A Taiwan Thanksgiving... with a twist

Ok... so I think now is about the time to write this blog post... I have had it created with nothing written for a couple of days. So here goes the story of the first Taiwanese Thanksgiving (not to be confused with the first Thanksgiving).
This is the first year that Austin has been away from the people he loves for Thanksgiving. I was thinking about it the other day and my family has been getting together in some sort of fashion for about 12 or 13 years... that would make it be since I was about 8. That seems like close to an eternity for my small mind. To be honest with you, I was starting to get very homesick when I was thinking on this matter. So I talked it out with my fellow living buddies... our conclusion. Lets have our Taiwanese "family" over for Thanksgiving dinner. This was very exciting for many of the because they had never had turkey (pwo-gee) before. They had also never had many of the other delectable things that accompany Thanksgiving.
So, each of us decided to split up the Thanksgiving staples.

The Menu

Main Course:
Turkey
Dressing
Mashed Potatoes
Green Beans
Corn (compliments of someone)
Sweet Potatoes
Biscuits
Fruit Salad
Deviled Eggs
Gravy
Cranberry Sauce

Dessert:
Pumpkin Pie
Apple Pie
Peach Cobbler

Lemon Meringue Pie

Egg Tarts (compliments of our friend Phoebe)

So, in order to get everything that we needed... many things needed to be done. First, we needed to find a turkey. We had our friend Hannah to look around to see if she could find one. She could not... so that led her to the internet... she found a mail-order turkey place in Taipei... they Turkey would arrive by the next day... of course you had to pay... which we did. Second, we needed to make a trip to Hualien City to go to Carefore which is a big supermarket that has lots of things that we can't get in Yuli. So we took a train to Hualien... Sarah, Lauren, Jonathan, Michelle (part of our "family"), and I. We had decided to leave home early so that we could do some shopping. But shopping led to Starbucks (a must while in Hualien city), which led to more shopping, which led to dinner... which led to about 45 minutes at Carefore. Needless to say, we did not get everything that we had set out to get. Third, Carefore trip number two. Lauren, Sarah, and I decided that we would go on Wednesday to Carefore again because we all had a half day and so it would give us a little time there. Well, much like the first visit, we decided to do some shopping... and some Starbucks... oh yeah... and we went to this little coffee shop that we found one say when we went to Hualien City a couple weeks ago. Well... by the time we called Johnny (our English speaking taxi driver) and by the time we got to Carefore (I didn't mention that President Chen of Taiwan was in Hualien City) we only had like 20 minutes to get the things that we needed. Praise God that it was not very much. And Johnny helped us do our shopping, kept us under time, and got us to the train station on time. Needless to say, he got a good tip. And finally, Fourth, we needed a place to cook our turkey. We had asked one of our friends and she said that one of her students had a big oven... well apparently there was some miscommunication but what we ended up with was barely big enough to cook the pies. The Lord was faithful to our cry for help in the last hours. He provided us with an oven at some people that we go to churches with house (does that make sense?). Anyway, this oven was big enough to cook both turkeys. The only down side was Hannah had to take us there by car. The people said that they would watch it for us (they even decided to taste some of it).
It was a blessing that the that the turkeys even came out. None of us had ever done a turkey before. We had all seen it done plenty of times... but had never been the ones doing it. It worked out... everything worked out without a hitch. It was an amazing night just fellowshipping together and thanking the Lord for everything that He has done for us in the last year... but just in general. The Lord is so amazing! It is evident in His creation. I am bombarded with it everyday as I go out to school... actually everywhere I go. This weekend we will kick off our Bible study. We are all very excited. We are inviting our friends and teachers. I invited one of mine today and she said that she would tell others about it as well. It is amazing to watch the Lord work right in front of your eyes.

