The weirdest job!

A few days ago I was thinking about what I am doing, and how abnormal it is. How many people go to another country for a year, play with kids all day, get cover in soot, and never have a day off? Not many, and I am lucky to be one of those few. A friend and I were just talking the other day about, that if we weren't Christians, we would totally be having a nervous breakdown. Life over here is full of surprises and a never ending list of things we have to do. And we take it as God gives it to us, accepting it as His will, and trusting that He will help us with the problem. Because we know that He will not give us anything that is too hard for us to do. If I did not have that hope, I don't think I would be here anymore. There is so much happening that it gets stressful at times, but I have a strength not many people have. Without it, I would have a miserable life, because I would have no hope, and no strength. So I love being a Christian!

My week so far has gone great. The teachers are fewer, because a couple went back home. Other than that we have been doing well. Of course we miss them tons, but we have stepped up, and started to pick up where they left.

The team this week is great. I have 10 boys and 3 girls. Two of the boys are taller than me, so that takes a little getting used to=) But one of the boys, Frank is a Christian, and I think that is awesome. I really want to develop close relationships with my students this week, so I would ask you to pray that I could do just that.

Having fun!

As you know, I totally love the kids. They are cute, as you can see! The first small group I taught went good on Monday.I loved it! It has been a long time since I have been able to teach, so I went all out, I used 70 of my 80 minutes. so there, you can see I enjoyed it. I taught on Noah's Ark, and gave so much information. On things like how the ark could withstand the waters, how dinosaurs were on the ark, and explained the kinds of animals. It was really cool. And went well I thought. Today I taught on Esther, and a couple kids knew what I was talking about, so that was neat. I have no idea what I will do for tomorrow though, I am thinking about Daniel in the Lions den.

Things are going well, except that I have one problem, some of the kids on my team are picking on Billy, he is the littlest in the group. And it seems like he does not feel like he is part of it. It was sad for me, because I hate to see him hurting. And because the kids speak in Chinese, I have no idea when they are picking on him. Sometimes I can because of how they act, but that takes tons of observation. I spoke to Lucas about it to see if there was anything we could do, and he talked to the kids, and told them if they don't stop picking on each other, they will be in trouble. So hopefully things will change for the better. The team is very interactive, and they are teaching me some Chinese. Which is fun.

The kids are teaching us a little about their culture. And today I went to the music class. A girl named Wendy showed me how to play a Chinese instrument. And I have no idea what it is called, but it was fun. After I got used to the bow being on the side, I played most of "Come Thou Fount" on it. That was fun. I might get one of those someday. Well, thank you for your prayers!

The first has ended and another begun.

Well, Saturday was a day of complete business. After saying goodbye to my team, and they were taken to go clean up and prepare to perform, I had another 100 or so kids to amuse for 4 hrs. some arrived early, so the UNO cards were taken out, and ways to amuse the kids were thought of. The horrible thing was that Susanna and I had to help the kids take their luggage up to their rooms. Some of the kids are going to America after this week, so their luggage was very heavy. And there Susanna and I were carrying their luggage up to the 5th or 6th floor. After a couple trips we earned the name super girls. And we totally did our exercise for the day.

I must say it was the longest day of my life. After the kids took their luggage up to their rooms, it was lunch time. so off we went. Then to orientation. Then we had the testing, that took about 3 hrs. No break for the teachers! After that it was time to split off into teams. An hour small group, dinner, large group and finally time to take them to the dorm! After dropping them off, I did not go to my room to prepare for bed. But, stayed up to go swimming with 2 other girls. Which I was thankful I did. We had permission to go, it sounded too good to be true. And of course we ran into trouble when we got there. The pool closes at 9pm, and we got there at 9:45. We went into the pool, but the people were still there. And using the little English they knew to try and communicate to us that we needed to leave. Well, we did, even though it was for a few minutes, it was worth it.

My team this week is great! I have 6 girls and 5 boys. So as you can imagine we are having a blast. I did the Evange cube today. I had some laughs at what I said, but I also had a boy, Billy, who knew a lot about the Bible, and a girl, Jenny, who thanked me for teaching. I hope to get a chance to talk to each one of my kids about some things that are spiritual, especially these two. And my goal for this week is to teach them more English, and the idea is to use Bible stories. I might make the stories a little more modern, so they can get some more English into their vocabulary, but it would still have the same principles. This thing is still in the makings, so I would appreciate tons prayer! I really want to get more Bible in the small groups as much as possible, and this is just one way I can.

