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...

Christine and Bekah
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Yummy finger situation! (Ginger)
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Drew, Gingers Dad and Mom and James
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The first Taiwanese bug I ever saw!
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My cool roommate!
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Good picture of BJ.

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Hi there. I have BIG NEWS!

I'm staying for another year!

Goodness, I can't really believe it myself. But yes, I am staying. I will be coming home this summer for a few weeks (not sure how many) and then I'll be coming home during winter vacation (in Jan.) I'm really looking forward to being here longer: I've come to love this place so much in just the few weeks I've been here.

This past week has been awesome. I've been praying for my classes alot more and I can really see the difference. I've had two classes in which every student volunteered to say the tounge twister! Wow! That's just about unheard of. Tuesday Andrew gave me a really cool idea for a game to play in the class room and I've done that all week: it's very popular.

Tomorrow night I'm having a party for my Jr. High English teachers. We're going to play Apples to Apples. We're also going to talk a little bit about Easter, so pray for that.

Dad is going to be here in one week! I can't wait! WOW!

I've started running again. I hadn't been doing it the past several weeks: what with being sick and the cold weather I simply couldn't make myself do it. But it sure feels great to be running again. Last night after I ran I went over to the big gym and did all my katas. There were a bunch of people there dancing: it was interesting to watch.

Ok, it's time for team meeting. Bye bye!

Good heaven's. I feal horrible. I had gotten over being sick a few weeks ago and was doing fine, but then Sunday night/Monday morning our heater got turned off somehow. The room got real cold. I didn't feel so great during class yesterday, and then afterwards I went downhill pretty fast. BJ and I went out the get supper and walking back I was carrying our food and my arms got so tired I finally had to give it to her to carry (we're talking about maybe two pounds here!) I went to bed at about 7:30. And I've had to miss school today. I'm really bummed about that: Tuesday is one of my fav. days, in spite of the fact that it's my longest. The school on Small Kinmen (the smaller of the two islands here) is smaller in size and the two teachers I work with are totally awesome. In fact I got a get well e-card from one of them this morning! How sweet!

I'm starting to really love Monday. I've got some awesome classes. Yesterday one of my girls brought her mouse to class and showed it to me: it was the cutest thing ever!

Man, I really wish my camera would get here. Mom sent it several weeks ago, but there's still no box for me yet! Mail from Taiwan to the states goes pretty fast, but coming here for some reason it's really slow.

Gingers parents are here right now. They both seem to be really cool. Her Dad got one of the Kinmen knives custom made by the Mr. Wu himself. Wow! And it's a really cool knife.

I bought Ethan his birthday present yesterday. It's really cool: I hope he likes it.

GOOD HEAVENS!!!!!!! I just realized it's been almost a month since I updated! How horrible!

Anna, tell Jason that I will be trying to send him a kata video soon. Hopefully once I start feeling better.

Tuesday nights we have a class for potential Jr. High Drop-outs. It's interesting. Some of the kids are really cool, others are...um....difficult. One of them, Kelly, has really captured my heart. She's really cool.

Monday nights the same kids have a karate class. I went a few weeks ago and worked out with them. The instructor seems to be a pretty cool guy: he didn't speak much English. He actually reminded me of Mr. Burnett somewhat: he was always says "Relax-a, relax-a, um...quick-a-ly, quick-a-ly." One of the kids was a big problem in class and the instructor wasn't really sure what to do with him. At first he would just glare at him. Then he would put him in a joint lock whenever he wouldn't pay attention. Then he tried having him next to him the whole time. Nothing worked. Finally he just kinda let the kid go around the dojo and ignored him. It was kinda funny to see the teacher working so seriously with the rest of us, while this other kid stared at himself in the mirror, playing with the inside of his mouth.

Last Wednesday Drew gave the girl permissoin to wear pants and Shawn, Ginger, BJ and I went over to the gym and sparred. WOW! What fun! I was really happy with what I saw Bonnie doing. She still needs to work on her extension, but generally her fighting is looking really good.

Does anybody know how I can post a link to my Yahoo! photo albums? I've uploaded a lot of pictures and I'd really like to share them with y'all.

Saturday a couple of the schools took us on a tour. We saw some of the old salt farms, went to a clam digging place (but it was too cold to actually did for clams, so we just stood in the little hut and drank hot tea!) and the "cultural village". It was a really cool tour, in spite of the rain and cold. Lucas told the schools that Saturday was BJ's birthday, so they got a huge cake and threw a party for her at the cultural village. Very cool. And it was a REALLY good cake too!

