Life in Taiwan

As Taiwan is on my mind frequently (daily) & I remember my time there & the people, I have decided to share with you my experience on the other side of the world. While I would like to post my letters that I wrote upon my return home in 2005 & 2006, I've no idea where they are at this time. For now, I will share with you my e-mails home to family & friends while in Taiwan. Though many of you may have received those e-mails, many of you did not as we did not even know one another at the time. I have enjoyed reading my words from a few years ago & reliving these moments in my mind. In the days ahead, I will try to share all of them but for now, I share with you first, my first e-mail I wrote home...July 2005.

I survived the plane ride. Though long, my only complaint was that the long flight was much too warm. However, nothing was unbearable. I was mesmerized by the size of the plane as it was a doubledecker. Well, here we are in Taiwan-12:30 a.m. our time while we still have much of the day left. Right now, we are on a break until 3:00 in the afternoon (it is now 1:30). We spent some time in our room singing & then headed here to the cafe' just around the corner a ways from our hotel. Yesterday, upon our arrival we got our hotel rooms which are not nearly as bad as I dreamt. In fact, they are nice though the shower is a bit unusual (no shower curtains here!). Some of the newest missionaries here took us on a walking tour around the city we are in & will live for the next week. We got to see quite a bit- a 7-11, the Post Office, grocery store, hardware store & of course, many fruit stands. Mango & Papaya are in season here now & we're all looking forward to trying the fresh fruit. The watermelon looks like it is to die for as does the pineapple. After our tour, we dis some prayer walking near the school which for me, was the highlight of the day (next to the ice cream I ate last night at the night market). I was overwhelmed with a sense of a broken heart for these people as we passed by & noticed the flags upon every single door to "keep the evil spirits out." There's not a door without these flags. It is so disheartening. First day & I was already choked up crying. That's OK though as we should be heartbroken for those that are lost. Yes, we went to the night market lastnight & well, to me it was pretty much a carnival meets a flea market-rather boring although it was good to see it as it's a part of their culture here. We saw plenty of great tasting food (OK, maybe not-raw fish, etc) that we had to hold Haley back from buying. The people here are very friendly & always wave or say hello. I was a bit apprehensive when buying my ice cream lastnight as I'd never dealt with foreign money or having to do that sort of thing but Rex (our leader) helped me out which basically consisted of much pointing at signs. Al of the missionaries are awesome & I love them already. It's going to be great getting to know them further over the next week. Our team is doing well together-glad to be getting to spend time with each of them. Today, we held worship time outside of a temple. It was amazing to be able to do so. We then, toured the temple & Wes (the head missionary) taught us about everything. Seeing the temple was an experience I will never forget. Very sad. Some more tears came while we were there. The temple keeper was asking one of the missionaries why we were there & when she told him to teach English, he did not understand. However, when she told him to teach about Jesus Christ, he did get it. He stretched out his arms & pointed to his hands as if to show the nails being driven through Christ's hands. At that point, the tears could not be held in. That was an amazing moment. I wish Haley had captured it on video. the building was so very ornate & beautiful but it is so sad to think that these people are practicing these rituals that will only lead them on a dead end path & God hates their temples. As Wes told us today, we hate the temple & their practice but love them as God does. As for food, you will be pleased to know I've been a brave soul. While all but Katie had eggs on the plane, she & I tried the Chinese rice soup. I thought it was great. Yesterday, we ate the Hakka noodles that were featured on the church website from 2003 that looked so terribly gross. Yep, we ate it & by golly, I loved them-especially after putting the hot sauce in it. Haley was not too wild about it at all. Lastnight's supper was not horrible but not amongst my favorites. We had plain white rice, clams, goat, chicken, shrimp, pork & squid. I tried all but the squid. Today, we had fried rice with pork in it for lunch & it was delicious. They never salt anywhere so lastnights plain white rice was a bit bland for me. Having soy sauce today was a huge blessing. Everything is doing so well. The groups that have come before have talked greatly about the rooster & dogs across the street from the hotel being such a nuisance but we never heard them at all this morning. Praise God! We went to bed at 9:15 lastnight & got up at 5:30 this morning & we were few out of the entire group that were able to sleep that long. Anyway, we've got to meet in a bit to go over school stuff & tomorrow we'll spend the day preparing for Mon. when we begin teaching. Love you guys & know that I am doing just fine here-haven't really even had any complaints even with the heat. Love you!