Christmas at our House

Packages have been arriving almost daily for the past week for the eight teachers on our team here in Pingtung.  It's pretty exciting and will definitely be a new experience for me to celebrate Christmas without my family.  It's been a blessing to be able to share about what we are celebrating with all of our friends.  Having Christmas in a different country opens up opportunities right and left to explain about Jesus coming to earth so many years ago.  

I hope that everyone is having a special Christmas and I thank God for all of you back home.  Thank you for the Christmas cards and packages you've sent... Merry Christmas from me in Taiwan!

Mama Mia!! It'za Pizza!!

This week our school celebrated it's 26th anniversary.  Friday night was band and musical competitions.  nearly 3000 people there, and they wanted the Americans to sing - so sing we did.  The eight of us filed onto the stage and did our routine of the round 'King of Kings'.  I used to think my second grade Christmas programs were bad...I now understand the reason for stage lights.  

As I mentioned in my last post, we were in charge of making pizzas for the event.  Friday was a late night, and we spent all day at school mixing and baking 50 pizza crusts in the school kitchen classroom.  We had 'helpers' coming in and out to stick their fingers in the dough and keep us company (and also maybe take a break from all the decorating outside)...After 14 hours at school, we finally got home and around 10:00 and caught some sleep before we had to be back at the school by 7:00 the next morning (Saturday morning, I might add!!).  We assembled the pizza and baked them six at a time, then sliced and ferried out too our booth.  More curious students came for taste tests, and to help carry trays out to the stand.  At about 12:30 ish, we sold out and it was time for the races.  All of the students competed in relays around the 1/4 mile track (and some of the teachers too).  4:00 came, and we jumped on a train into Kaohsiung for a Christmas concert...the Christmas carols were a delight to hear after months of thinking they didn't even celebrate Christmas here.  The choir was exceptional and the saxophonist and opera singer were fun to hear too.  

This Saturday I will go to a sports meet at one of the schools I taught at this past month.  After that, one of the teachers will take us to a traditional Taiwanese Opera, and then to see a boat that will be burned next year for the town's tri-annual boat-burning festival.  An interesting tradition where they believe that all the bad spirits can be put onto a boat and destroyed by fire.  The theory is definitely familiar to me, but unlike the fire they will use, the fire I believe in doesn't ever die...

Saturday night is also our church's Christmas party, and then Monday we will host another party at the EV for our teacher friends and Nan Jung students.  Mint hot cocoa and a white elephant exchange are on the agenda as well as decorating Christmas cookies.

Tomorrow we will teach a group of professors and college students with English majors at the EV and host a Q and A time for them after classes.  I find it almost ironic that I will be 'teaching' people older than myself and people who probably have more experience in the teaching department to begin with.  I just happen to be one of the more fortunate people on the planet who is a native speaker of English.  Needless to say, it will be entirely different to teach while being scrutinized than standing in front of little elementary students who just would probably just be content to stare at the American for the whole class period.  I'm pretty sure that coming back to America and not being the center of attention is going to be quite the humbling experience. :D 

I had the best students today in class, full of questions and excitement.  They loved hearing me speak my minimal Chinese, and exchanging vocabulary words.  Some days teaching are better than others, and this was definitely a good day...good week...good month...it's all I can do to give the praise to God, who brought me to this place, and knew that it was the perfect thing for me to do this year.

A Hand Over Me...

There really is only one reason that I'm alive right now, and that is because someone has been watching over me.  Out of the hundred times that I have almost died over here (maybe that is being a little dramatic), the fact that God is protecting me flashes across my mind as I am once again almost sideswiped by a moped.  Also this weekend, I almost ran over a bus.  As I stared into the oncoming traffic and waited for the chance to be able to get out of the crowded road, I think I experienced the 'deer in the headlights' feeling for the first time.  I am so thankful to be constantly reminded that my name is graven on the palm of God's hand...there is no way anything could happen to me without him knowing.

We spent the weekend up in Taipei, the capitol city, and attended a wedding reception for two of our friends from the VOICE ministry - a English program for Taiwanese youth, and also a reunion with students from this summer's program.  Sunday brought all the English teachers over here together for the first time this year - for a baby shower.  Our team leader's wife is going to have a baby in March, and all the VOICE students from years past, and many friends and then us teachers were there.  It was so amazing to see so many friends and familiar faces after such a long time. Yesterday marked my fourth month in Taiwan.

This Friday is our school's anniversary celebration, and the students have been decorating the campus for the ceremonies.  Us American teachers will run a pizza booth among all the other food stands that will sell who knows what.  Also on the agenda is a Christmas concert held by our friends from the Kaohsiung church.  When we into the city last month to go to the church for the first time, we were blessed to have a translator for the service - we haven't been able to understand church messages since we have been here.  God has definitely given us a busy time of year, and who knows how crazy things will get over Chinese New Year.  I can't imagine being anywhere else!

There's an Earthquake Brewing...

Tuesday of this week at the English Village we experienced our first earthquake tremor for the year here.  Our teaching assistants were much perturbed and ran up to us asking "Did you feel that?!! Was it scary?!!" The earthquake was a small one (I think about a 5 or 6 on the Richter scale and was a part of the Sumatra fault line that we are on.  Apparently, there is still tension along the fault line and more earthquakes are expected soon.  Japan was also hit by a minor earthquake on Thursday.  It's pretty exciting over here all in all.

Due to the political tensions in Thailand recently, our scheduled winter camps there have been cancelled, and we will be sent somewhere else for our visa trip in January.  I was sad to hear that, but as soon as we break for Chinese New Year, I will be traveling to Singapore and Malaysia... I wasn't expecting to really see any other countries while I was here, but I'm so glad that God gave me this opportunity and I know that he might be using it to open my eyes to other mission fields that he has...fields that are 'white unto the harvest' and waiting for labourers.