Cowardly Indian Ringneck

Tonight I let all three birds (Indian Ringneck, which I previusly falsely identified as a Green Conure since I only knew the Chinese name, Monk Parrakeet and Yellow Lovebird who returned after a three month absence-- I am now virtually certain it is the same bird) out for a little exercise. The Ringneck likes hanging out on the ceiling fans, which I have been good at remembering to turn off first!

Pretty obvious from this clip which I took later which of these two birds is the boss, even though the lovebird is 1/3 the size of the Ringneck! Although it wants to come over to me, whenever the lovebird is on my shoulder, the Ringneck is too afraid.

More on Healer Songwriter

Here's a well-done video of the song I mentioned in my last post.

And the sad story which broke earlier this week, as told on an Australian newscast.



I can see why so many of the deceived are angry. At the same time, it sounds like the father, the pastor of another large megachurch, might be going into protective mode as well. Hmmm.... father-son issues to be resolved here? Reminds me of what I've been reading lately in The Shack.

"When they kept on questioning him, [Jesus] straightened up and said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." John 8:7

"My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted." Gal 6:1

Jesus is Still Our Healer

After recently reading Christianity Today's Mixed Review of Hillsong Australia's most recent CD, "This is Our God", I decided to buy a mere two songs off Itunes instead of purchasing the whole CD. No sooner had I clicked the purchase button on the song "Healer", a second search revealed a breaking story on the song's gifted writer. Not only has he this week just confessed to a long-term addiction, but the cancer from which he had supposedly been suffering as he's been singing in recent months also turns out to have also been a complete hoax. 

The response in the blogosphere has been considerable this week. Here's an entry from My Latreia I felt was especially poignant: "I felt saddened by the news but at the same time, the realization of how frail we are really came to me. No one but our Lord, Jesus, has resisted the Great Tempter...How fallible our sinful nature has made us. And yet, we should be encouraged by this incident and be reminded how God truly is graceful and forgiving." I encourage you to read the rest of the post here as well as some of the other posts linked above.

I didn't get around to listening to the song I bought until after I read a few blog responses, press releases, and a youtube video. Having now finally listened to the song a few times, I still have to conclude that, in spite of all the sin and self-deception which ensued, the song was God-inspired. Jesus Christ, our Healer, is truly alive!

I've been an occasional fan of Hillsongs Australia since before I first came to Taiwan back in 1997, and God has used several of their songs to comfort and encourage me in hard times, but this incident is just another reminder that as we come to God in worship, we lean not on fuzzy feelings or a high-charged worship concert atmosphere, but on our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Solid Rock, lived out in a small community of relationships (not necessarily a megachurch) in which one can know and be known by others.

Yes, the writer was suffering from an illness as he penned this God-inspired song. Just not the illness he fabricated later as a cover-up. May God's people deal with him mercifully, and may Jesus heal him as he continues to heal and work in all of us who are broken.

PengHu

 PengHu, along with Orchid Island and Ali Mountain, has for a long time been on my short list of places here that I'd not yet gotten around to visiting. Well, I finally had a chance this past Monday through Wednesday for an initial visit.

I drove my scooter an hour and a half or so down to BuDai in ChiaYi County, and took the 90 minute ferry ride from there. Cost is 900NT for economy; 1286NT for business class.

In PengHu, I met up with 40 some Chinese/Taiwanese/Vietnamese/North American coworkers for our annual get-together. They were mostly from Taipei, but two families traveled from Kaohsiung (4 hour ferry ride from Kaohsiung).

We stayed at the Youth Activity Center. The rooms were clean, cool, and spacious enough for the reasonable price, and included cable TV which was nice because I enjoyed watching the U.S. Olympic Redeem Team crush another of its opponents (this time Australia) in basketball. (No offense, Australian friends. I'm sure I'll enjoy my work visit to your country next month immensely!)

Because there were a number of small kids along for the trip, our planned activities were not ideal for adults travelling alone,  but at least I was able to get a better idea of where I might go next time for skin diving and SCUBA.