Our Guest List:
(from left and around)
Mary (Hannah's Daughter)
Sam (Hannah's Son)
Esther (Hannah's Daughter)
Hannah (Our "Mother")
Dr. Chen (Hannah's Husband)
Phoebe (Robert's Wife)
Echo (Robert's Daughter)
Peter (Yah Mama's Grandson)
Yah Ma (Hannah's hired help)
Brian (Sarah and Lauren's friend)
Sarah
April (Robert's Daughter)
Michelle (Our very good friend)
Robert
Susanna
Lauren
Me
(Jonathan is taking the picture)

This is our Taiwan family. Robert owns a cram school here and that is where we go and do Chinese class. He is a Christian and so are most of the people that work there. All of these people are very special to us. There are many more... but some could not make it... and others... would not have been able to fit at the table.

Our Baking Supplies

We Robbed a Poultry Farm

Late Night Baking

Like My Rolling Pin?
(its a chopstick)

I am still alive...

I have been trying to post for the last couple of days... the blog site must have been down or something... since I could not post I decided to write out what I would post when I had the chance... here is what I came up with...

It has been an incredibly long time since my last post… I wish I could say that it’s because I am too busy… that’s not really the case… I like to… make myself busy with what I like to do… shopping, talking, and generally hanging out. I especially like to do this when there are other things that need to be done… such as keep the people who love me and pray for me updated. So… that is what I shall do… update you on the goings on of Austin… the weary traveler/happy teacher/tired student/child of a God who hears and loves me. This last point has been something that has been on my mind lately. A child of a God who hears and loves me... A couple weeks ago, we had some of our friends come down from Taoyuen… well… I had no clue they were coming until I came home from 7-11 one night and there they were, standing in my living room. But one morning while they were here I was going to go out and get some breakfast, so I asked if they wanted anything and what they wanted. So I headed out to a breakfast place that I had never been before. So I go and order the mass of food… and while I was sitting in “My Warm Day” (the breakfast place) I started to hear a loud noise coming from across the street. It was actually a pretty annoying ruckus. It was none other than some parade for some god. I sat there, and could not help but to watch… it is so amazing what these people do and put themselves through in order to try and “please” a “god” who is nothing but a statue made by the hands of man. Lauren was with me and I turned to her and said, “I’m glad that I serve the God that I do!” My God does not need paper money burned when we hit an animal while driving down the road. My God does not need me to lay out food, drinks, and other random things so that He can “eat.” My God does not need me to where a necklace, bracelets, rings, or any other type of accessory to show that I serve Him. My God all in all does not need me at all… I am the one who needs Him. Without God, I can do nothing on my own. It will only be fruitless and futile. With God, on the other hand, all things are possible. In order to do the simplest things, I need God.

Almost every day, I take a 20 minute train ride to school. This is one of the most beautiful trips I have ever been on. In order to get to Fuli, which is where most of my schools are, I must take a train that winds through the valley between the mountains. It is GORGEOUS! I am daily reminded of the power that God has. That it only took Him 7 days to create the whole earth and everything that is in it. And that on one of those days he did nothing at all... except rest. God did not need to consult Austin when He was making the Kiwi bird, to see if the colors matched or not. God did not need Austin when He was making monkeys to make sure that it was ok to have hands for feet and fingers for toes. But, Austin does need to consult with God when he gets out of bed in the morning. He does need to consult with God when things just aren’t working the way that I would like.

Over last weekend I was up in Taoyuen because some of the teachers of a local cram school that we are friends with were going to be in the area and wanted to see the English Village. We had made arrangements for them to have a tour and we also told them that at least one of us would be up there. Well, while I was there, I was standing on a flight of stairs where I really like to stand because it is a pretty view of the city. All you can see is buildings of all shapes, sizes, and colors. So, while I was standing there I decided that I wanted to go and get my camera and take some pictures. I got some pretty amazing shots. But after looking over the pictures later, there was one that I really liked. It was one where the camera was focused in some bricks of the building and then blurry in the background is a bunch of buildings. I loved this picture so much! I wanted to make it the background on my computer. But I wanted to add a Bible verse on it… so I opened my Bible and began flipping through the Psalms. My eye caught onto a couple of verses that I remember going over in team prayer one night that I thought would be perfect for the picture. Its from Psalm 114:5-8. It says,

“Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dweleth on high, who humbleth Himself to behold the things that are in Heaven, and on Earth, raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth them out of the dunghill; that He may set them with princes, even with the princes of His people.”

