Hey there! Time for an update from Taiwan! Wow, it's so wonderful to be back...I'm LOVING it. I feel like somebody who's been swimming for a long time and then I've finally come up for a breath of air...no, that's not quite the way I feel...more like somebody who didn't realize how tired their were until they sat down. Hearing Chinese, smelling and eating the food, going to a drink stand, talking to students, speaking Chinese...it all feels so natural. I'm very happy.

The flight wasn't really eventful...it was long and boring and I'm not looking forward to doing it again in about two months.

We got to Taipei and were met by Ginger. It was so awesome to see her...but like she said, there wasn't much of a "wow, we're together again!" feeling...it just felt so natural to be hanging out again that it was hard to imagine it'd actually been a whole year since I'd seen her (or two years, in BJ's case). We got to the Chen's and were met by Karen and Tim. The next day we went to church, then met up with James and Claudia and Norman for lunch. James was our translator in Kinmen when the team first got there, and Claudia was a teacher I worked with last year (really good one too) and Norman is her boyfriend (who was also my bus driver on Mondays).



That night we went to the night market behind the Chen's house and just happened to bump into Piau, a friend from Small Kinmen. I had actually tried to get ahold of her several times so we could meet up, but hadn't been able to. So it was really cool to see her! The next night we went out to dinner with her and a friend (and James, of course. James basically hung out with us whenever he wasn't at work.)

Tuesday we met up with Ann (a girl who used to live at the dorm in Kinmen) and then went to Show Szteye (sp?). Wow...it was so awesome and heartbreaking to go there again. It's a Jr. High for kids who come from problem families...mostly single parent, poor families. Most of the kids have been abused in some way or another and they are all desperate for love and attention. We visited each class on Tuesday night, spent the night at their teachers dorm and the Wednesday morning we taught three 7th grade classes. It was a hoot...I haven't taught an English class in so long I was slightly rusty, but it was still a lot of fun and I can feel my old skills coming back. Plus I can still do a lot of the translating for myself, so I'm happy about that! In the afternoon we did pottery class with some of the kids...wow, that was really fun! It makes me want to take pottery lessons or something back in the states...it took me several tries but I finally made a really cool clay pot.


Just before we left (like literally two minutes before we were about to drive away) Rita pulled up on a moped! Rita is one of the girls who graduated from there last year...she and I were pretty good friends. For some reason God has really laid her on my heart to pray for and try to show his love and it was so cool that he brought her there before we left! Jamie (one of the administrators at the school) told me that her brother died last year and she's been hanging out at a temple a lot lately. She looked about the same as last time I saw her...her eyes show such a desperate cry for love and for a reason for life, it breaks my heart every time I see her. Her left arm was covered with cuts on both sides...much worse than last time I saw her. Please, please pray for this girl.

Wednesday night we went to the night market with Larua and King Car Sandy (who doesn't work for king car anymore). We were very supprised to meet Rebekah and her sister there...turns out her sister had been in Kinmen the past two weeks and was leaving the next day, so Rebekah had brought her to Taipei.

Now we are in Nantou hanging out with the team here and having a total blast. It's great to see these people again and I've really enjoyed hanging out with Daniel and Joel.

Ok, I'm going to close now. Please pray for:

--James. Anna put it really well when she said "he's just stone walling God." He knows his life is empty and meaningless and he knows that he can find purpose in God...he's just too prideful to accept that.

--Rita and the kids at Show Stzeye.

--The Nantou team. This past year some wonderful ministry opportunities have opened up for them and they are doing a lot of good work...but Satan is busy trying to stop them too.

I love y'all! Next update will probably be from Kinmen!

Haha! I got all A's! 4.0 once again! I'm happy!

I'm also totally numb. I just had two fillings done...and it took 7 shots of painkiller! Grr! I kinda wish that the nerves in my mouth weren't quite so strong!

Ethan and I have a show tonight for a VBS thing. Then tomorrow BJ and I are going into Tulsa to take CLEP tests and do some shopping. And then I need to get packed tomorrow night sometime...it will probably be a late night! And then Friday morning (early!) we leave! It really is amazing that things are moving so fast!

Tonight will be my last time to teach the TAG team. :( I'm really going to miss those girls...our team this year has been awesome.

I have to get off of here now and study for my CLEP test tomorrow. Bye! My next post will probably be from Taiwan!

Ok everybody, *big* bragging warning.

