really quite. They like it when I just pick people at random: they don't like volunteering. It's a very Asian thing.

902. Wow. The coolest class ever, with the coolest teacher ever. Linda, Summer, Vicky, John, Ivy and my Sleeping Boy are all in this class. The English level is really good. Linda is the girl who Dad and I went with on family treatment. Really cool girl, really good English. John is the class leader and a hoot. Ivy is totally nuts. Summer is really sweet and one of my favorites. Sleeping Boy is never awake in class. I fight with him every class. He doesn't have a bad attitude or try to give trouble: he simply won't stay awake. And of course I teach with Selena, who is awesome.

901. Cool class, although too quite. Vincent is in this class. At first I don't think he liked me, but in the past couple weeks he's warmed up to me. Really good English. Also Eddy. Not so good English, but he's cool.

801. Super awesome. Very low English, but really good attitude. My head butting girl is in this class. Every time she sees me she motions for me to lean over. Then she head butts me in the forehead. Then she rubs her head and says "how tong!" (ouch!)

701. I love this class. Peggy, Lilly and Victor are in the class. All really good English. This class will talk more than 702.

Wednesday.

805. Amazing class. Dorm John, June, Luke, my daughter, Jason, my buddy...an huge number of amazing kids. There's one new boy who just joined the class a few months ago. Every time I see him I yell "Whoa bee ne swi!" (I'm more handsome than you!) He always yells back something about how I shouldn't pretend ("My gay!").

809. Dorm Bill's class. Bill is really quite in class, but he's my special bud. Also Shoiw Cu-eye's class (small cute...so called because she's my smallest student..i think I posted a picture of her before).

905. Wow. We all about died when we found out who was in this class. Jerry (the try to break BJ's hand Jerry) Allen, Pink Pig, Joe...some of the worst behaved kids in the school. But actually I really enjoyed this class, after the first month or two. The teacher has very poor English, which made it tough. This class gave me a really cool card at the end...I just about cried reading it. Their home room teacher has very good English (better than the English teacher's...) and I really enjoyed visiting with her.

Thursday.

807. Really high English level. I can always be sure to get an update on everybody's love life in this class..."He loves her! And she loves him!" This class is very competative and their always telling me that 801 is not good and that Michael is not good. Monkey is in this class. He's a hoot. Very good English. His parents own a be-in dong (boxed meal) place that we go to real often...great food for an amazingly low price.

710. One of my very cooles classes. While not all of them are good students, I don't have a single trouble maker in the class. Jimmy and Lucky have really good English in this class. Mandy (my dancing girl) and dorm Gilly are in this class.

910. My most crazy class. Totally insane. The teacher has very poor English: lots of the student can translate better than her. Some really sweet kids are in the class. There's also a boy who renamed himself "Juggle" after I started teaching his class!

907. Also very crazy, but in a cooler, more quiet way. Dorm Jason is in this class. Pretty good English. One time when I brought a monster mask to class, one of the girls put it on and went into the teachers office...that was really fun.

Ok, I have to stop now. I'm too tired to write any more. And my spelling is really bad tonight. And I want to play CS with Shawn and Terry (we're at an internet cafe). Expect an explanation of the previous post soon.

When is it ok to hit a stranger? This is a question that has been nagging me since supper time, when a total stranger came up while we were standing at a drink stand and places his hand on Christine's butt. He seemed to be a little bit tanked and was chewing beatle nut. First he came up to me and yells "Hello!" in my face. I said "hello" back and then purposely ignored him. He got his drink, then walks over to Christine (who had her back to him) and touches her. I nudged him in the shoulder, gave him a really big glare and said "Bo ku-ee!" (Not permissible!) He just grinned and stood there staring. Christine went ahead upstairs (where we were waiting for our food) and I hung around downstairs until all the girls had gone up.

I think I should have at least hit his arm really hard. I know where some nerve bundles are and a well placed knife hand can pretty much disable your entire arm for a good three minutes. I really don't know what would have happened if I'd hit him (if it'd come to an actual fight, I think I could have beaten him pretty easily...he was a half drunk, older, fat dude).

Mom has always taught me that a gentleman will not stand for that type of thing. He'll either teach the guy a lesson or get beat up trying. The end result isn't important: it's simply what a gentleman has to do. I feel like I let Christine down. My reaction should have been instant: instead I hesitated. I shouldn't be wondering these things: I am a karate ka. I'm not trying to brag, but I have the ability to seriously hurt and even kill a person. Simply having that power is dangerous. I must know when to use that power and when to refrain. I cannot make those decisions in the heat of the moment.

Ok, I probably should go to bed instead of rambling on like this...good night.

Click here for more pictures!