Dad is going to be getting here in about 15 days! Wow-who!

I'm going to go to Lucy's tonight and get my hair cut and have a massage (is it one or two "s"'s?) All for only about 4 bucks...I love prices over here! I also love going to Lucy's to study my Chinese or lesson plan. I'll be posting some pictures from her place soon.

Ok, and now the big announcement: I'm very seriously considering staying here for next school year. I simply can't see myself leaving here after only six months. I know it sounded like such a long time when I was back home, but now that I'm here I realize what a short time it is. I've been praying a lot about it and I think that's what I'll end up doing.

And here's the big prayer request. We have been told that there will only be six team members here on Kinmen next year and that there will not be anybody working in Jr. High. Now I love Jr. High. I really, really want to stay there. And the elem. textbooks are very, very, extremely stupid. Like, dumb. So pray that they change their mind and I don't have to teach elem school if I stay.

Ok, I've been feeling the need to write an update, but I want to be in bed by midnight tonight. I've been getting into bed around 1 most nights (don't kill me Dad!)

I am loving Jr. High. And I've got a really cool story about how God worked things out on Monday.

It starts on Sunday night. BJ and I were in her room, talking and just generally having a great time (I know I keep saying this, but I LOVE being with Bonnie again!) Ginger knocks on the door and comes in. We talked for awhile and then we all prayed. Ginger brought up something really cool: "A three fold cord is not easily broken." So BJ, Ginger and I are now the three-fold Jr. High cord! At any rate, after that we went to bed. I was feeling a little uneasy about classes on Monday, and so dreamed about it all night. But the cool thing was that instead of having dreams of everything going wrong (like I normally do) I dreamed that everything went great. And oddly enough, even while I was dreaming, I was aware of the fact that God was encouraging me throughout the night, telling me it would be alright. So cool!

Then Monday I go to my first class. It is FREEZING. Literally. And the schools here have no heat or A/C. So I'm only half awake. The kids are only half awake. And we're all about to turn into ice blocks. I started off by introducing myself and my family. They kinda would respond to my questions, but not with much heart. Then I tried juggling for them. HA! And once again, I say HA! I couldn't even feel my hands because of the cold and I'm trying to juggle! I couldn't do any more than a simple fountain with four balls without dropping...and not just dropping one ball, but at least three! Then I tried Chinese Yo-yo. HA! I tried doing several suicides, and couldn't catch the hand sticks (remember, I still can't feel my hands!) So after the class is done, I tried talking with some of the students. HA! Yea, right! They wouldn't even try to talk to me. So, dejectedly, I went to my "office". Here at the Jr. High they have given me an office. It's an empty classroom. Now, that was very nice of them, but I'm afraid that after that failure, walking into a bare, cold, unfamiliar classes room and thinking, "Oh, great, now I really feel at home" was not much help!

So I started praying. I was feeling really down and as though I couldn't do anything right. So I got about as far as "Dear Lord, please h...." when Teresa walks in the room. Now I didn't really like Teresa when I first met her, and she was like the last person I wanted to see at that time. She told me to come with her to the next class. Now, maybe it's just a quirk of mine, but do you ever feel like you didn't really pray, or that your prayer didn't really get "sent" unless you finish it? So I'm walking down the hallway, feeling like I can't even manage to say a prayer!

But God heard me. And God came through like I'd never dreamed. From that point on, everything flowed wonderfulling. I could even feel my hands (and it hadn't warmed up any!) I connected with the classes, they connected with me. The bell signaling the end of break became something I hated to hear, bucause I was having so much fun visiting with my students. I ate lunch with one of my 9th grades and then one of my 7th grades invited me to come play basketball with them during PE. Wow! Even working with Teresa was great. I'm so pumped about going back tomorrow!

So Monday night we met in BJ's room again and debriefed (BJ and Ginger had great days too) and then prayed again. This morning I had to get up early to take the boat to Small Kinmen. I have six classes there. I was slightly nervous about teaching there. The Jr. High on Small Kinmen has a very bad reputation. So much so that when the gov. firsted asked the team to take on Jr. High, they were told, "But you don't have to do Small Kinmen!" Almost every teacher I told that I would be teaching in Small Kinmen said "Oh no! They are very naughty!" So I was a little afraid. But God came through again.

