July 2005 Archives

Greetings from Nei Hu Elementary School.

The land where Naomis become Namios, Bethanys become BRAVOs, Jon-Erics become JonEs, Hollys become HAHAs, and Tinas escape without further nicknameage.

Heh heh...

We had a great first couple of camps here and were beginning our third when the Typhoon from Heaven arrived. The kids had to go home and we were suddenly left with almost an entire week on our hands with nothing to do. For Bravo, Namio, and JonE, who had just arrived, it was rather disappointing. For Haha and Tina... well, let's just say the "Hallelujah chorus" was in order. After about, oh, 3 hours of sitting at Ying Pan with ABSOLUTELY nothing to do, everyone was agreed. We had to find something to do.

Yes. We found something to do. We went to 7-11. At least four times a day. The scene went something like this:

Tina walks into the living room. Namio is glued to the computer. Quite literally. If she didn't have a nose, I suppose she could've gotten closer. JonE is playing his saw for his enraptured audience of Sandia. Bravo is pounding away on the piano, determined to keep the scales at her fingertips at all times.

Tina: "Hey guys! I'm BORED. Let's go to 7-11!!!"
Everyone (breathlessly): "YES! LET'S!!!!!!"

After taking Holly's order, the 7 of us set off through the wind, rain, and puddles to our destination. Neither snow, nor sleet, nor wind, nor heat, nor gloom of night, can stay these bored creatures from the swift (or not so swift) completion of their appointed rounds.

And so on. The second day was even worse, cause the actual typhoon hit. No busses, no outdoor activities, no birthday celebrations for Tina. Yet our faithful 7-11 remained open, so to 7-11 we went once again. And again. And again. And... yeah you get the idea.

Well we were all very relieved when the typhoon was over and we could return to our beloved Nei Hu to prepare for camps to begin again. Camp four started yesterday and we have an awesome bunch of kids here. Seriously, this is the best Sunday we've had yet, at least as far as kids and activities go.

Keep us in your prayers as we fight sickness, exhaustion, and homesickness. Ah yes, we are indeed a happy bunch. Bethany sends her two sniffles worth of update happiness. She helped me with spelling and grammar in this update. Like she told me to take out the part that said "And something to do we did indeed find"! Yes...

It is late. You're right. We should get to bed. Going, going!! Yes, Mom, I do hear you. Goodnight from the Nei Hu team, and keep us in your prayers.

Tina, Namio, HaHa, Bravo, and JonE
Nei Hu Camp

Sorry the updates haven’t been coming. The teams are having a little trouble getting on the webpage and doing at admin type stuff. So today’s update is brought to you by the letters U, S, and A. As in America. Like, as in where I am right now. Yes, folks I got home Friday and entered the world of Mexican food, jetlag, and Panera Bread (which btw has free hi speed WiFi) It’s been great. It’s also given me a new outlook on Taiwan though. See, this update is going to come full circle and point to Taiwan even though I’m in the USA.

Today’s update is going to be something like that old show they had on TV in the 80s. It was something like “Kids say the darndest things”

(woah! Panera is giving away free food! I love this place)

I’ve been able to have the joy of communicating via e-mail with some of my students over the past few days. A lot of the kids from my last camp have been e-mailing me as well as some of my students from school. It’s really neat some of the things they say. It shows me that the Lord is gracious and has allowed me to not only be their teacher but also their friend. That means a lot to me. I’m kind of a social guy anyway. So I get this e-mail from a student at my camp. I’ll leave the name off because I don’t really have permission to post names on this site.

“Daniel,
After you left, on Friday night, we had a fare well party.
In the end we use the power point to show the pictures in the camp.
When we saw the picture of you, many people cried, include me!
We miss you and we think you are a very good teacher!”

I’m not trying to post this to make myself look good. In fact this has the exact opposite affect on my heart. It humbles me. To think that there are children who are so willing to trust and love us like this is beyond me. I’m nothing yet the Lord is taking this nothing and making it into everything. Do you see what I mean?! Can you understand a little of what goes on in our daily lives? We aren’t just hear teaching English and going home everyday. We’re hear seeing the Lord to amazing things in the lives of children who need someone to love them. Only through the Lord’s love in my life can I even hope to help these kids. What we do here is so much more than just teaching or “serving the government of Taiwan” as a certain newsletter only ever talks about. What we are doing is joining a culture and allowing God to remove our selfish desires in order to make room for the love these kids really need. It’s a learning process for each of us every day. None of the teachers here are perfect or even close to it. In fact we’re all just a bunch of failures desperately seeking God’s best in our lives through out time here.