I shared a room with our coworker from TuCheng in Taipei County, whose wife didn't come because of their small child. I pitied the poor guy for having to listen to my snoring! The view from the balcony across from my fifth floor room was spectacular. At night, neon lights on the bridge brightened up the sky. 

Both mornings I awoke at 5:30. Ordinarily in Taiwan when you go the park at this hour you find lots of elderly people taking their exercise. But in MaGong, in addition to the park, they hit the water, specifically the man-made "beach" swimming area inside of the bridge above. The second morning from my vantage point on the bridge, I counted 93 swimmers inside the cove and another 24 swimming out several hundred yards outside. Some of the doggy paddle and "freestyle" strokes were so poor I wondered if the elderly folks  would be able to make the considerable distance back, but several of them had floats just in case, I guess. By 6:30 am each day, all but a dozen or so were gone. I admire them for getting out like that each day.

The second day we took a bus around the main islands -- all joined by bridges -- to see some of the main  sights. We started out with a swim off the fine sands of ShanShuei beach on the main island's southern end. The visibility was incredible. 

 

From there, we drove to a place where we learned a little about historical architectural style and building materials. In the past homes were constructed out of coral and other objects from the sea.

 

 

The tour guide also dropped us off by the windmills. Like many other places around the world (as well as Taiwan), PengHu has recently begun harnessing wind power in order to meet electrical needs. 

Also that second day, we drove over to a lighthouse with a pretty vantage point on the southern end of SiYu, the western most island. Finally, we stopped off to see the so-called "Whale Cave". It was blazing hot everywhere we had to walk.

The third day we walked over and caught a boat which first let us down to see some coral. If I remember correctly, the tour guide said that of the 1500 different kinds of coral worldwide, over 500 are represented in Taiwan. The view wasn't all that spectacular though and I regretted again not being able to get away to skin dive this time around. Perhaps I can learn more about coral identification before the next time I go out.

After 10 minutes or so of that, we then went to a unique floating barge/raft with other floats stationed around it in the middle of the inner sea between the main islands. I'll call the place Karaoke Alcatraz. Because of the heat and the fact that I'm not a huge Karaoke fan, from the moment we arrived I couldn't wait to escape from Karaoke Alcatraz. But it really wasn't such a bad place. 

The main events on the barge were BBQing all-you-can-eat oysters (very delicious, although I wasn't very  hungry being as it was only 10:30 when we started), and singing Karaoke.

Off the barge they had different pools with netted squid, cuttlefish, and fish for kids and interested adults to fish in. However, there were no hooks on the lines and it was against the rules to land what you caught. Personally, I would have rather thrown my hook in to the open water outside of the floats as I saw tons of fish out there feeding off the oyster garbage, etc.

There was another very small area for paddleboats. On a lot of the tourist literature you read how PengHu hopes to develops itself into a tourism/recreational area in the future, and it's obvious it's not there yet, but places like these are at least attempts in the right direction to attract families who might like to vacation without having to take additional ferry rides to all the other islands. If the government of Penghu ever gets its casino petition granted, I hope they will be careful enough not to destroy the island chain's natural beauty and resolve to keep crime checked as well.

On the return trip, because of an impending typhoon the 2 evening ferries back to Kaohsiung were canceled and 2 families were forced to travel to ChiaYi instead. But they easily hired a car to take them back down south.

Though this was far from my ideal vacation, in fact it was not intended as a vacation but as an opportunity to catch up with other coworkers and I'm very thankful to God for the opportunity. If you go to PengHu though, better to go in late May after the winds have died down and before the summer heat really starts to pummel you.

Monk and Indian Ringneck Growing Up...

The Monk Parrot I traded in the old unfriendly Indian Ringneck for (Ringneck previously misidentified as a Green Conure since I only knew the Chinese name) and the new baby Indian Ringneck are growing up.... My goal is to teach them each a few English words so I can say to my students, "Look, learning English isn't so hard. Even these birds can do it."