When I first showed up, they showed me the desk they had set aside for me in the teachers office area. I was like "wow, that's cool." Then they showed me the teachers break room and said I could use it whenever I wanted. And I was like "wow, that's really cool." But then they totally blew my socks off. They gave me my own dorm room there at the school! I've even got the key to it! WOW!!!!! I'm the first foriegn teacher they've ever had in forty years of being a school and they really are thrilled about having one. My room in Small Kinmen is almost better than my room here! This room is a little larger, but that room has it's own bathroom! Here I have to go down an outdoor walkway to get to the bathroom! Wow!

Ok, so I'm really thrilled about that. Then it's time to start class. The teacher tells me that this class is "very naughty" and that I shouldn't be bothered if they talk a lot. I told her that I wouldn't let them talk alot. And I didn't. At one point a boy was talking while I was talking. So I yelled "Hey!" at him in a rather aggrasive voice. He apparently didn't think I was yelling at him, 'cause he didn't turn around. I walked right in front of him and yelled "HEY!" even louder, and ruder. He turned around and I started shaking my finger in his face, saying "hey, do you want to stand up and talk English? No? Ok, then be quiet! Do not talk when I'm talking, do you understand?" He was rather shocked, but he didn't talk anymore!

All of the classes were awesome (even the "naughty" one). I had trouble getting them to speak English (they were very nervous) but I think once they get a little more comfortable with me it will be alright.

I esp. loved my last class, which is cool, because I've got six classes on Tuesday and so I'm a little worn out by the time number six comes around. But I know I'll love working with them.

My second to last class had several PlayBoy bunnies up on the walls around the room. I was (to say the least) very shocked by this. I asked the teacher why it was allowed in the school. She said that the students said it was from a brand of clothing. I said yes, but that the clothing was advertising PlayBoy and that it was disgusting and shouldn't be allowed (in those very words, none-the-less. I'm not the "Director of Blunt Affairs" for no reason!) She said that maybe it didn't have anything to do with the magazine. I said that yes, it did. She said maybe it did. I told her "No, not maybe. Yes. It does have a lot to do with the magazine!" She finally said it would be coming down in a week or two and I decided not to say anything else. I was very tempted to tear it off the wall and rip it up though.

Then something really funny happened. After classes the principle comes in to meet me. He says he wants me to come to his office and visit until it's time for the to head to the dock to catch the boat back to Big Kinmen. I thought that would be fine. From the way he said it, it sounded like it would just be me and him and the bus driver visiting together. So imagine my shock when we walk into his office and there are five girls there, all in their early 20's. They are dressed very fashionabily, their hair is done very fancily and they each must have spent an hour in front of the mirror that morning. The principle spreads his arms to encompass the girls and declares "Beautiful girls! From Taiwan!"

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, what do you do at that point? I felt like running away. I was fully expecting his next sentance to be "Pick one!" I wanted to find a hole to crawl into.

It wasn't quite that bad, but it was close. It turns out that they are students from Taiwan and they apparently have some sort of tie with the Jr. High on Small Kinmen. I never figured out what it was. But we ended up sitting in his office drinking tea (it tasted horrible! You probably would have like it Dad!) and trying to make conversation. It was somewhat forced conversation, but I did live through it.

I've got a ton more to tell you (some really cool stuff happened today in the drop-out class and afterwards) but I don't have time. It's 11 now and I still need to get with BJ and Ginger (if she's still awake...she's feeling under the weather) and do a little bit of lesson planning. And I'm feeling really hungry...I need some more instant noddles. BTW, Mom, thanks so much for the cerel...you've saved me from instant noddles for breakfast!

Love you guys! God bless you! Emails are always a good thing (Larry and Russel, I'll reply to yours soon!) jugglingjesusfreak@gmail.com

Hi there. I love DSL. I downloaded some awesome clips from a sabaki (sp?) type fighting video: there were some really good fights. I've also been reading a little bit of stuff written by Mas Oyama (founder of my style of karate). Good heavens, talk about a big head! He was great, and he knew it, and he didn't mind telling other people about it! One thing that was very interesting was him talking about tightening your pinky while punching. I've never focused on that before. I've done a little bit of punching since I read that, but not enough to really get an idea of what he was talking about.