With this view of the city and the beauty that I saw from it... I can only imagine the view that God sees. He is such and amazing God to have brought me to this place... to be teaching these children. I love each one of them so much... they are all such bright children. At their young ages they have been through so much... and are daily put through things that some cannot imagine. Jonathan recently went to the town that my Monday morning school is in. He want with the owner of the cram school that is in Yuli. Most of the kids that were there where kids that are in my classes. He was telling me about one of the little girls who Dad is a drunkard... and I don't think that he said anything about the Mom... but anyway, when this little girls Dad runs out of alcohol he sends her a couple of kilometers away to buy him his drinks. And sometimes he sends her at night. This is just some of the struggles that these kids face on a regular basis. It's sad to see... but the Lord has these children where they are for a reason. We pray for our kids on a regular basis... we also pray for our unsaved teachers... which covers most of them. One of people that we work with on a regular basis, her name is Kitty. And very soon after we moved in here she had said that she had wanted a Chinese-English Bible. Lauren just so happened to have a Chinese-English Bible that she had brought from the states. So she gave it to her. About a month or so ago she asked if she could come over once a week to read the Bible with us. So she now comes over and we read... well she does... very slowly with her... She is very excited about it. She has even invited one of the teachers that Jonathan and I work with to come read with her... this teachers name is Becca. She has been through a bunch of stuff recently because one of her students parents said that she was abusing her students... so she has been going through many court battles recently. She does not seem like the type of person that would do this. She is always very quiet in the classroom. I think that now she is just gun shy. Anyways, Kitty invited her to come over too... so last Wednesday when she came Jonathan asked her why she wanted to come if it was because she wanted to work on her English or what. She told Jonathan that she knew that the Lord was the only thing that could give her peace in her heart. This was very encouraging to us. So just keep both Kitty and Becca in your prayers.

I should probably draw this to a close... It is pretty long. I hope that I have caught all of you up on whats new. We are also going to start a Bible study very soon. We are just working on getting the books sent. They are only coming from Taipei but someone has to be home to sign for them when they come. We have the English ones... we are just waiting on the Chinese ones... Well thats about all. I hope and pray that you all have an amazing Thanksgiving. We are attempting to through a Thanksgiving bash with our Taiwan "family" on Saturday. We just have to finish finding what we need... like a turkey... pray that we find one. I thank the Lord for each one of you who reads this. I love you all... miss you tons.

(sorry that there is no pictures... the internet here is being very weird)

At last.... a video... well a slideshow

Here is a quick slideshow that I quickly put together... it starts out from the flight over here... and goes until the other day. I hope you all like it. The song is a song that we are learning in Chinese class. I pray that you are all doing well. We are all doing pretty good. Sarah is just getting over a cold that left her home from school one day. The weather here is just starting to turn cold... the last week I was wearing a jacket to teach in. Its really nice. I will post more when I have more time. I need some sleep after two Chinese classes today. We do a total of three. I love you all!

