this weekend we went with four other friends (ring, shiao yi, tiffany, and linda) to the beach. i think it was actually near the harbor. it was about a 45 minute scooter ride. that was a loooong time to ride the scooter! we were all pretty sore after such a long ride. the whole week before we'd had beautiful weather in taichung--mid 80's and sunshine. but near the end of the week it really cooled down. so this weekend was a little cold and windy, but we still made a go of it. we intended to look for crabs, but all the ones we found were dead! after walking around for quite awhile linda and shiao yi finally found two live ones! we talked about taking them back to tiffany's apartment and bbq-ing them, but we decided against it! after a couple hours we headed back to town and hit the night market in tung hai. but we were all so tired and cold we called it a night and went home. here are some pics from the day...

our face masks. a present from shiao yi.

beautiful scenery. it was so nice to get out of the city.

they like to jump in pictures!

yay! finally some live ones!

i was the only one who got mud on my jeans!

cleaning up. time to go home!

Teacher Jang's Engagement Ceremony

Today we had a unique opportunity to attend our teacher's engagement ceremony. The ceremony and the meal lasted about 3 1/2 hours! It was quite a big deal. The bride, Teacher Jang changed clothes three different times. Each time she and her fiance Peter entered the banquet room, they turned off the lights, put a spotlight on them and turned on the bubble machines! The ceremony itself was quite short. The mother of the bride prepared jewelry for Peter, and the mother of the groom provided jewelry for Teacher Jang. Then we sang a few praise songs, and heard a devotion from Teacher Jang's pastor and prayed. Then the meal began. It was an interesting experience for us! We were so happy to be a part of their special day!

Parents of the bride, the happy couple and parents of the groom

Here's Peter and Teacher Jang along with the TLC teachers and their families, us and a few fellow students. (This red dress was beautiful!
It was my favorite of the four dresses she wore.)



Here's our table: Lance, Teacher Tian and her family, Teacher Ding
and Teacher Bai.



This was the first of 13 courses! Lobster salad, raw fish, and sun-dried fish eggs.
I tried the lobster salad and basically it was just lobster meat covered in a sweet mayonnaise.



Several of the dishes were seafood. These shrimp had some traditional Chinese herbs on them, and personally, they weren't my favorite!



Lance didn't particularly like the bowl of mystery seafood soup!
We're still not sure what was in it!



Time for a wardrobe change!



This fish was quite tasty!



Black chicken soup! Yum!



Cheers!


Congratulations Peter and Teacher Jang! Thanks for inviting us to your special day!

It's about that time...

Well my time in full time language school is nearing the two year mark. That means my goal of teaching a lesson in Chinese is quickly approaching. To prepare myself, I've been helping out with our kids Sunday School class. Jia Rong, the SS teacher, is a college senior. For the past few months, she's been teaching the lesson and I've been leading the memory verse time and a game. But two weeks ago, she asked me a question I've honestly been dreading. (Dreading in a nervous way, not a dread that it's something I don't WANT to do.) She asked me if we could "lun lio" (take turns) teaching and leading the supplemental activities. So this past week was my first attempt at teaching the lesson.

Now I have to admit, I'm not totally doing this on my own. I actually can't really read the curriculum for myself. It's all in Chinese and reading it is quite difficult. So I take the book to school and my teacher reads it for me, and then I write it all out p

honetically. This has been a good hour for me to be able to get out of the language school textbooks and work on something for church. I'm grateful my teachers all have experience in teaching children's Sunday School. They have been a great help during the SS lesson preparation.

This past week's lesson was a great place for me to start. A big portion of the lesson was a skit. I can't tell you how much of a relief this was for me! :) The lesson was on the Prodigal Son, and the skit was three angels retelling the story. So for the majority of the time, the kids were doing the "teaching."

After the skit was over, I was up! I was quite nervous. M

y audience was Jia Rong (the teacher), one girl and SIX boys. And these boys are your above average active boys. Fortunately, I think they were all surprised enough that I was doing the teaching they were fairly well behaved. (I'm not holding my breath that it will continue!) All in all, it wasn't as scary as I had once feared. But I do think I did a bit too much looking at my notes. Hopefully with some more practice, I'll not feel as tied down to th

em. Here's a look at some of the teaching materials and some of my notes.