Signed Contract

Saturday I drove down to YunLin County and signed a contract on a typical countryside Taiwanese "Tou-Tian" House---(In Chinese that means "head-heavens"). It's three stories with two small rooms on each level. I'll use the front of the 1st floor for ministry, put in a kitchen in the back, and live and work mostly on the 2nd floor. The 3rd floor will be used to house short-term teams who we will hopefully be having over in abundance once we all get situated. 

The kitchen's an empty shell at this point so I first asked a coworker who is also moving into the area to take me to a kitchen store. That afternoon the shopkeeper drove over to measure the kitchen and in a week or so he'll come back to install the stove top, cabinets, and sink. I'm still in language study for two more weeks, but next weekend I'll head back down and hopefully slap down a coat of paint on the 2nd floor.

Blown Tire

Yesterday morning I took off on my scooter to pick up a high schooler for church. Off and on for several days something about the bike's back wheel hadn't felt quite right, but I thought maybe after a year away I just wasn't used to the scooter.

While I was driving along by myself at a very low speed in an alley, the back tire blew and the bike swerved beneath me. If I had been traveling high speed with someone on the back of the scooter in a busy road, it could have been dangerous (although high speed for a 125 cc scooter is only about 35-45 mph). Though the shops were closed yesterday and I still haven't been able to repair the bike, I thank God for arranging the circumstances as He did so that no one got hurt, particularly the high schooler, who came to know Christ last summer when a short-term missions team brought her with them when they came to Taiwan.

From Babbling to Jabbering

When you study a new language for months and still can say little, it can get discouraging. I try to think of it as a game, although that doesn't give an excuse not to work hard. The CNN article below offers some encouraging perspective:

How babies go from babbling to jabbering

Since I got back to Taiwan, I've studied Taiwanese full-time for three weeks. I'm still about a year away from fluency, but light years further along than I was before I left last year!

Watching the Calories

I've been back in Taiwan for a week. As I try to eat as healthy as possible this month without a kitchen in my temporary one room studio, I succeeded entirely in abstaining from pearl milk teas, bubble teas, or other delicious sugared/iced green teas (all high in calories!). I have also stayed away from any kind of American fast food (McD's, KFC, etc). Last night at a stall in a night market I did consume what some consider the signature dish of the Taiwanese people-- an oyster omelette with some greens and other things in it.... very very greasy and unhealthy. But it was good!

Since my last post, in addition to discovering a few more new Starbucks in various places (when will it all end?), tonight as I was riding home on my scooter I was surprised to see a CostCo under construction EXTREMELY close to my old apartment-- about a 3 minute scooter ride in fact. Before, I always had to run up to Taipei to buy stuff at CostCo but a good bit of what I bought wasn't very healthy anyway. God has a wonderful sense of humor, since I'll be living an hour and a half from here!

10,000 Released; 5 Die already.

Two days ago 10,000 prison inmates were released here in Taiwan as part of a presidential amnesty declaration. Yesterday 5 of them died of drug overdoses and 3 more were arrested.

May the beautiful news of the Lord Jesus Christ continue to penetrate and transform the prison system, offering hope and liberation to all those who use drugs here in Taiwan.

Appendum: 8 have died now as of Friday morning.

As of Monday 7/23, 13 of these have died of drug overdose.