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When we got back to Taiwan last fall, we arrived to a typhoon. After staying for a bit at the grand hotel, we moved to the south part of Taipei into a temporary apartment while our “long term” apartment’s renovations were being finished.
  
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We really want to be able to use this site as a tool to get out to you all what we are up to and what God is showing us in our lives. Our goal is to do a better job this round. Thank you so much for your patience and support!!
Ephesians 3:19
Christ’s love is greater than anyone can ever know, but I pray that you will be able to know that love. Then you can be filled with the fullness of God
We are back in Taiwan and the stark difference between the U.S. and here is always very bright when we first arrive. Not only do the smells, architecture, and temperature remind us where we are, but the reality of the depth in religious belief.
   
Quick post so I can get a couple of neat pics of the fam up before I forget about them.
As a side note (and to explain the title), lately Maliah is infatuated with Lions - she is always in my office asking me to google new pictures of lions and tigers. She especially is fascinated by the pictures of them eating wildebeast or zebras. Malachi, on the otherhand, is very much into swords and lightsabers. He takes it pretty seriously and recently purchased a wooden sword while in Sanyi (a mountain village known for its woodcarving) with his _own_ money (I think it cost about 30% of his life savings). Also, I think he knows all of the types of toy light sabers on the market and is very satisfied with his current lightsaber that has none of the electronic bells and whistles at all - the feature that drew his attention? It fully retracts into the hilt of the light saber with absolutely nothing sticking out (most have a small ridge or one section of the saber still sticking out).
Anyways, on to some pics (click “Read the rest of this entry…” to see the rest of the post)…
A bit about a trip to the HuangHuaCheng section of the great wall. Click “Read the rest…” if you want to read about it.
Enjoy…
Lana and I have had the pleasure of meeting Bill and Eve here in Taiwan.
Amongst their many fine traits (which include a passion for the kingdom, transcranial doppler ultrasonography expertise, spanish fluency, a love for motocross, physical assistant/nurse practioner certifications, hilarious ford festiva stories, and rhinocerous beete larvae caretaking - to name a few), they also have enriched our life experience with the following sweet quotes. I am a bit dissapointed because I didn’t start writing these down until the day before they left Taiwan, so only got a few from the conversations we had then…
“the frozen chosen” (as in lifeless church members)
“wrong as a football bat” (self explanatory 
“hot as a two dollar pistol” (as in pretty lady)
“opera singing in a fire hose” (as in overwhelmed)
Keep ‘em coming folks!
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The kids and I went hiking at the Da Keng scenic area about a week ago. Da Keng is about 20 minutes from where we’re living - a steep 20 minutes on the 50cc scooter. Malachi takes the back and Maliah the front, with me wedged between them working the controls. Malachi and Maliah have some sweet helmets, and they really liked gaining speed on the flat stretches to carry us into the hilly parts.
On the way up to Da Keng, we hit a few sections of road that the scooter almost had to be off-loaded to keep it moving. At one point, we decided to stop for a bit along the side of the road to get a drink. No sooner had the kids disembarked, then I see three dogs racing up a side lane at us at top speed. Not wanting to wait around to see if the dogs were friendly or not, I told the kids to get back on the scooter and we kind of limped off up the hill. The dogs gained on us for about 50 meters,
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If you’re ever in Shenzhen, I would highly a recommend a visit to the electronics market. There are thousands of people and millions of cell phones, mp3 players, etc… being sold there - it felt like what I think the New York stock exchange must feel like. Business on, game on, all the time. I made a few contacts for OEM parts and PCB fab, and also found a micro SD card and USB adapter for my phone, so I now have access to pictures on the road. The 1GB SD card cost 80 RmB ($10 USD) and the USB SD reader cost 10 RmB ($1.20 USD).
Before I set out, I got some local fare and learned the word for potatoes - tu3 dou4.
OK, I am chuckling to myself as I write this because I think that most people think that they are a good driver - myself included - regardless of their actual skill. I mean, it is cross cultural. However, in my estimation, I have found that the Taiwanese taxi drivers are the best I’ve come across. I have heard good things about India, but I’ve never been, so can’t say. Please don’t take offense at the broad generalizations I’ve made below.
I’m still recovering from an all-weekend soccer tournament in Taiwan’s “second city” - Kaohsiung (pronounced something like “Gow Shung” - unlike the Reuter’s reporter saying “Kayoo Seeoong”). The team I played for, Compass (sponsored by http://www.taiwanfun.com/central/compass/compass.htm), came in 5th place out of 16, although we did have the distinction for never losing in regulation play. We lost only one game in a penalty kick shoot out and had only one goal scored against us in six games (we won the game 2-1 in which the other team scored). The team we lost to in penalty kicks went on to the finals and they lost in the second overtime period to a questionable penalty kick call in the last minute of play.
In all, a very fun time. There is another tournament in April coming up in Tainan, where we hope to set the record straight and take it straight to the cup.
If you’re reading this and you’re in Taiwan looking to play some soccer, check out http://english.tccg.gov.tw/living.php?page=living_day_01&id=86&pid=55 for a link to the folks that head up the Compass team.
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Quick post to note something I finally understand that has always puzzled me about Chinese.
The term “chen mien” means _in front of_. As in the driver sits in the front of the car. The term “ho mien” means _in back of_, as in the yard is in back of the house.
The interesting thing is that the terms “chen” and “ho” are also used to qualify times. For example, “ho tien” means two days in the future, and “chen tien” means two days in the past. Something like _in two years_ is signified by “liang nian yi ho” where as _two years ago_ is “liang nian yi chen.” To be clear, the term for “in back of” is used to signify times in the future, whereas the term for “in front of” is used to signify times in the past.
I asked a Chinese friend about this and they responded by saying “well, when a thing is in front of us, we can see it. this is also the case with the past - we can see it clearly. When a thing is in back of us, it is out of our sight. this is also the case with the future - it is unseen and unknowable.” Interesting to me that my western-trained thinking would always put future events in the forward direction - or in front, and past events in the backwards direction - or in back.