I know there's a ton of stuff to write about, yet for some reason I can't seem to think of anything. I start Jr. High on Monday. I'll be doing the school on small Kinmen on Tuesday and then Monday, Wednesday and Thrusday will all be here at this school. That's really cool. I will be the only person from our team doing Jr. High on small Kinmen.

I think I will go to Lucy's tomorrow. Lucy is a hair stylist who has kinda a "waiting room" in the back of her shop that is a really good place to sit and work on your Chinese. And Lucy and her assistant Show-way are both really cool.

Tomorrow BonnieJean, Andrew and Megan will all be going to Hong Kong, so they can get their visas renewed. No fair! I really wish I could go: it will probably be a while before I'm this close to Hong Kong again!

But I am saving up for a trip to Taipei later this year. Shawn and I might go together. When I flew over here I did land in Taipei, but from there we drove directly to Nantou and I didn't get to see anything. In Nantou I did get to go to a night market...but there was no night market there that night! The only thing that was there was a guy selling strawberry candies.

I stayed up really late last night visiting with Shawn and getting some games ready for today's class. Then it turned out that we didn't need the games. That's always annoying.

Shawn and I went walking down the beach the other day and found some really, really cool abandoned bunkers. I'm going to take some pictures and video of them sometime soon and post the pictures on here.

The other day I went down to the beach and found a crab. I am such a land-luber. I was so excited by finding a live crab, I called BonnieJean on her cell phone and told her all about it. Hey, it was the first time I'd ever seen a crab in the wild, so give me a break!

Shawn is standing next to me right now, using our excuse for a trash can (a bag from the bakery down the street) trying to sharpen a pencil with his pocketknife. He's muttering "Come on, where's the lead? Show me the lead."

BonnieJean and Ginger and I went out to the beach on Tuesday night and did nunchuck and kata. I showed BonnieJean Sandan (her next text kata) and Godan and Maza Kazi (my next test katas: I have two). Then Ginger went to bed and Bonnie and I walked around the track some. That was really cool. I love being with BJ again!

Ok, I just went to borrow a CD from BJ and ended up spending like half an hour talking to her.

James, the fellow the goverment has assigned to take care of us, is SOOOO cool! I'll have to post more about him later. Bye for now!

Lookie what I bought!

Alright, I must admit it. I'm in love. I've been in love since Saturday. It was love at first sight. I love Kinmen! I love the people who drive by and yell "Hello, how are you?" just to say something in English to the Amarican. I love the Kinmen team. I love the little old man in the junk shop who smiles so sweetly at you. I even love watching the pick-pocket try to steal Shawn's cell phone (more on that to come!) I love going to Lucy's and drinking tea while figuring out my new phone. I love almost being run over by a mo-ped as you both race around the corner. I love the abandoned pill boxes on the beach. I love Easy Way. I even love my roommate's computer!

Ok, I probably ought to back up now and start where I left on from my last post. Our TA's during camp were the most amazing, most dedicated, wonderful people on earth. The did SO much to make the camps run. And they were always ready to help. At the first camp my TA was Sherry, who was wonderful. The second camp I had Cathy, who was also wonderful. Here's a picture of us together.

Sherry, me and Cathy.


"Blue Sandy", a student from the Ying-pan camp (the first camp). She was a really sweet girl. On her left is Rose, a really crazy, fun student and her right is Vivian, a rather crazy one as well.


Tina, our team leader for camps. We were the smallest team, with only three English teachers.


Me and "Striped Wayne", so named because we had two Wayne's in the class, and on the first day, this guy wore a striped shirt. We also had "Blue Wayne", as well as "Red Amy" and "Pink Amy". Striped Wayne seemed to really like me...he was always following me around and he gave me a really cool card at the end of camp. From the second camp.


Making cookies! This group of girls was SO much fun! Second camp.


Not exactly sure why they had this sign up...but I thought it very funny. Second camp.


Me and Tony. Tony was a local kid who hung around the school at the second camp and team C kinda adopted him. I'm not sure what was wrong with him...there was obviously something odd about him physically, but I think something wasn't right in his head either. Some days he spoke pretty good English, others he would just talk non-sense, and seemed to think he was making sense. He's actually 19, although he acted more like 10. He came to our BBQ and had a total blast. In fact this picture is from the BBQ. Second camp.


Chris, the other member of our team. This is her telling the clay spot story on the last day of second camp.


Tina, telling the muddy glove story. She was a hoot!


Motercycle Angel and Hedy. Totally, completely awesome students, in every sense of the word. I told team C that I was going to take them to Kinmen with me. At one point they asked me if I really meant it. *sniff* If only! Second camp.