MY LEVEL TWO'S ROCK! THEY ARE TOTALLY AWESOME AND BLEW EVERYBODY OUT OF THE WATER AT THE STATE MEET!

Haha...we had the TAG gymnastics meet for one's and two's yesturday. The Gym City level two's have been doing REALLY good in practice and I was expecting good things from them. When I showed up at the gym I walked around telling different parents, "Watch the level two's today...they're going to blow everybody out of the water!" And then they did...even more so than I was expecting! EVERY last single of them got blue on EVERY last single event! I was about to explode with pride!

Tomorrow the level three's will be having their meet...I'm excited about it but not quite so sure they will do great. We have some level three's who will rock the house...but we've got a couple who probably won't do so great.

The semester is over and I think I've got a 4.0 again. Cool, no?

Ok, now on to the tournament today...here's the quick run down since I'm really tired and don't have time to write much...

Isaac: third in sparring.

Joshua: 2nd in kata, third in sparring. He probably would have taken 1st but he got disqualified in his second fight for face contact...he made the other guy's nose bleed. Rats. But he fought really good.

Anna: 3rd in kata. Very nice kata too. She didn't fight though.

BJ: didn't place in kata, third place in sparring. She fought the best fight I've ever seen her do in tournament...really good reverse punches.

Ethan: 3rd in empty hand kata 3rd in weapons kata and second in sparring. His fighting was amazing: he was on fire. And he beat Blake Dressler (who is a REALLY good fighter). He lost his fight for first place by one point. Because he was fighting for first place in the advanced boys division (which is the hardest division other than black belt...we're talking about some SERIOUS competition) he fought his last fight in the "big ring" at the end of the tournament. It was an awesome fight.

And finally, Samuel: 2nd in kata, and a "good job" from Mr. H...which is worth about twenty first place trophies to me. Fighting....drum roll...1st place! And I beat ISAIAH for it! I honestly did not think I could beat Isaiah. But I did.

Oh and the cool part is, Isaiah is the guy who hit me the back of the head on Monday. Haha...so I guess I got my revenge.

Here is my board breaking for my second degree brown belt test.

Ouch. I hurt. It hurts to chew because my jaw got hit so many times last night. It hurts to move because I had to do my drop kicks without a mat (read: on the concrete!) My fingers hurt from messing up on a punch and skinning my second knuckle (bad punch...I should have known better than that...) My eye hurts from a backfist that landed right on the eyeball. But mostly my head hurts from a punch that landed on the very base of my skull and gave me a mild concussion.

Like I said, ouch.

The good news is that I passed my test. And my board breaking went really good. I had troulbe doing my supsended ridge hand, but I did a suspened punch and a suspended backfist without any problems. For my power break I tried doing a three-board punch, but I rushed into it and didn't have enough power to go through (hence the skinned knuckles). I could have tried punching again, but I didn't want to injure my knuckles, so I did a hammerfist and went through them with no problems. Then for my power foot break I did a 2x12x18 monster board. That's a REALLY big board. We got it on video and I want to post it on youtube sometime son so you guys can see it.

I did ok during my fighting. Isaiah landed a couple nice ones on me (as usual) and Mr. Hargis planted two very solid punches in my midsection, but I got them back for it. :) Oh my last fight I made Luke's nose bleed (not on purpose!) and he got me back for that...lol. I didn't do so great on my first plural fight...2-on-1 I lost 2 points to five. On my 3-on-1 fight I was tied 4-4 when Isaiah landed a hard punch on the base of my skull. It didn't really hurt very bad (in fact it hardly hurt at all) but I started crying. I didn't even know why I was crying and it didn't help to try and stop. Mr. Murry came running over and checked my eyes with a flashlight. He said my right eye wasn't responding to the light at all for a few minutes and he didn't want me to fight any more (I still had a 4-on-1 fight left). I told him I could still manage, but he said no, that wasn't a good idea.

So, the bottom line is that I passed, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to fight at the tournament on Saturday. I know I'll do kata, but if I still feel like I do now then I won't be able to fight.

The other problem is that I don't think I'll be doing much spotting at gym. I'm just not so sure that my reaction speed will be good enough to keep somebody from breaking their neck. I told my boss that I'll come in tonight and help to teach but that I won't be spotting. She said she doubted I'd be coming in at all tonight and to call her later and let her know how I feel.

Hey, check this out. Josiah put together a slide show of pictures from our trip to the Philippines. It's really well done.