It's interesting to watch the girls over here try and wear revealing clothes. (yea, I know that sounds really bad, but give me a moment, I will explain)

Over here, tan is BAD. As in really, really, very BAD. So while you may want to wear something revealing, that will expose your skin to the sun, which is BAD. So the apparent solution is to go ahead and wear your revealing clothes, but then to wear non-revealing clothes over them. It's not at all uncommon to see a girl walking down the street, sweating all over and wearing a jacket backwards. I find this to be halarious, because you know that underneath that jacket is a revealing shirt of some sort that she probably paid an arm and a leg for and that she is extremely proud of, but of course nobody ever sees it. Is that actually funny or am I just strange?

Another funny thing over here is some of the things that they think work, but don't. Like their brooms. Now the concept behind a broom is very simple, and you would think that a civilization that has been around for thousands and thousands of years would have figured out (what did they sweep that gun powder up with, anyway?) But no! They are totally clueless when it comes to brooms. And they are confused whenever you talk to them about it. "What do you mean? Of course our brooms work! What are the brooms like in the USA?" And I can't describe the difference, or what exactly is wrong, but let me tell you, these brooms over here do NOT work!

Another thing is their spoons. Dude, it's no wonder they use chopsticks! These stupid things they call spoons are totally useless! And once again, they don't even realize it!

But at the same time, they've got stuff over here that I wonder why on earth we don't have in the states. When you go to get a drink, you can turn is upside down and shake it, put it in a bag, drop the bag in your bicyle basket and ride two miles without ever worrying that your drink will spill. Why? Because they seal the top of the cup with a sheet of plastic. Once you want to drink it, you simply poke the straw through the plastic and enjoy your drink. Drop it after you've poked it? No problem if you pick it up fast enough, because it's only one small hole. You only spilled a little bit. I very serioulsy wonder when these things are going to hit the states and everybody will love it and everybody in Asia will be like "What? You didn't have those before?"

I'm in Small Kinmen right now, enjoying my lunch break. I've got two classes after lunch and then I take the four o'clock boat back to Big Kinmen. Classes have gone really good so far. I love my ninth graders over here! They are totally awesome.

Yesterday was my birthday. Over here it is traditional to give away candy on your birthday, so I've been giving each of my students a sucker during class. It's going to total something like 530 suckers by the end of the week...

The team did a supprise birthday party for me last night. I was kinda expecting them to do something (because we've always done something for other people's birthdays) but I didn't have any inkling of when it would be until about three seconds before they said "happy birthday". BJ and I had been planning to go out to eat at a certain place for over a week and for one reason and another it kept on getting put off. So Monday Bonnie asked if I wanted to go eat there and I said yes. Since it had actually been my idea in the first place, I didn't suppect that she was using it to get me out of the way for an hour or so. Shawn and Ginger came with us and we had a blast. Then once we got home everybody was in the living room waiting for me. It was really cool. A few of our high school friends also came over, which was a hoot.

Yesterday I also learned how to write my Chinese name. I'd actually known how to do part of it for a while, but now I can write the entire name. I'm also learning how to write a couple other characters. Tomorrow I have a Chinese test and I actually haven't studied for it very much, because I've been working on the character stuff. But oh well. I've still got a full day to practice and I already know most of it (don't panic Anna...this is the exact same study pattern I followed last week and made a 95%).

Ok, I need to get off now. I'm about to fall asleep setting in this hot, quiet room, so I think I'll go walk around outside. God bless each of you!

Here there. Don't know how long I'll be able to make this post, but I figured it was high time for an update.

Today was a blast. Josh, Chase, Daniel and Joel, all fellow English teachers in Taiwan, came over for the weekend. This morning and early afternoon we went to Small Kinmen and went swimming. What a hoot! Some of Andrews students came by the beach and played with us...BJ and Lucas and I got in a mud throwing fight with them...I hope their parents weren't too upset about that. BJ was totally covered in mud by the end, because Lucas and I were a little more timid than her.

Ginger and Shawn's friend Angie came and visited us here in Kinmen for about three weeks. She left on Thursday. That was interesting. At first she really annoyed me. But by the time she left we were getting along pretty well (although I wasn't exactly sad to see her go either) It's not that we fought or anything, it's just that she was so extremely immature. At any rate we did have some fun together. Wednesday I skipped out on Chinese class (after taking my test and getting a 95%) and went with Ginger, Angie and Shawn to the beach. That was a total hoot. I'd never been swimming in the ocean before. It was a very interesting experiance. It's salty! That was a shock (don't know why...) Then Karen, who owns Cal. Pizza (and speaks very good English) came with her boyfriend and joined us. We ordered a pizza and spent about five hours just hanging out.