School Profile: Yung Fong Primary School

So I thought that I would would introduce you to some of my schools. I was wondering where to start... so I figured the best place would be at the beginning. So my Monday morning schools is called Yung Fong Primary School. This is the smallest school that I teach at. It is outside a town called Fuli which is about a 20 minute train ride and a 15 minute car ride from Yuli where I live. I love the kids at this school so much. I teach 3rd through 6th grade. Well... I actually am like an assistant teacher. The English teacher of the school does most of the teaching. I will usually help with reviewing the vocabulary words, reading the language patterns, and playing review games. So I am pretty much the fun teacher... thats why the kids love me so much. :-) My 3rd graders will come in and some of the boys will come over and wrap themselves around my legs and hold on. They are so much fun! When I first started teaching there and the English teacher would play games the kids would always ask me to play... and they would also fight for me to be on their team. The teacher is a really nice lady to. She is one of the best speaking English teachers that I work with. It is pretty funny that not all of the English teachers speak very good English. Anyway, my 6th grade class is also a very fun class. They are full of a ton of energy. They will come in and try out their English on me. Its very funny. They speak enough to have a very simple conversation with. They have probably had an English class since at least 3rd grade. One of the other teachers that is here with me teaches English to 1st and 2nd graders. It is a bit of a challenge teaching to the grade that I do... I can only imagine teaching to 1st and 2nd graders. Anyway, that is pretty much all there is to know about the school. Keep us in your prayers. We will start to have a Bible study at our house soon. One of the guys that is here asked us to have one and he will translate it. We are headed up to Taoyuen again this weekend. We will leave tomorrow right after school. We will watch the English Village in Action om Friday and in the evening we will head in to Taipei which is about 30-40 minute train ride. While we are there we will go to Taipei 101 which is the worlds tallest building and we will go to a night market which is pretty much where a bunch of people (and in Taipei's case... TONS) will sell there goods at night. In Taipei we have been told that they cover city block upon city block. So that should be fun. I thank you all for your prayers. They mean a lot to me.

Typhoon Krosa Update...

Just in case you are following the typhoon that is headed this way, I just thought that I would let you all know that we are fine. The power just came back on... it was only out for like 5 minutes... it keeps flickering though so who knows how long it will be on. Yesterday we went out and bought plenty of water and stuff to eat in case we are without power. We have a gas stove so we will be able to cook. They say it should not get to bad here. All we have had thus far is wind and rain. And the gust of wind are very random. Just keep us in your prayers along with the other teams that are over here. There is a team in Taoyuen which is right near Taipei. There is a team in Nantou which is on the other side of the island than us. And there is a team on Jimgman Island... I'm not quite sure where they sit. But if you could, just keep us all in your prayers.