Well, this week is finals. I've already taken two tests. I have two more tomorrow and then two essays due on Thursday and then the semester will be over! I still need to study some for my nutrition test, but I'm thinking I've got a pretty good shoot at 4.0 for this semester. Pretty cool, huh?

Speaking of studying, that's exactly what I should be doing right now. Talk to y'all later!

Another interesting conversation that I over-heard today:

Guy: "You really shouldn't jump into this too fast. You just met him: you should get to know him before you start dating him. Give it three months."

Girl: "Three months! *laughs* I've never even been in a relationship that long!"

And you wonder why that is...

Ok, here's the scoop on the pictures below. I didn't have time to write anything last time.

First picture: Me holding Julieanna (how do you spell that name?) a little girl I fell in love with at an orphanage we visited.

next to that: Ryan doing con ku die with a sucker in his mouth. That struck me as very funny.

Erin and her fan club. She always had a huge number of kids who followed her around. She gave this particular group some bandanas.

A really cool fruit they have over there. It's slimy and tastes kinda like mild banana yogurt.

Josiah with a bunch of kids.

Me breaking a board.

I'm sitting in the library and the two guys next to me are a study in pathetic college dating habits.

"Dude, there's this girl I've been talking to on Facebook...her name's like Susan or something...she's cool."

"Hey, I think you got a gift from somebody..."

"No, I don't think so..."

"I'm almost certain you got a gift from a girl...you should check."

"Check this girl out (now their looking at myspace)..."

Can it get any worse than that? Don't ask...it probably can.

I will try to write a Phillipines update later this week (if I can with all this insane amount of school work to do...) but in the meantime...

I had lots of strange dreams while I was over there. Maybe because I was really tired the whole time...or maybe it was something in the food or something, I don't know. But here's an interesting one.

I had this girlfriend who I decided it would be best to break up with. So I planned a trip for the two of us to someplace in Tennesse (sp?). My plan was to make the whole trip very romantic and then have her get out of the car at out distination, tell her that I was dumping her and then leave her there.

After I'd made my plans I started to wonder if perhaps it might not be the very best of ideas. But BJ was adament: this was not just the best, it was the only way to do this. Besides, she reminded me, didn't my girlfriend have an aunt near TN? So I would actually be doing the girl a favor by taking her near her aunts house! So I decided to do it. Then I woke up.

Can you think of a more horrible way to dump a girl? Wow...I didn't know that was even in me to think of.

No time for a real update, so here's an email I just sent home. I'll try and post pictures sometime later.

Keep praying for us!

Hey guys, things are going great over here! Yesterday we went to a
remote village in the middle of nowhere...David kept telling us "these
people are VERY sensative...be very careful about anything that you
do!:" Once we got there (with our military escort...apparently
there's some tribal warfare going on) we had to sit in the truck for a
long time while they talked to the King about if we would be allowed
to even get out. Finally they did let us. The King was an amazing
looking man...dressed in rags that had at one time been nice clothes.
His right eye looked like a glass ball. I really wish we could have
taken pictures, but they didn't let us. We did a short, very tense
demo (we didn't know if they would be offended or put on edge by us
acting tough...ever tried doing kata on a hilly slope and only half
power?) and then handed out some food. The people were
starving...they get only about one meal a day is what we were told. A
nurse from the church came with us and was weighing the little kids to
see which ones were in the most desperate need of nutrition. We
didn't get to present the Gospel to them, but they knew that we were
from the church down the hill and David told us that we made an
amazing amount of progress with them and opened a lot of doors. He
said that they usually don't even let visitors off the trucks.

Sunday was great too. I went with Josiah and Tommy to a church in the
middle of nowhere and I gave the sermon. I had written myself a
salvation message sermon, but then found out it would all be
Christian's there, so I had to come up with something real quick the
night before. I talked about God's power and went through various
examples from the Bible...talking about God's power of nature, and his
power over the plans of men. It went real well. The church people
were wonderful very welcoming. I felt just like I was back in
Taiwan....we were only the second pale-faces to ever visit there and
they made a very big deal out of it. After lunch we hiked to a
different location for a Bible club with some village kids. We got
there about an hour early and I was really glad of all the various
ways I've learned to interact with kids without actually speaking to
them....we did lots of thumb wars and slapping games.