Really good picture of Motercycle Angel.


Team C! The best-ist ever!


The Ying-pan and Gigi team! Start left top: Chris: very quiet but fun non-the-less. I would yell "Lungs! They are a good thing!" at her several times each day, because she was talking to quiet I could hear her. Alvin: totally awesome guy. He was the wistle blower: he blew his wistle every time a break was over, or it was time to go to break, or time for large group. I hit him in the eye by mistake once. Poor fellow. Tina...our amazing team leader! Leslie, a super cool, soft spoken guy. He's the fellow who told one of his students, "if you get hurt, minus one point!" Remind me to tell y'all the pushing garrbage story later. Sherry: number 1! All the girls at Ying-pan loved her. Which was good, 'cause then she could make them behave! Samuel...the one and only! Then we have Thomas, the son of the principle at Gigi. He helped with team C. He was kinda quiet, but cool none-the-less. Bottom left. A girl from team B. No idea who she is. Vivian: a total hoot! Julia: quiet but sharp witted. Cathy: my wonderful TA for the second camp! She kinda balanced my crazyness. Amy, she only helped us with the Gigi camp: she's a teacher who was doing an internship at the school. Her dad also teaches there. A really, really cool girl. And that's everybody! I'm already planning a weekend trip to the main island to visit them!


Me and Cindy, one of the kids who lived near Yung-lu (where we stayed). Possibly the cutest little girl ever. One night I did a bunch of juggling with her and her siblings (who are all so cool!). Another night we played a couple hours of Uno. What fun.


The bags, going to Kinmen!


Totally random picture, but I like it. Me and Jay at Tad's dojo.

Ok, one last thing before I get off (it's 11 o'clock and I still have to plan our Sunday school lesson with BonnieJean and take a shower). Today Shawn and Ginger and I were walking down the street and this guy, pretending to be drunk, walks up and puts his hand on Shawn's shoulder and says something in Chinese. Shawn looks at him kinda oddly. But then the guy starts working his hand down to Shawns belt, where his (very nice) cell phone is clipped. So Shawn pushed him away. He comes right back, trying to put his hand on Shawn again. Shawn pushes him again and says "You can go now...THAT way!" We then jumped inside a shop and he didn't follow us. Very interesting experiance.

I'm going to try and get a picture of the little fellow at the junk shop and post it for y'all. He is soooo cute! (Ahh...Ginger, it's rubbing off!--inside joke, don't ask!)

Love y'all! I've still got SOOOO much more to write, but it will have to wait until later.

Howdy there. I am in Jiji, waiting for lunch to be ready. We're having "hot pot", which is really good...I just hope it's done in time for us to eat it before it's time to start class again.

We started the Jiji camp on Monday. After everybody was signed in, Chris and Tina and I tested them. I wasn't totally sure what I was doing, but it turned out to be pretty easy. Then we had an hour with our class. I have group C, which is the highest English level. They are awesome. They are so well behaved! I started out by introducing myself and my family (including the dog and 22 chickens!) and then I got out a US map and showed them where I lived and what route I had taken to get to Taiwan. From that point on everything kinda becomes a blur...we are really busy and my bed is like a hard board with a quarter inch of mattress on it...I can't wait to get to Kinmen! On Tuesday I laid out the rules for the class....

1 Obey the rules!
2 DO NOT eat your socks!

I told them that if they ate their socks, they could not be in my class anymore!

Last week (while we were still teaching at Yingpan) we went out and had "hot pot" for dinner. Basically you are given a gas fire, and a cast iron bowl and a big plate of raw stuff. And you make whatever you want! It was very good.

God is so cool. You know how the Bible says that God hears our prayers before we ask them? Tina, Chris and I were having a meeting in the library and we were in the middle of talking about how we needed to pray that we would be able to connect better with our TA's. Well, right in the middle of that in walks Vivian, and suddenly we're talking and laughing together and half an hour goes by! It was so cool! Since then we've been doing a lot of stuff together. Last night we all ate lunch in our "living room" and they stayed for an hour playing silly games.

I have to go now. Time to eat! Love y'all!

Good heaven's. I hate these strait keyboards!