I also am helping out in the song leading. I have never done this before, so I am kind of nervous. And I really need to make a fool of myself on stage, so the kids will laugh. So please pray that God would give me ways to reach out to these kids in the songs I am doing. And that what I do will be really funny, and that I won't care what people think of me. This is a silly prayer request, but I honestly do mean it from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for your prayers. May God bless you!

My life saver

This is a life saver for any American that comes over here. You can get almost anything at 7-eleven! I am not kidding, even clothes( you order them online, but still...clothes!)This store has basically everything, I even got a pair of plastic chopsticks today, so I could use my own! Right next to it is an awesome drink stand, which we visit every once in awhile.

Well, there so much I could write about, but I seem to have lost all I could write about. I really enjoy the kids. We have had so much fun getting to know each other these past couple of days. It has been amazing! On Saturday, I will get my first team, and I will have an English Village station. Like the school or the bank. I am sort of on the nervous side, because I do not want to do a bad job at all. Then again, I am excited that I will get to teach. That will be so much fun!

The kids are great. And some are trying to teach me Chinese. It is sort of confusing sometimes, because I have to guess what I am saying. Which okay with me as long as I say nothing bad! So there it is a summery of how things are going on over here. Please continue to pray that God would work in the children's lives and that we might be a tool He uses.

The camps have started!

I cannot describe how glad I was when the buses loaded with kids (and cars too) arrived. I was so happy to see them. Working with the children just helped make being over here in Taiwan not seem too bad anymore. I was starting to get kind of homesick, but the feeling has been replaced with excitement with all that will happen this week. My Team is the A team. We have 12 children, and all of them are cute in their own way. Our primary objective is to teach the kids English. So each day we go over a place. Like the first day was the airport, we went over vocabulary that would apply and got to know the team. And today was the church. We had the opportunity to share the Gospel. The kids seemed interested when we showed them the Evange cube. And the day went pretty well.

I had some problems though because I do not know Chinese. The kids have been saying some bad words in Chinese. I had a big boo-boo too. One of the boys had a shirt that had guns on it, to start up a conversation I asked if he liked guns. He nodded his head, and asked me what the English was for gun again. Of course I said it to him, but when he and his friend came back and asked me what the word was, I knew something was up. Rebekah, the team leader, explained to me that gun was a bad word in Chinese. Isn't that great to find out? So they pestered me all day trying to make me say it. But, I decided to use the word"firearm" instead. I am still having problems with these boys, I would appreciate it if you would pray for me that I would have wisdom while I work with them.

I have had some times to get close to the kids too.The opportunity arose during dinner. i have been sitting with three girls from my team, and their English is not good. I had been wondering how I could reach out to them and get close to them. It all started with a thumb wrestle game, then "rock, paper, scissors". One of the girls turned her water bottle upside down and was watching the water that was on top fall. Her and another girl were having so much fun, that I turned mine upside down, and joined in. Man! We were a sight to behold. There I was pounding my hands on the table trying to make mine drop the most. And she was doing the same. Then we would shake up the bottles and start over again. this continued on for awhile, and believe it or not, that was the most fun I have had in awhile. It's amazing how you can open up a door to a child's heart if you act crazy and fun to be around. I look forward to many more water bottle games myself.

Another really awesome and weird thing I have to tell you is how we wash our dishes. First we scrape all the food off into the garbage can. Then we go outside to the assembly line and rinse off the dish from a hose. After we dump out the water, we get the soapy water and a scrubby(which everybody uses) and get all the messes out of it. Then we rinse it again, and put it on the shelf for Another person to use at a Another meal. All I could think about this the first time was"UNSANITARY!" But, it's life and I have to get used to it. But, of course I am keeping a pair of chopsticks, and I clean them off with hand sanitizer a every meal.

Thank you for your prayers! Until next time!

Taiwan

Well here I am, finally in Taiwan. When I first arrived I had a cold, but I must say I feel SO much better. Thank you to all those that were praying for me to get better. Today we are going to start doing some prep work for the Camps. The first one starts tomorrow, followed by two more. I do not really know the schedule, nor do I really know how we are going to do the camps. I guess I will learn that in time to come.

Anyway, I've really just been trying to get some rest. Since I was really tired.

I found out there is a chance I might end up doing TESOL, instead of the English Village. There are like three openings and they have not decided who will go and do the TESOL. I know God will place me where He wants me, so I am not worried about this. I really feel like I have nothing to say, except that I got here safe and there will be another post soon. Once I have done something which I can write about.