Sunday night was our first demo. It went amazingly well. Many people
were saved. :)

Monday night (after visiting the village I wrote about earlier) we did
another demo. Once again I felt like I was in Taiwan...the pale faces
always draw a crowd. The floor we were on was very dirty. Nobody
responded to the alter call, but when I talked to them afterwards and
asked what was the best part of the demo, they all said the Sacrafice
was the best...so seeds were planted.

Today we have another demo for a Muslim group. Pray for that. This
morning we went shopping...I got stuff for y'all and the kids at gym.

Ok, got to go now. I want to send a couple more emails.

Love y'all!

JJF

No real time for an update here (I'm actually supposed to be doing my math homework or writing an essay for history class...) but I'll just do something short.

I got a raise at work yesturday! Now I'm making $8/hour...not going to get rich, but it's better than the $7/hour I was making before yesturday. I love my job. There are a few students I would like to strangle but on the whole I really do enjoy it. I'll have to have Anna come to class sometime and take some pictures so I can post them on here.

I'm leaving Wednesday for the Phillipines! Ahhh! And I've got a million things to do before then. In fact...here's the list

Today:
--finish math chapter 5 homework and take the quiz.
--Post on the disccusion thread (math)
--Post on the disccusion thread (geography)
--Write an essay for history class
--Call Scott Brown
--Call Jason
--Study for nutrition exam

Tomorrow
--whatever I don't do today

Monday
--Math exam 2
--Study for nutrtion exam

Tuesday
--study for nutrition exam
--pack
--study for Cinima exam

Wednesday
--take nutrition exam
--take Cinima exam
--leave for the Browns

Thursday
--Leave for the Philipines!

And of coruse I've got to get packed and ready to go sometime during all this....ok, I've convinced myself I have no time for this post...I'm outa here! Bye!

Happy Birthday Isaac! You are now ten years old...wow! That's really hard to believe!

I'm at TCC right now, chillin' in the library. I just took two CLEP tests and I have about a three hour wait until it's time for Wankan practice...not long enough to go home, but I should have thought to bring a book with me.

At any rate, I just CLEPed out of another 6 hours! Yea baby! Intro to Educational Psychology and Information Systems & Computer App. I had actually planned on taking the challenge exam at RSU for the computer class, but I failed it! Ahh! That was annoying. It had a lot of stuff with Microsoft Access and Excel, which I haven't used very much. But I just got a 57 on the CLEP (needed a 50) so everything is good! The Educational Psychology CLEP was a little harder and I only made a 53 on it...but who cares! It counts! I'm happy!

If I had the money I would send Peggy Dugan flowers, because I learned enough in her Intro. to Psych class that I was able to pass this CLEP today. But I don't have enough money. I'll just send her a big thank you note instead.

We had Wankan come out to the BCM this week and do a demo for us. They were awesome, as usual. Only Jason, Josiah and Luke were able to come, but they did some great breaks and kata and self defense...not to mention a great Gospel presentation.

Chera, you need to leave Michigan. It's a bad state for you...you were made for much warmer climates. But I'm afraid I can't really recommend Oklahoma to you...it's not a very good state either. Try Texas.

I talked to Dr. Ford last week about my plans for my college future. I told him that I'll be at NSU next semester and he didn't scream at me or anything, so it went well, I guess. He also let me drop Sociology, which frees up my Tuesday and Thursday mornings completely. Which is a very good thing: I need to start working on my term paper for history class. He wants a 12-15 page paper! ouch!

The clock is ticking down to leaving for the Philippines! I'm so excited!

But not nearly as excited as I am about going to Taiwan. I can' t wait for that.

Ok, I'm going to go find a quick trip and get something to eat. Bye!

新年快樂!!!!!

Hope you all have a great year of the pig!

The RSU Honors Program is so frustrating. I'm going to be glad to be leaving it after this semster, although I am REALLY going to be missing my scholarship!

I'm going to be talking to Dr. Ford (the director of the program) on Friday. I'm going to have to convince him to let me drop a class and tell him that I'm leaving the program. Pray it goes well.

Hello folks. It's time for movie reviews with Samuel!

Serenity: Very interesting movie. The plot wasn't all that great, but it had a couple good characters. Of course for me the most interesting part was the Chinese aspect of it. I wish they had put in a little more Chinese than they had, but it was still really cool as it was. Probably the funniest part in the movie was the rough, tough spaceport bar that had the little Japanese-inspired animated panda bears dancing on TV. That was really funny. But what is it with movies that seem to be obsessed with corpses? They were all over this movie and it got annoying.

