Cockroaches are Disgusting!

So sorry it's been a while since I've posted. I have been extremely busy with this teaching stuff and hanging out with friends during my free time on the weekends. In this post, I would like to share how my teaching is going.

I am currently in my third week of teaching here in Taiwan. I'm teaching 4th and 5th grade Math, Science, and Social Studies. I have fifteen 5th grade students and twelve 4th graders. I absolutely enjoy my 5th graders and am still trying to decide on how I feel about my 4th graders. Since I'm more accustomed to teaching middle school students, teaching 4th graders is quite different than what I'm used to. The 4th grade class, even though it's a small group, consists of all different levels of learning. Three of my students don't know their English very well. I have a few who will finish their homework very quickly, a few who work at a steady pace, and a few who are very slow. During the first 1 1/2 weeks, I was a little frustrated with the 4th graders and was really praying for patience. Today, I actually enjoyed teaching them! That was for sure an answer to prayer! My 5th grade students are that a-mazing group of students that every teacher hopes to have! That's just a brief synopsis of my feelings about teaching thus far.

Funny story: Today, during Math class, things got a little dramatic. A student was at my desk asking a question and I started feeling something crawling on my leg. I had a long skirt on and I slightly lifted it up to see what was going on and it was a cockroach on me...yuck! So, I flew it off my leg and it landed under one of my students' desks. So, all the students who were right around it moved away from it. One of my students went and got a broom (right outside the classroom) and began trying to kill it with it. That didn't work. So, another student just stomped on it and killed it. Then, a different student swept up the dead cockroach and put it in the trash and then mopped up where the guts had been. It was pretty intense...hehe. But afterwards, I told my students that we all learned a lesson: Teamwork! Different students helped in killing the cockroach and we accomplished our task at hand.

This month was Ghost Month. Many people of Taiwan burnt money and sacrificed food to the evil spirits to make them happy. I saw it pretty much everywhere I went. Pray for the people here who serve false gods and believe that they are gaining merit by offering these sacrifices of food and money to dead spirits.

Peace out.

This past weekend, I went to visit a friend in another city here in Taiwan. She didn't know of any nearby Christian churches, so I went to the local temple with her. I just walked around with her as she did what she felt needed to do. As I watched my dear friend pray to a man-made statue (Bhudda) and other carved statue gods, my heart was internally weeping heavily for her. It was one of the hardest things for me to watch. The famous one-worded question continually ran through my head: "Why??" All I could do was pray to our God that she may turn away from these false gods and seek Him instead.

As I was observing my friends in the temple, these were the main thoughts that went through my head:
I'm so glad that I pray to a God who will meet my every need...I don't need to pray to many different gods for a variety of specific needs. I'm also blessed hat I don't have to go to a special place (ie. temple) to pray to my God; I have the freedom to pray whenever and wherever I want. But most importantly, I have the priviledge to pray to a God who is alive and real! He hears my prayers and He answers them. He knows what's best for me more than I know myself. Glory to God!

Nonetheless, going to the temple was a good learning experience to gain more awareness of one of Taiwan's main religions, the other being Daoism. It was also...I don't really know how to put it...a "re-burdening," if you will, of the heart....a deeper burdening for the people of Taiwan. I felt like my heart was literally in pain.

A few things I learned:
When most people think of Bhuddism, they think of a group of people only worshipping Bhudda. I myself also had this misconception. But it's more than that. They are also worshipping many other gods: one for luck, one for wealth, one for good studying habits, etc, etc.

When the people want to ask a statue a question, they will throw 2 rocks to obtain an answer. The position of how the rocks land determines what their answer is. So, it's just luck, like throwing a pair of dice. I couldn't really comprehend that aspect.

Thank you, God, for the gift of knowing you!!!

Wednesday Night Extravaganza

Last night (Wednesday), I went to a concert at the biggest church (member-wise) in Taiwan. A worship choir had came to the church for a benefit concert for kids with special needs. All of it was in Chinese, but they had the lyrics on a big screen and most of the songs had English lyrics along with the Chinese. So, I would listed to the songs and read the words. It was soo beautiful to hear these people singing praises to God in their own language. Isn't it great that God knows what you're saying, no matter what language you speak?!?! To watch a nation, most of which is Bhuddist or Daoist, praising our one true God was simply amazing to hear. For the people of Taiwan to be Christians, they are basically leaving a part of their culture behind them because their religion comprises a majority of their culture. God also reminded me of having faith like a child. There was this special needs girl, who looked to be about 9 or 10 years old, who sat in front of me. I saw her jumping up and down and clapping joyfully with the music. I thought to myself, "I should be like her. I should jump up and down out of excitement when singing praises to our glorious God!"

The lyrics to one of the songs we sang was: "Thank you Lord, for the gift of knowing you."

That really struck me and put me more in awe of our God! How often do we thank God for the fact that we know Him? I know I sure don't thank Him enough for that truth. We, in America, are so blessed that we live in a country where we can hear about God at our schools, in our homes, etc. The people here in Taiwan don't have that advantage. The majority have to go to a church, and the closest one may be at least an hour away from where they live. May we not take that gift of knowing our God for granted!

I'm so excited about having the opportunity to share about Jesus as I teach at the school I'm at here in Taipei. We are encouraged to do so, since it's a Christian school! How cool is that?! I'm also excited about sharing Christ with others who I may meet somewhere else.

Please pray for the students who will be coming, starting on August 14th.
Pray for their families. The majority are not believers (along with the students), but have agreed to let their child be taught the Bible at school.
Pray for strength, endurance, and rest for all the faculty. I'm already experiencing physical tiredness.