Always an Adventure...

Our first week in Yuli October 16, 2004 I arrived in Taiwan with no idea what I'd be getting into. I was originally only planning to be here for one year... but 7 years later I can say that I truly enjoy my life here. It still feels a little surreal that it's really been 7 years. They do all kind of blend together after awhile, there was the year in Yuli, the year I broke my leg, the year I started commuting to Taipei, and so much in between. A song that I've been listening to a lot lately is Never Once by Matt Redman, and part of the lyrics say: Scars and struggles on the way//but with joy our hearts can say// Yes our hearts can say// never once, did we ever walk alone// never once, did you leave us on our own// you are faithful//God you are faithful I've had plenty of struggles along the way, and one long scar down my left ankle, but it's true God has been so faithful in big and little things, and it is true, never once in these 7 years have I ever walked ...

We had a long weekend last week, and on Friday I went out with some friends from Yilan for the day. First stop was a mushroom plantation. Now, when they told me we were going to pick mushrooms, it sounded really cool until I started thinking about it.... wait a minute... don't mushrooms grow in.....? Well these ones didn't! They grew in bags which were placed along shelves in a refrigerated room. We went inside and were given baskets to pick as many as we wanted. Later we had a barbecue and grilled them. They were DELICIOUS! I still have some left from my huge bag, which only cost me about $4.00 Canadian (120NT), and I'm planning to make soup, and a marinara spaghetti sauce with them this week. Before we took our mushrooms back to BBQ, we went to a lake in the area that I'd never been to before. It was really nice there, and we had a great stroll around the lake. This area, being more remote and closer to the coast, really got hit bad by the two super typhoons. While mo...