Hitch: You need to see this movie. It's extremely funny. Will Smith is awesome.

Mr. Deeds: dumb, dumb, dumb. Don't waste your time. I watched this because I felt like watching a comedy and it was one that Jamey had brought along...what a total waste of time. jamey, why did you bring it?

Oh, that reminds me...I forgot to tell y'all that I went to New Orleans over the weekend! It was a hoot. I went with our BCM director and another fellow doing pre-routing for our mission trip (which I'm not actually going on, because I"ll be in the Philipines!) The food was really good in the French Quarter. The drive was REALLY long.

If you live in Oklahoma you need to do what you can to stop Senate Bill 375. Go to HSLDA's website for more info.

Got to go now. Talk to y'all later!

If you haven't bought the CD "The Light of Things Hoped For" by Brave Saint Saturn, you need to do it soon. Here's the lyrics to one of their songs.

The girl in the alley kneels with exhaustion
She's guarded by the skinny guy who limps from some infection
Behind a veil of bleached thin hair her eyes tell a story
Like a photo of Berlin, December 1944
She's looking for a handout, she's been high for several weeks now
She's too far gone for whoring and the money just gave out

And her heart still beats inside
And the blood runs in her veins
A remnant of life remains
Her heart still beats inside

The man finally comes to the door, I've seen him several times
He always looks pissed off and his sunglasses stay on
I think he got his biceps and tattoos while in prison
And it doesnt seem to bother him when he says "go to hell"

And his heart still beats inside
The blood runs in his veins
A remnant of life remains
His heart still beats inside

The thought it comes to my mind, to somehow intervene
But it could bring me trouble, and what can I do anyway?
It's hard to be effective when it happens so often
To see a life unraveling, through drawn venetian blinds
I'm sickened by compassion, I'm stifled by my limitations
Anesthetic apathy, come take the pain away

And my heart still beats inside
The blood runs in my veins
A remnant of life remains
And my heart still beats inside

Oh God, we need you here
We're sinking fast and we don't care
The evidence is all around me, on both sides of my door
Our hearts beat

BIG BRAGGING ALERT! YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ A POST IN WHICH SAMUEL WILL BRAG TO NO END.

Haha...one morning, $120 and 7 hours of college credit! Can you say "Samuel is ripping through college like a NASCAR driver?" (I hate NASCAR...why did I use that word picture?) I just passed the natural sciences CLEP (4 hours) and the Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP (3 hours) and passed both with flying colors. And I didn't do any study for them. At all. None. Zip. I'm amazing.

To all those folks who told me that "Finishing college in four years is really difficult, and I highly doubt you can do it in under four years" I say: haha! I rub your face in my victory!

I'm going to do a Thomas Sowell on everybody and write "Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene." My thoughts probably won't be nearly as good as his, but hopefully they will be interesting.

Running on a treadmill is a horrible experience. With all the ice on the roads I had not been able to run since last friday, so Thursday I broke down and went into the rec center at school and got on a treadmill for the first time in my life. Ugg. Running, by definition, is supposed to be going somewhere. Not standing still. I ran 3 miles and it was really, really tough. Today I ran 3.4 miles outside and it was a piece of cake.

TV really, really, really needs some new ideas for sit coms. While running I was forced to watch a really stupid one. Ugg.

I called Andrew (in Kinmen) a few days ago and had a really great chat with him. I miss hanging out with Andrew.

Finishing college debt free is going to be a huge load that I will not have to worry about once I graduate. But until then it's going to be tight. Good news is that I found out today that NSU accepts a very large number of CLEP tests and I can CLEP out of 15 hours of my upper level courses.

Car radios are a wonderful thing.

Chuck Colson made a very good point recently about the war in Iraq. We can argue back and forth all day about if we should have gone in or not, but the fact is that we're in. We've made promises to the Iraq people which we are morally bound to keep, even if it is difficult.

And at the risk of sounding hard hearted, I'm going to say that, from a historical perspective, Iraq has not been a blood bath nor a quagemire. Several thousand deaths in four years is horrible, yes. But it's war folks! Did you think people weren't going to die?

I hate the cold. Hate, hate, hate it.

I wonder if the testing of the brown belts won't end up being in Feb. because of all this bad weather.

Monsters Inc. is the best Pixar movie to date. Hands down. I love the rest of them, but nothing can beat Monsters Inc. The characters and the story are just awesome.