When dealing with the heart of a child on a regular basis like we do (or even 500 hearts) life can become more complicated that maybe we might ever want or need. But that’s only if we allow ourselves to fall into that temptation. We tent to try to apply more to ourselves than we really should. In all fact and truth all the Lord asks of us here is to love with an open heart and then watch him do amazing things through that. I’ve seen it. I honestly don’t have a clue what I’m doing in Taiwan. It’s all new…crazy…odd…but one thing is the same no matter where I go. People need loved and the kids just want a friend. That’s something I think I can do. Through Christ my love can be a perfect love. If I really seek after Him with my heart while here, the kids will see that in my eyes, life, words, actions, etc and they will feel the Lord’s love. That’s an amazing thing if you ask me.

So here in American I’ve had time to just sit back, think about things, see how my life has changed over the past year. See how the love of the Children as taught me so much about the love Christ has for us. I’m really excited about going back and I know the people who are there right now are still loving every day and striving to do their best. Keep praying for them, every day. Pray pray pray. That’s the true work for me here in American and it’s the same for you.

From Kansas

Daniel

Well, I guess someone should write an update. Seems like it’s been a while and I’ve not done one so here goes nothing. (and I do mean nothing)

I’m down near Kaohsiung right now teaching summer English camps. I have to say that I’m really having the time of my life right now. The kids that we have here are really cool and their English level is pretty high. You see, they have the camp at this collage campus out in the middle of nowhere and if they students want to come their parents have to pay a somewhat large amount of money for them to attend (I can imagine ever spending money to be with me for 2 weeks but hey, whatever floats their boat.) This means that most of the children have been studying English for a while now and they are pretty serious about it. All that adds up to a group of kids who have pretty good English and are pretty well behaved for the most part. Of course there’s the “spandex cat in the hat pants” kid who we all want to kill but he’s another story. This kids has got to be the most accident prone child I have ever seen in my life. He’s also a royal pain in the butt as well. It think he has so many accidents because he never pays attention to anything but how much attention he’s getting. So things are always happening to him. Let me see if I can list a few things. All in one day he got punched in the mouth by one kid, thrown to the floor by another, chipped a tooth somehow (and no one knows), and got his head smashed in by a soccer ball. That was just one day. He’s a special child to say the least.

On the other hand there are some very cool kids here. A few of the older kids and I have really hit it off. There’s this 12 year old girl named Tina who is so funny. She’s about the cutest kid you’ve ever seen. The other night I get this knock on the door to my room about 30 min before lights out. I open the door to find her standing there with this embarrassed little smile on her face. I asked her what she wanted and she said “nothing teacher, do you want to just talk?” So we sat down on the sidewalk and chatted for about 20 min before I sent her off to bed. She’s just a really sweet kid. There are several kids here at this camp that I’m sure I’ll be keeping in touch with in the future. It really does make it easier when you can talk to them. When their English is this good talking is not a problem. It brings out more personality in the kids and makes the whole camps more fun for everyone.

Speaking of everyone we have some really great TAs at this camp. Paul is back and I got to work with him last year as well. I like Paul, he’s got a heart for the kids and knows how to have fun and keep order at the same time. There are only two other TAs here who have done this before but you wouldn’t know it. The whole team handles things like a pro. I would work any camp with this group of people any time. It’s really been a great time.

Megan and I were responsible this past week for training some collage age ABC (American born Chinese) students in the art of running a camp. We had our training and now they are doing their own camps at a different location. I’ve been helping with the bigger of the two camps this week (with the exception of today because I was sick). These camps are free and so the English level is much lower and some of the students aren’t nearly as well behaved as they could be. All in all though the ABCs are doing a pretty good job of things. I think they’re going to do great as they get a little more experience under their belts.

We got to go to Kenting last week with our students. Be sure to check out the photo gallery on the page here to see some sweet shots. I like Kenting and think it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Check out the pictures yourself and tell me if you don’t agree. I think one of the highlights of our Kenting trip though, was the bus ride back when we all watched “Shrek” on the bus. After the movie they have this little medley of popular songs that the cartoon characters sing. It was really fun riding down the road with the kids singing along to the movie at the top of our lungs. I really enjoyed “YMCA”.

Hey, it doesn’t take much to entertain me does it?

Anyway, it’s late and I just though I would give you all a heads up with what we are doing and where things are heading. Keep us in your prayers as we finish up this set of camps. Some of the people will be here for 5 more weeks. Megan and I are leaving this weekend and a few of the other teachers are leaving the following week. We’ve also got new teachers coming in and they’ll need prayer.

Thanks so much for reading this and for praying for us.

Your Friendly Something or other…teacher, nut, whatever,
Daniel