Mid-Autumn Festival aka. The Moon Festival-Part 2

Ok, so here is the rest of the story... sorry that it has taken so long...
So after we got our ice cream which was actually really good (I got mint-chocolate... it was some of the best I have had since I have been over here) we headed for an aboriginal arts center. After getting lost about 4 times in a bus... and heading down little tiny roads and attempting to turn around, we finally found it. What we did there was watched the tribal dances... it was very... interesting. They did many different types of dance. After that we headed back to our place that we were staying. The original plans were for us to have a traditional Moon Festival BBQ. But, because of the rain and all of that fun stuff we did not. So they just decided to give us money and drop us off in a part of Hualian City that has many places to eat. Which made us happy. The next thing to do was for our group to figure out what we wanted to eat. After many options were weighed we decided to go to Pizza Hut. The only problem was we didn't know where it was. We knew that there was one because three of the people that were in my group had been here last year and they had gone there. So we just kept walking down the road and we found it. It was so nice to have pizza! I had been wanting some for a couple of weeks. It cost more than we had been given for dinner... but it was worth it! After that we couldn't resist going to Starbucks. It was right down the road from where we were. Then all of the sudden it started to pour down raining. We still had to walk about a mile or so to where the bus was going to pick us up. And one thing thats different from America is sidewalk are few and far between (the same thing with garbage cans) so we ended up having to run through the rain to get to where the bus was. We were soaking dripping wet by the time we got to where the bus was going to pick us up. Praise God there was something for us to stand under while we waited for the bus because we had to wait about 15 minutes for the bus. After our night of adventures, we headed back to our sleeping quarters. On our way there, they told us when the other group would be leaving and that they were probably going to be stopping in Taipei to go to the 101 (the tallest building in the world). The whole Yuli team thought that that sounded like fun so we asked if we could go. They said that we could we just had to pay for our way home. We decided that we would, so we left at 8:00 the next morning to head to Taoyuen by way of Taipei (they are maybe an hour train ride from each other). It is one of the most beautiful drives from Hualian City to Taoyuen. Especially in the rain! It is also one of the most sickening rides. The roads are very bumpy and they are all two lanes and one side goes straight down into the water. It was crazy! And also the traffic was very bad because it was a Holiday and also the rain had made many mudslides and so some places the road was only one lane. So you had to wait your turn in order to pass by it. It was a looooooooooong trip. At one point we were taking so many pictures on the bus of the scenery so the driver of the bus was kind enough to pull over and let us take some pictures. At one point I was sitting on the guardrail to get a picture... it was so much fun. Well... to make a long journey short... we did not end up going to Taipei because by the time we made it there it was about 5:00 and we still had another hour or so to drive. So we just went to the English Village (EV) in Taoyuen. It felt like coming home... that is where my time in Taiwan started. It was so much fun. After we had been there for awhile and eaten dinner we went out to play a game of basketball. Basketball is not my strongest sport... I actually don't think that I have a strong sport. Anyway, we ended up playing a game with some of the local kids. It was so much fun. At one point I was on a team with a guy named Andrew and it was just me and him. We actually ended up winning... somehow. I was totally shocked! After we finished basketball we headed back to the EV to get clean. We then decided to finish our game of Phase 10 that we had started the night before... we actually ended up starting a new game. It was about 4:00am before we finished the game and I had to be ready to leave to head back to Yuli at 8:00. So needless to say I did not get much sleep that night. The next morning we had to get two taxis in order to get all of us to the train station. So we made it there about 8 minutes before our train was going to leave. So we decided to just head to Taipei and we would get a different train there. The only tickets that were left on the train were standing tickets. So we were standing in the aisles of the train with about 40 other people. It was quite amusing. After getting off in Taipei, we had to find where you bought tickets... it was up three floors from where we were. So we finally found it and all of the trains that were headed to where we live were full. So Lauren and I decided to ask for a train headed to Hualian. They had tickets! It was the nicest train that I have been on over here. We probably paid for the niceness but... It made for a pretty comfortable sleep. We then got to Hualian City and had to wait about 3 hours before the next available train left. This was ok because it was around lunch time and so we decided to find a place to eat. We were first going to go to a place that we went to when Lauren, Sarah and I had gone before. But they place was full. Lauren and I ended up walking around the block to see what the different places had. We ended up finding this place that sold what they called a hamburger... it was basically a chicken sandwich. It was really good. Oh, and a nice thing about the place was that the people spoke English. It was actually really good for most people over here. Especially to be working at a food place. We got on the train and then we made it home safe... so that was the end of my exciting weekend.