I'll leave you with a question: what is the best animated movie of all time?

Happy New Year folks!

Well, 2006 was a great year filled with all sorts of amazing happenings. It's strange to think it's over, but exciting to think of what 2007 will bring.

The first big event of 2006 was winter camp at Zhong Zhun (中正). That was a hoot. Andrew was our camp leader (as always) and I got the most advanced team. They were the most amazingly well behaved kids I'd ever had in camp up to that point. One day we had 80 (I repeat, 80) kids in the gym and I was supposed to teach some basic juggling stuff. So before we passed out beanbags I told them that they couldn't juggle until I said "Go!" and had to stop when I yelled "Stop!" And they did! I was totally amazed! All I had to do was yell "Stop!" real loud one time and they all ran back to the front of the gym and stood waiting for instructions! Wow!

After that it was winter camp at Yong Lu (永樂) in Nantou. This was a camp for kids with really good English and we were not allowed to speak Chinese at all. I had the highest team, which meant they understood almost anything I said. I also had the dumbest boys on my team. No, I'm not being mean...they honestly were dumb. At one point they were supposed to be cleaning the boys shower...so they hooked the hose to the nozzle (which was in the shower room), took the hose outside, around the building and in the other door! Of course by then it wasn't long enough to actually spray down the shower. I didn't offer any help...instead I called Daniel over and we both stood there and laughed at them.

All in all, Yong Lu was great. It was kinda a strange "coming full cirle" for me. I had been at Yong Lu exactly one year before when I first arrived in Taiwan. So it was really neat to see the same things again, but with a years experiance to inform it. I also got to see Cindy, who was my very first friend in Taiwan!

After that we went back to Kinmen and started another semester. That was about when I declared war on a couple of my classes at Ging Who (金湖). I was tired of them acting up in class and the teacher would never do anything about it...so I took over classroom control. For some classes I just stood in the back of the classroom and threatened to kill anybody who misbehaved. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but it sure was a lot better than the way things had been before!

It was also during that semester that I began doing extra Chinese classes. Those were a hoot. Friday I met with Jean (a friend who's two kids were my students) and we worked on reading and vocabulary. And on Monday I met with Sandy (a wonderful lady who runs a cram school) and worked on writing and vocabulary.

Of course the biggest event of that semester was MOM COMING TO VISIT ME! She stayed for a full month! I can't even say how wonderful it was. She went to school with me and helped me teach (actually she did a lot of teaching...she's real good at it, so why not?) The weekend before she left we went to Taipie and visited friends and saw the sites.

At the end of the semester I made what was supposed to be a quick trip to Taiwan to see the 9th graders at Show Zsteye (秀才) graduate. I had a great time with them...but then everything fogged over and I was stuck in Taipie for 2 extra days because nobody was flying to Kinmen! Boy was that annoying! I ended up missing the 城中 graduation, which was very sad. :(

The end of the semester was also very sad...leaving Kinmen was tough. I would walk down the street and students would run out of shops and say they heard I was leaving and say goodbye.

Then came ABC camps. Oh my Lord...how to describe ABC camps? King Car does a summer program in which American Born Chinese (ABC's) college students come over for six weeks in the summer and teach English camps. Ginger and I were in charge of training them for the camps and then helping them to run them. We had 18 ABC's...many of which were great folks...but many of which were not! We had several guys who wouldn't quit drinking in spite of the fact that King Car had made it clear from day one that was not allowed. Then King Car refused to crack down on those who did. So next we had drunken parties going on in the dorm rooms after camp...I got really ticked off when they spilled beer all over Andrews bed. Eventually it got to the point that King Car wanted Ginger and I to be in charge of enforcing the rules, but they pointedly refused to support us in anyway. So we finally decided it would be best to tell King Car we weren't going to do the ABC camps any more. God worked things out wonderfully (amazingly, actually) and both Ginger and I ended up going home sooner than expected!

Once I got home I had about 2 weeks to get ready for starting school. I promptly got sick. But once I got over that I was able to jump right into things...karate, school, gymnastics, church...it's great to be back home. But I miss Kinmen a ton.

Since then I have signed up for a mission trip to the Philipines during spring break, joined the leadership coucil for the Baptist College Ministries at RSU, decided to transfer to NSU and study English Education, made a 4.0 on the first semester, found out that there is a very good chance of skipping my 2 year of college if I work hard this semester...

And I guess that's pretty much my year! If you've read this far, give yourself a gold star.