Mr. Li's Funeral

Tomorrow bright and early I'll participate in the funeral of a man who I baptized a few years ago who came to know Christ through our old church. He was in a lot of pain the last several years of his life. Here are two pictures from happier days I stumbled upon just now in my computer  that I"ll pass along to his family tomorrow. The surviving children's mother preceded their father in death by only two months.  May these pictures speak to them of the joy which comes into the world and the hope of eternal life which can come into their lives through our Deliverer, Jesus Christ. Mr. Li is the only Christian in his family.

Sharing the Christmas Story in Taiwanese Elementary Schools

Yesterday I had three opportunities to share the Christmas Story in 1st and 2nd grade classes at two different elementary schools. Adding to this once-a-year opportunity was the pleasure of having an intern who is working with us for one month joining the class. My experience is that students always love having a different "guest teacher" foreigner around and yesterday was no different. Two classes were able to do Q&A with her.

As far as the Christmas Story and sharing the Christian faith goes, when I go to the classroom I go with the intention of teaching English, not to "win converts". That's how Christ is most glorified as a Christian English teacher teaches English. However, Thanksgiving and Christmas offer unique opportunities to share what is not just part of the Christian faith, but also a central part of Western culture.

We were able to do just that in the second school. I've been told repeatedly not to duplicate what the regular English teachers teach, but offer insights into foreign life and culture. When errors surfaced in the Chinese text of the 10 minute powerpoint, the teacher even corrected them so the students would get the proper picture.

We didn't dwell on the story of the birth of Jesus Christ in either location. After simply stating at the end that Jesus grew up and died on a cross for all the people of the world, and that He came back again to life and lives and loves us and wants us to give new life, we moved quickly back to games and other Christmas/Santa stuff we talked about last week. Then we gave away candy canes to complement the pumpkin pie that was served last week. 

Unfortunately, in the first school, even this was too much. The teacher utterly changed the meaning of what was said. She said: "the foreigners believe Jesus rose from the dead. But do people rise from the dead? No..." And she didn't totally ignored the last slide. It was the same thing at Thanksgiving when the 10 minute Thanksgiving Story got corrupted as well. 

Do I want to keep going back? A part of me out of spite for the teacher says no. But another part realizes that continuing to humbly serving these first and second graders out of love for Christ may allow the Holy Spirit to work in this teacher's life. The personal feeling of insult gives way to the realization that this is all about God and not about me.

Next year though, before Easter rolls around, I'm going to insist on doing my own translation,  or at least make sure the principal gets the heads-up first.

Buying Leaning Supplies

A few months ago when I was moving in, I stocked up on household cleaning supplies at the largest department/grocery store within a forty minute radius or so from here. Today was the first time I was unselfconscious enough to smuggle my camera in to sneak a pic since my cell phone here doesn't have a camera. Our team leader suggests we should get a group picture of us all leaning in front of it.

In-Between Meal Snakes

Are you in the habit of having a snake between meals? Or eating a snake before bed-time? Over the years of teaching adults English here, one of the more common (and humorous) pronunciation errors I hear a lot is mistaking "snake" for "snack" since that particular "a" sound doesn't occur in Mandarin or Taiwanese. But this afternoon was the first time I found it in writing!  Hmmm... it's almost bedtime. What will I eat tonight first?

Taiwanese Gecko Trivia

This past week in language school I learned the Taiwanese word for the house geckos which are so prevalant here (In the highly unlikely event any of you are interested, copy the chinese name 壁虎  here).

These guys are helpful in that they eat mosquitos. However, when I lived for four years in Taipei and especially when I lived the same amount of time in Taichung, these critters could be especially annoying when they'd start chirping in the middle of the night from some hidden location inside the apartment. A few times I got up to hunt them down. Strangely though, in the time since I've been in Yunlin, I've not heard a single gecko chirp in spite of the fact that there have been many more in my house here than ever before.

My teacher passed along to me an interesting tidbit of Taiwanese trivia. He said that north of the Zhuo-shui river ( 濁水溪) which passes through the towns of  Xiluo and Mailiao in Yunlin County, the geckos chirp but south of the river they don't chirp. Anyone here in Taiwan have a conflicting experience?

Alas, the geckos here have seemingly removed themselves from view in recent weeks, so I can't test this theory until the spring perhaps.