In previous posts (search on “yellow bird”) I’ve discussed how the yellow and orange love bird, since codenamed “Mango” in Taiwanese, has been one of God’s secret agents in helping me to get to know people here: Mango flies away, 3 months later reappears, 6 months later someone elses’ pet bird escapes and comes over to visit Mango, etc.-- all leading me to meet people in the community.
Well, unfortunately 3 days ago Mango developed acute respiratory problems and has been increasingly stretching herself out vertically up the side of her cage to minimize wheezing ( see pic). A little surprised she was still around to see the light of day this morning, and knowing that vets here do not treat birds, I nevertheless finally made an attempt to find a vet who could help her.
The vet two townships over where my coworkers live referred me to a shop that sells and treats pigeons two doors down. In actual fact, I discovered they also breed and export in small quantity exotic birds to a few other Asian countries!
Very very cool… after getting the medication for the bird, I stuck around for an hour or two conversing with the family and learning all about their passion for birds. They insisted on giving me two very small baby cockatiels as a gift which I’m not sure I’m happy to have or not, being as I’ll be 
hand-feeding again for at least the next 3-4 weeks.
Later in the afternoon, the couple brought their 2 kids over to my town for the elementary school English Club that meets in my house. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of other opportunities to share in Taiwanese, Mandarin, and a little English as our friendship develops. In summary, God continues to use “little yellow” Mango, the church-planting bird to assist in the beginning stages of the work here.
5/18/2009 Appendum: Alas, there won’t be any more assists from Soai-a (Mango). The respiratory infection finally did her in this afternoon. :-(
