Always an Adventure...

I'm here in class this week, and my brain is going into overload, filled with words like rheme, prosody, and discourse semantics. But speaking of fun words, our prof (who was teaching at Briercrest last semester - small world!) shared this website as a teaching tool or just for fun at www.wordle.net Here's a sample of what I got by inputting text from this blog, enjoy!

I'm already 1/3 of the way through my 30 before 30 goal, that's good news! I have a few more ideas coming up too, one of which is that this coming October will mark 7 years in Taiwan! But for now, let me share a little about my trip back to the cold west! 33-19 degrees - yes, it's a lot cooler here, which means all the pictures of me will be wearing the same hoodie since I only brought one! 24 hours of travel - including a very long trip to the airport. I booked a shuttle van to pick me up at home, and they arrived at 11:30am, to get me to the airport for 4:20pm??? I was thinking I'd get there quite early and could have lunch there, mail something etc. little did I know that after picking me up in Yilan, they'd go south (away from the airport) to Luodong, Nan-fang Ao, and then Su-Ao for other pickups! We didn't even leave Yilan until quarter to 1!! Then we hit torrential rain just past Taipei, so my ride was a little delayed. I flew to Hong Kong without inc

Last week I helped out at a kids camp for my church. We were out in the country at this little school, and the kids were sooo cute! Actually they reminded me a lot of the kids in Yuli, a lot of them were aboriginals. For me it was fun, but kind of a challenge. The worst thing about the camp was that there were these venomous monster mosquitoes out there, that left itching red welts on my legs, if I ever go back there, I'll definitely wear long pants, 33 degrees and no air conditioner regardless. Anyways, I was teaching the youngest age group, which is quite different from the high school and adult students I'm used to. They take a lot more energy, that's for sure! Some ways teaching 7-year-olds is different from teaching adults: You have to accompany your students to the bathroom You have to worry about students putting their food into the hair of the person next to them You use the word "xiao peng you" ('little friends') a lot Your tone of voice a

"If you put your happiness in temporary things, your happiness will be temporary." Last Saturday, we took about 30 students from Yilan to see Nick Vujicic give a talk. If you have never heard of this amazing man, take a few minutes to check out his website . Nick was born without arms and legs, and doctors could give his parents no reason why. He went through a very challenging childhood and at one point, even thought about drowning himself in the bathtub. But God turned his life around and gave him a purpose. Today, he is a motivational speaker who travels around the world sharing his message of hope, speaking against bullying, and encouraging people to "Never Give Up." Words can't describe how inspiring it was to see him here in Taiwan, and have him share with a sold out auditorium. He talked about the story of the blind man in John 9, who was born blind, not because of his sin or his parent's sin, but to give glory to God. Nick told us emphatically, tha