On the boat back to Big Kinmen this afternoon (after we went swimmming...not Wednesday, but today) I got to visit with two of ninth graders. It was really cool. Their names are Summer and Elly and Summer is the one that wants to marry my brother Ethan. They taught me some cool Chinese stuff. For example, the last character in my Chinese name means "hears". But actually it is two character combined: the character for "door" and "ear". So "hear" is "door" and "ear" together...cool, no? They also taught me how to say "sunburned"...bet you can't guess how that came up...

BJ is really feeling the crunch of leaving in only two months. I've still got over a year here and I'm even starting to feel like I've hardly got any time left. I know that must really sound odd to those of you stateside, but that really is the way I feel. I'm already trying to figure out how I can come back after I get my degree. And trying to figure out how I'm going to keep up my Chinese while I'm gone.

Speaking of my Chinese, I feel like I've broken through a barrier in the past week and a half. I'm able to communicate a lot more and understand a lot more of what I hear. I'm starting to feel like there actually is some hope of me ever being able to really speak Chinese. I'm also starting to really want to learn how to read Chinese. They say if you learn 3000 characters you will be able to read the newspaper. Some days that number seems impossible. Other times it seems that I should be able to do it. I figure it will be at least six or seven years before I can fluently speak Chinese, but i'm hoping to be able to haltingly communicate within a year.

Ok, I have to get off now. I still have to send some stuff to Sandy and plan for Sunday school tomorrow morning.

DANIEL SAUTER BEAT JAMES PRICE---7 TO 2!!!!

And I'm a little bit excited about that.

Hey there! It's been a long time since I updated...a long time! I'll see if I can make this one interesting in order to make up for it.

Today I had no class. Today and tomorrow all my students are having their monthly test, so they didn't need me. So instead I went with Rebekah to her schools. That was fun. In the morning we went to a small school with only six classes (four of which have English class). The 4th and 5th grades where cool, but I really loved the 6th and 3rd grades. Now, I have nothing against third grade. I just don't think I would want to to teach it. But this is the first third grade class I've met that I think I would actually enjoy teaching. They were awesome! 6th grade was really cool: if I do teach elem. next year, I think I'm going to ask to have as many 5th and 6th grades as possible. I also got some really cool pictures...maybe I can post some of them.

The goverment gave us a computer for our room. Shawn of course has his laptop, so I get this computer all to myself! The only problem is that it's in Chinese! So we've got Windows XP ordered and we'll be installing that soon. The graphics card was only 32 MB, so I bought a new one for it...and if you're going to buy one, why not go all the way? So I am now the proud owner of a 256 MB card! Wee!

Hey, I know it's possible to parition a drive and run Windows on one and Linix on the other...is it possible to have two versions of Windows on a computer? I'd kinda like to keep the Chinese on here and I don't want the hassle of formating the drive. Anybody know about that?

Tomorrow some of us are taking a friends car and driving around the island a for the afternoon. I'm not sure yet if I'm going or not...depends on if BJ decideds to go. If she stays, I'll go (no, not becaus I don't want to be with her! There's only one more seat open in the car and since BJ is going home in a few months and I'm staying another year, I figure she should get to go if she wants).

King Car has told us that we will not be allowed to go home over the winter holliday. I'm pretty upset over that. It's by no means set in stone yet (nothing with King Car ever is) but I tried talking to Sandy about it and it was like running into a brick wall. Pray about that please.

Last Friday I just about got my nose broke. We were down stairs sparring and Ginger walked by...she has just been playing volleyball and so was wearing shoes and pants. I threw a couple punches at her...she turned around and came back at me full force, landing a beautiful backleg round house right on the bridge of my nose. We all heard a very loud *CRACK* and tears came to my eyes. BJ and Ginger (who was freaking out) both said my nose was crocked. Not just a little, but quiet a bit. So ran up to the bathroom and pushed it back straight (ouch!!!) Monday Pastor Samuel took me to the hospital and we had it X-rayed. Turns out the bone isn't broken, but the cartilidge was probably ripped loose. It was pretty swollen and tender for several days. Now it's just tender. I guess it's cool that it's not broken...but if I have to go through all the pain and bother, I'd kinda like to at least be able to brag that I've had my nose broke in a fight...

Speaking of fighting, I've got a couple 8th graders on Small Kinmen that have decided they want to sleep through my class. Last Tuesday one of them wouldn't pay attention...so I took his chair away. He wasn't so happy about that. Oh well. The class is still really cool.

I have to go to bed now...it's two o'clock. Here's some good bumer stickers and a quiz I took (thank you Christine! Good job!)

