Always an Adventure...

You lay back, open your mouth wide, and try not to move as the dentist prods around in your mouth. He digs and scrapes for a little while before declaring.... "Praise the Lord!"  Well this is not typically heard in dentist offices across North America, but it is pretty much what my dentist said last weekend. The exact wording was "Gan xie Zhu, ni de ya chi hen hao." (感謝主，你的牙齒很好） Once ascertaining that it had been awhile (aka never) since my last checkup in Taiwan, Dr. Su looked at my teeth, and after giving me a clean bill of health, he did a (somewhat painful) scaling treatment. Dr. Su is part of the Christian Dentist's Association in Taiwan, and they do some pretty cool stuff. He regularly goes on short term missions to poor countries and provides free dental work and education for children. In the time I've known him, he's been to both Kenya and Nepal.  Last weekend, I went back to Yuli for a visit. I got to see some of my favorite people and places, ...

I just took note of my blog counter and I've now had more than 14000 visitors! It's hard to believe, but I guess I have been blogging for over 4 years now... that works out to about 3500 visitors per year, or almost 10 visitors per day! Thank you everyone for joining in my adventures vicariously or making an effort to stay updated with my life! I'll try to do a better job of writing regularly :) And now for another random picture: Me with one of my new roommates when we attended one of my old roommate's wedding last month!

After a few friendly reminders, here I am to assure you that I'm still here. The last thing I remember is it being October, and me thinking, "Man, November's going to be a busy month!" First, here's the random picture of the day: a funky blue drink I had, with little fruit seeds that resembled frog eggs... don't let the look on my face fool you, it was yummy!  Now, in honor of this being my 4th November in Taiwan... let's take a little look back: November 2004 : Was in Yuli, meeting new people, still getting introduced at church every week, and barely communicating in Chinese! We were visiting a lot of schools, but weren't teaching at any yet. November 2005 : Was nicely settled in Yilan, teaching, enjoying visits from Yuli friends, and going back down there to visit them. November 2006 : Was getting around only on crutches and still going for regular x-rays. Teaching from a wheelchair, doing regular PT, and having bananas stolen from me! November 2007 ...

There's always something happening in Taiwan. I could be attending something every weekend if I wanted to. November's already shaping up to be a really busy month! But here are some highlights of the past 2 weeks. First, attended a symphony orchestra playing in Taroko Gorge! The music was pretty good, though I probably enjoyed the surroundings more. It had been quite a long while since I'd been back to Hualian, and especially to Taroko, so it was nice. The weather was great too. I got to meet up with Michelle and David (sorry I cut off his head in the picture), and later on unexpectedly had dinner with some old friends from Yuli, including Amy and Jack and Jamber and Sabrina, who have since moved to Hualian city.  As I mentioned in my last post, last weekend was the Franklin Graham Festival! I had originally only planned to go on Saturday, but ended up going 3  of the 4 nights! It was really great. One thing that was interesting is that it was put together a lot like a Taiw...