Great Medical Care

One practical way of making language-learning easier is to associate words and phrases with fresh daily life experiences. Therefore it's much easier this evening for my brain to register the Taiwanese word "tang3-kah " (and maybe also the less common Chinese word 嵌甲 qian4jia3 jiao3gou1yan2 腳溝炎) because of the minor surgical procedure I had done today. Maybe the fact that the doctor did not use quite enough anesthesia when pulling/cutting out the ingrown toe nail will make the vocabulary even easier to recall in the future. And to think I chose to have it done on my 44th birthday!

On a separate note, one of the many things I like about life here in Taiwan is the great medical insurance. For the minor surgical procedure above, which required anesthesia as well as the attention of several hospital staff not to mention 3 kinds of post-operation medicines, I paid a total of only $172 NT, about $5.25
US. What a deal!

Introducing Mr. Ding

Meet my neighbor Mr. Ding and his youngest child, Wendy. Three times in the last week or so Wendy and Mr. Ding have come over to practice English, and I've chatted with him outside his workshop and in his house 3 doors down on several occasions as well. I also enjoyed sitting with them for an hour or two during a Mid-Autumn Festival barbecue at their house they invited me over to attend.

Mr. Ding is a wood-carver. He carves idols to sell either to individuals or to temples. He is very skilled and also strikes me as a moral, conscientious husband and father.

Tonight after casually teaching English for a half hour or so in my living room, I turned to my laptop to show Mr. Ding and Wendy a few English-Chinese learning tools on the web. I also showed them a few other applications which I thought my interest them. Finally, when I closed the windows, my wallpaper, which shows Rembrandt's depiction of the Prodigal Son, provided a sharing (as well as language-learning) opportunity for me as I opened my computer bible up to Luke 15 and Mr. Ding, who had heard part of the story before, gave me his vernacular Taiwanese rendition line-by-line as he read the biblical story in Chinese silently. When we finished, I pointed out how the moral of the story applies to our Heavenly Father. May God grant that Mr. Ding and Wendy know more of God's love.

The Lord is Good

I received this note from a friend who read an email update about the scooter accident posted below. Here's his reply：

“Thanks for the updates. I saw that video of the motorcycle accident on the news the day after it happened. That is really scary. A Chinese friend and co-worker had a similar accident late last year. She was given up for dead at first by the bystanders. When she came to, people said, "She must be a Christian." She suffered only minor injuries- bruised leg, bump on the head, and chipped tooth. A few days later she rode past that spot and saw her shoe on the roof of a nearby house. Only the Lord knows how far and high she "flew". The Lord is good!”

Mid-Autumn Festival

Tonight is the Mid-Autumn Festival, the night when Taiwanese (and Chinese all around the world) typically barbecue under the bright moonlight of the fullest moon of the year. Since tomorrow is a work/school day most people already did their celebrating the last two nights, but here are two rough pics I shot of the moon tonight.

Of course, for Christians, it's not the moon we ultimately celebrate: "O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your
glory above the heavens....When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them...O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"

耶和華我們的主啊！你的名在全地是多麼威嚴，你把你的榮美彰顯在天上。。。我觀看你手所造的天，和你所安放的月亮和星星。 啊！人算甚麼，你竟記念他？世人算甚麼，你竟眷顧他？ 。。。耶和華我們的主啊！你的名在全地是多麼威嚴。

Postscript to last post

The original YouTube post said the college student who was hit by the car in the video got away with only light flesh wounds... I thank God every day after long scooter trips for His watchful care. That's also another reason why I'm praying for a car!