Do unto others before they do unto you.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
Do I look like a freakin' People Person?
Don't play stupid with me... I'm better at it!
Driver carries less than $20 IN AMMUNITION
F U Cn Rd Ths U Cnt Spl Wrth A Dm!
Forget about World Peace...Visualize Using Your Turn Signal!
Front bumper -Run, Hilary, Run!
Go On, I will See You At The Next Light.
Have you slapped an environmentalist today?
HONK IF YOU LOVE GORE (use the button on your steering wheel)

You scored as Samuel. Your very comfortable with who you are. You don't mind wearing pink tie-die. Your very straight forward with what you want to tell people, and you almost always mean what you say. Samuel 92% B.J. 92% Megan 92% Rebekah 83% Christine 83% Andrew 67% Shawn 67% Ginger 58% Lucas 25% which Taiwan English teacher are you? created with QuizFarm.com

A few more pictures have been added.

Ok, I had meant to write an update tonight, but I ended up posting a bunch of pictures instead. Sorry! I'll try to write one soon...how soon I'm not sure though. I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon for a weekend in Taipei. Pray that it goes well. Dad left about six hours ago. :(

Click here for pictures!

WOW! The other day I was down at the beach and I got to thinking "Can you believe that I'm walking down a beach, listening to Chinese music, wondering if that peice of metel is from a land mine, on a small island from which I can see mainland China?!?!"

God's ways are so much higher than our ways. Two years ago, if you had told me where I would be today, I would have laughed at you. But it's so perfect. I love this place. I love the people. I love my students. I love the dorm kids here at the Jr. high where we live. I love the old man who sells clam soup around town and always yells at the top of his lungs and smiles when he sees us. I love our church. I love the food. I love the small alleys I walk down on my way eat "hot pot" at the tenth floor (the tallest building in Kinmen). I love teaching my kids the only card trick I know and then watching them show it to their friends.

This place has taken a greater hold on me in a shorter time than anything else ever has. I am not capable of this love I have. It's totally a God thing.

This place breaks my heart. I've cried over it almost every day the past week. When you see people wailing and following a funeral parade on Easter Sunday morning, you have to cry. When you see a 7th grader you've come to love smoking and trying to hide from you, you have to cry. When you realize that you dear friend Douglas is headed for hell, you have to cry. When you see children left at a school dorm while their parents work on the mainland, you have to cry.

This place makes me laugh. When you're playing "Apples to apples" and your team leader gets the cards "Useless", "pathetic", "naive" and "dead", you have to laugh. When a kid tries to give you the finger and doesn't know which one to use, you have to laugh. When college students drive by on their mo-peds and yell "hello!", just to prove that they know some English, you have to laugh. When one of your students comes up to you with a huge grin on her face and says "I'm angry!" because you took her picture, you have to laugh. When Moody didn't undestand the the word "half" and you ended up with two pizzas instead of one, you have to laugh. When you say "I don't understand: sorry" in Chinese and Taiwanese and the old lady on the bus starts jabbering at you about how good it is that you said something in Taiwanese, you have to laugh. When James losses his voice and makes a marker board to talk to you with, you have to laugh.

This place makes me pray. When you can't get a student to even look at you, you have to pray. When your team mate can barely walk because of a hurt foot, you have to pray. When you have no idea what you're going to teach in class, you have to pray. When you feel like you're going to explode from the stress of everything that is expected of you from your 3 different bosses (and millions of friends!), you have to pray. When you can't understand the laungage, you have to pray.

This place makes me praise. When you pray that God will help us to talk to TIm and then he calls one of us within half an hour to arrange a meeting, you have to praise God. When you stay up till 1 o'clock with BJ and Ginger talking and praying about you classes and then every single prayer you lifted up is answered within twelve hours, you have to praise God. When you see Bekah walking down the street without even limping, you have to praise God. When you God gives you the chance to talk to James about spiritual matters for over an hour, you have to praise him. When you can understand something said in Chinese, you have to praise God.

The is no way to describe what this is like. There is no words to describe how I feel. The love, joy, sorrow and stress mixed together, all combined to force you to lean on God.

Hey, I've created a blogger for my pictures. No need to bookmark it or check it...any time I post pictures to it I'll post a link on here.

Whoa du pictures!

What do you do when somebody you love is hurting themselves and you can't even talk to them? How do you express that deep, horrible pain you feel? What do you do when they run away from you, and when you finally corner them, they just keep telling you it's no big deal and everything will be fine?

What do you do when people you love are changing for the worse and you don't even know how to yell "You're too good for those guys! Why do you have to hang out with them?" How do you reach out to people abandoned by their parents and help them grow up when all they can understand is "Are you ok?"

I love these kids so much. And I hate to see them doing stuff I know they will wish they hadn't.

Last nigth we caught Big Angel smoking. I felt liking just sitting down and crying. Kelly is starting to hang out with some of the wrong crowd. Allan has really gotten into some bad stuff: I'm not sure what. I'm just feeling really depressed about these kids. They are each so precious and special.

Sometimes I feel so powerless. I can't even talk to them, and even if I could, what would I say? I feel like screaming and crying at the same time.

"Jesus wept." I wonder if he ever felt like this...