Mid-Autumn Festival aka. The Moon Festival-Part 1

Sorry its been awhile. I am working on getting over a lingering cold. Most of it has gone away, there is just some left over sinus issues. Anyway, on to what I have been doing since my last post. I have been doing school... well Monday-Wednesday of last week. I had to call in sick on Thursday because I was not well. So school was school. I did not do too much teaching because the teachers of the class wanted to. But it is always a joy to just spend time with the kids. They are some much fun and they will come up to you and just greet you like your their long lost friend. I love them all so much. I also went with Lauren one night because she asked me to come and help out because she was asked to do an after school "club" with the kids. It is actually something the school already does. Its for students to come to the school at night to do there homework and have some fun instead of being at home alone because their parents might work late or their grandparents. It was so much fun... and pretty chaotic. We played musical chairs. But Lauren and I asked if we could do a drama thing with them because we figured that it would help with their English and also give them something else to do. The teacher said that we should probably do it around Christmas time because more parents would be off of work. This made us happy because we get a chance to share the Gospel through the play. And it will help us to grow a stronger relationship with the kids. I think that that pretty much catches you up on what I have been doing over the last week or so. Now on to the topic at hand...
Moon Festival is one of the most random out of the Holidays that have come around since I have been here. From what I can understand of it, its about this women who somehow ends up going to live on the the moon and for some reason they celebrate it. I'm pretty much clueless about what the holiday is all about except for three things:
1. School is off Monday and Tuesday
2. People give you lots of pomelos (a grapefruit type of fruit that is green)
3. People give you enough moon cakes to last you until the next moon festival
So since we were off for Moon Festival King Car (the organization that supports us over here) planned a trip to Hualian City. We had absolutely no clue what the trip would entail except going to Hualian City which is about an hour train ride from Yuli. So we decided to buy the tickets the night before we left... we did not know that it would be such a big deal to buy the tickets... but it was. According to the people at the train station, there were no more tickets left... we at least ones that you could sit. Standing on the train for an hour was not our idea of a good way to start a vacation. We had a very good friend of the teachers here in Yuli with us and she said that we should pray about it, and so we did. She had gone home and went online just to check on the tickets... she found 5 tickets that were very close to each other on the same train that we wanted to be on. Praise the Lord. So she came over to our house and she and our leader, Jonathan, headed about a block or so down the road to the train station. So the next day we made the trek to the train station with all of our luggage in the pouring down rain. Our train left at like 6:30 and we got there at maybe 6:25 so we moved pretty fast once we got there. It was pretty entertaining. We got to the station in Hualian City and had to wait about 30 minutes for the bus to get there with the other teachers that came down from the English Village which is up in Taoyuen. After we were picked up, we went to dinner. A traditional Taiwanese dinner. We had Sashimi (my first sushi-esqu food since I have been here) which is basically raw fish that is sliced really thin its really good, sweet potato leaves (very similar to collards or spinach), broiled fish, soup with tofu and fish balls, and some other things that were really good. We ate family style so you just basically pick up whatever you want with your chopsticks and put it in your bowl of rice, and eat away. After we ate dinner we headed to our place of lodging. It was some sort of French catholic training place... I think. All I really know is that it was catholic. I was on the floor of my friend Trevor's (a guy from the English Village) room. The next day was stocked full of activities. First, we went to the national park. It has been raining so much here recently so we could not do much there. So all we did was watch a movie and looked around the visitors center. It was a really neat... and looked really pretty because of the rain. *the picture is of me, Ruthie, Sarah, Jessika, and Andrew* After that we loaded back into the bus and headed to the beach. Now the beaches here are not like the white sand beaches that I am used to back home. They remind me more of the seashore in England. They had rocks and pebbles and smaller pebbles. It was really neat. It makes a different sound than back home. It was really pretty... the only thing that made it not to nice was it was VERY hot and humid. That part kind of reminded me of home. Overall I could have built a house on the beach and been content for a long time. After that we all loaded back in the bus and headed to lunch. Our lunch was very interesting. It was at this huge restaurant that was geared toward large groups such as ours. It had probably 50 round tables and they just started bring food... and more food... and more food. There was barely room on our table to put our small bowls of rice. In Taiwan they like to make sure that you have plenty of food. It was all much like the food from the first night. Except for this soupy looking stuff that was like solidified fat with grease... needless to say it did not get eaten... I think that a couple of people may have tried it but thats all. After that we went and got ice cream at this very busy... almost outlet mall type place.*in the picture: Junes, Wes, Tyler, Naomi. Jessika, Andrew, ME, Sarah, Ruthie, and Susanna* It had a bunch of stores that sold different handmade things. Like jewelry and key chains and other things. The kind of things that tourists waste money on. :-)


Ok... so this is the end of this post... I have been attempting to write in since the day I got back and that was Tuesday... It now... early Thursday morning. I will finish the trip very soon! I love you all and thank you for your prayers. They are greatly needed.