Hello there. I'm in Nantou right now and we just got back from teaching at Ingpan. Today was my first day of teaching...it was...interesting. The first small group started out very poorly. I was supposed to tell the Christmas story. Everybody had told me that it was best to use some of the kids and act it out. Ha! Not when you get a Mary who refuses to move or even look at you, a Joseph who freaks out when he learns he's Mary's husband or a sheppard that turns into a sheep and starts "baa-ing" at the top of this voice! I fought my way through the shepards telling the good news and then cut it short there. So much for the wisemen, because by now half of the class wasn't even looking at me and I couldn't get their attention.

So then I came up with a game on the spot. We split the class into two teams. I was the leader for one and my translator for the other. I would pull out an Uno card and then the first team to think of that many English words would win (like if I pulled a 7, the first team with 7 english words won). that was a huge hit. A couple of the kids woulnd't join in, but otherwise everybody loved it.

Then in the second small group time I talked about my family and then about family Christmas tradition. It went pretty good.

Goodness, there is so much to tell, I don't know where to start and my wrists are starting to hurt from this keyboard. I'll write one more thing. We were outside playing a game when I yellow truck drove by, playing music loudly. I couldn't tell why, so I asked my TA (teacher assistant) what it was. I was expecting it to be something deeply important, a big part of Taiwanese culture. Maybe it's Budist monks on a pilgramage. Or maybe an offering to the dead. So what huge thing of importance did I learn?

It was a trash truck. And the music was to tell people to put their trash out. lol

Oh my goodness.

wow.

My stars.

And the strange thing is, I don't even know exactly what it is that I'm so "wowed" about. I just know that within five hours I will be driving away from the house, on my way to Taiwan.

The last few days have been awesome. Monday morning I went with Anna to her World view class. Those are some really neat people. We all remembered that exactly two years ago we had been standing outside the RSU campus holding signs and protesting. What a hoot!

Monday night Mr. Murry had the karate class lay hands on me (a scary thing when it's at karate!) and pray for me. That was so neat. Then I got to spar a little bit with him...but it was cut short by a very hard meeting of knee and shin. I haven't done that in a LONG time and now I remember why I hated it so much! My leg hurt for several days!

Tuesday night I went to Mr. Burnett's. I got to teach four white belts, two of them brand new. That was a hoot. It was also interesting, because everybody else I've taught in karate has some sort of foundation that I'm building on. Here I was having to lay that foundation: they didn't know anything. Very interesting. But they were good students, so it was great.

Wednesday was (you guessed it!) more karate. Jason performed the Heian kata's and Maza Kazi for me and I got them on film, so I can have a refference while away. We also filmed me doing Heian Godan and Maza Kazi. I was actually pleasently supprised at how well I did them.

Thursday was (drum roll): Karate! Said goodbye to everybody at Bolen's dojo. What a cool group. They laid hands on me and prayed over me too.

Friday I got everything together that I needed to pack. Then that night Anna, Ethan and I went to the Murry's for Twilight Prayer and Praise. What an awesome night. God was there and moving. Keep a young lady named Kim in your prayers: she is really close to coming to the Lord.

We stayed at the Murry's until 3 in the morning. Mr. Murry got out an old video from about 15 years ago of some fighting and kata he had done. It was interesting to see how his fighting has improved over the years. We also saw a film of him doing a kata that was totally unreal. There was just an amazing amount of power in every single strike and block: you have to see it to beleive it. He also watched the film from Wednesday and gave me some advice. Cool.

Saturday we went and played paintball with Josiah for his birthday. There was a large group and we had a blast. I was on red team the first two games and Anna was on white. I got her out both times! Then they changed me to white and we worked together, which was also fun.

Today our church prayed over me and I told everybody a little bit about what I'm going to be doing in Kinmen. Then we came home and packed. Beleive it or not, but we actually had enough room: the only thing I'm having to mail is the sparring gear!

Before evening Bible reading we broke boards. Anna did a round house break and broke it very cleanly on her second try. Very good. Ethan broke with a punch and really put some power in it. Isaac broke for the first time and only had to hit each board once! He was SOOOO thrilled! Caleb tried it too, but I had to help him a bit to break it. Naomi had a really tough board and had some trouble, but broke it anyway.

After Bible reading everybody laid hands on me and prayed. Wow. Then Anna and I went to QuickTrip and made coppies of my passport and then I got on here and wrote this!

Bye now! Don't know when I'll be updating, but hopefully it will be soon!

Hi, this is a short, totally meaningless post. I hope to get on later today and post something a little more informative. Bye!