August 2005 Archives

(Pictures at the bottom)

A year ago…

I was celebrating my 21st birthday with my team. Well at that time it was just Ben, Jo, Katrina, Sandy and I. I remember that day for several reasons because we received our A/C, fridge and other appliances at the dorm. That in of itself was an awesome present.

Thankfully I didn’t get anymore cake thrown in my face and Sandy was calm that evening. (Sandy with a cake is deadly) Ben told us that we should all go for a walk. Honestly I was tired and I knew they had something planned so I relented and went with. They took me to our beach and I saw the Ocean for the first time in my life on my 21st birthday. It really was an amazing site and as I looked out over the water I was just amazed at God’s goodness.

I don’t know about you but do you ever wonder what God might have in store for you? Do you wonder what His greater purpose or vision for the next year of your life is? I certainly didn’t know but I knew I was in Taiwan to teach English.

This last year has been one of blessing, one of excitement, laughter, and great joy. However with all those great things also brings great agony, pain, and feelings I never thought someone could endure. I’ve had moments and times where I’ve seen God work wonders in front of my eyes only to bring about the times where I questions God’s hand and love in my life.

If God would’ve laid out all he wanted to do and all that would’ve happened on that beach 1 year ago I would’ve gotten on a plane and went running home or somewhere to escape it all. Yet even tonight I’ve been reminded that God does take care of us day by day. So often we just want to worry about tomorrow, we worry about what we’ll do, who we’ll marry, where to focus our lives, what our next steps are going to be and yet God says let tomorrow take care of itself.

I’m so grateful that I have a God who loves me enough to care for my needs and who doesn’t leave us alone. Not only did he send us the Holy Spirit but he also gave us friends who support you through thick and thin. Who pray with you, cry with you, and seek God’s will for your life.

You know I sit here wondering and asking the questions… ok God I’m already overwhelmed I really don’t know what you have for me. What do you have in store for my life this next year? In fact you’re asking me to commit more time of waiting on you for these things in my life. Lord I want them now… I want to see the future. I want to see how it all works out. Would you listen to me? LOL there we go worrying about the future…

I’m glad God only gives us what we can handle and only asks of us to just each day pick up our cross and follow Him. After all He’s going to take care of the rest if we just follow Him. It sounds so simple and yet it’s the one thing we struggle with the most… denying plain old self.

So my challenge to you and myself is don’t run from the problems or the trails that are going to come your way… Run to the only one who can make a difference. My prayer is that I would learn to have a deeper faith in trusting God, a stronger life of prayer and that as I’m patient and waiting on Him He’ll give me the desire of my heart.

Here’s just a few of my most treasured memories from this last year… I would like to list people who mean the most to me but I’m sure I’d miss someone so enjoy the pictures. To those who are in the pictures below you mean the world to me.

Blessed beyond comprehension,
Joshua Smith

Team in Green Island

Christina Moody and I making dinner... way to much fun!

Ok so just over a year but an amazing hiking trip!

Chase, Daniel and I taking a break!

Alice, everyone should meet Alice!

Some of the best TA's... in the whole World!

A great weekend in Hong Kong

Our adventure around Taipei City

Another night out!

That night in the airport waiting to go to Hong Kong. A new Year's to never forget!

Many weird pictures of Daniel and I (We never seem to get a good one)

The three of us... Yes we can teach and can get along just fine :)

The Superhero's

Christmas Skits at Thanksgiving... the most wonderful memories of the year took place that week!

Jo and I the last night in Hualien... Miss our times of getting in trouble together or doing the weirdest things!

They have no clue what we did to the food!

Fun in Taipei

Written: July 12, 2005

I am currently in Kaoshiung, in the southern part of Taiwan. Camps started one week and three days ago.

The past few weeks have been awesome. I have had so many opportunities to share God’s love with others. My only regret is that I don’t take every chance.

It’s been very hot and humid during camps. Imagine always being sweaty and sticky. Our TA’s are great! They work so hard and are an amazing help. We are holding the camps on a college campus, very interesting. Everything is very spread out and somewhat hard to work with and yet everything is going fine!

We went to Kenting last Friday. Kenting is as south in Taiwan as you can get, and it’s absolutely beautiful! Beaches, mountains, shops…it’s a hidden, unknown paradise. I got some wonderful pictures.

We are now two days into the second week of our overnight camp. Please pray for the children and the TA’s to be refreshed. Two weeks is a long time for some of these kids. As for us, well we are tired, but doing good. God is great! He knows exactly what we need, and when we need it.

Christine ~ James 1:2-5
Kinmen Team

Written: July 10, 2005

Wow. The end of the semester. I never would have thought it could have come this quick. Now, before we even knew what hit us, summer camps have jumped out from behind a bush and attacked us with full furry.

Camps are both a good and a bad thing. There good in that they allow us a lot of time with the children. We get to know the kids on our teams very well and have alot of time to share with them. It's a bad thing in that it's extremely tiring and we have to pack to leave for the States while in the middle of camps.

Right now the Kinmen team has only five members present. Meagan and Christine are in Kaoshung (sp?), Shawn is in Nantou and Ginger (lucky
girl) is already in the States. I'm really missing my roommate Shawn...it's gonna be real lonely next year having no roommate. BJ, Shawn and Christine will not be here next year...which means that we won't be able to teach Jr. High either. I'm pretty bumbed about not having my same students next semester, but I guess I'll live.

Can you say rambling? I think I covered about five paragraphs of stuff in the last three paragraphs...and I'm supposedly here to teach English.

We have 5 TA's with us, plus our friend Douglas, who is kinda a TA-in-training. The really cool thing is that two of them are Christians.
One was saved only a couple months ago. He had communinion for the first time on Sunday at our church. He's really excited about his new faith.
He is the TA helping me with my team: every day at lunch he has all the kids thank God for their food before we eat. It really is encouraging to be working with a brother who has so much excitment for God.

Dude, going from teaching Jr. High to teaching 3rd graders is something else. After we finished testing on Monday I had to totally throw out my plan for the week: I just wasn't prepared for the lower English level. Classroom control is a whole different story as well. In Jr. High I was always fighting to make the kids stay awake and talk...with these younger kids I'm fighting to make them shut up and calm down.

We just finished our first camp yesterday. Now we have Saturday and Sunday to rest and then it's back to the salt mine on Monday. Today I'm going to try and get packed as much as I can, because we finish this next camp on Friday afternoon and then I leave Kinmen (and don't come back until September) on Saturday morning. I'm really super glad I am coming back, or this week would be extremely stressful. I feel sorry for poor BJ: she's leaving next Saturday and not coming back!

A couple prayer requests: Pray for energy and creativity as we do camps. Pray for our TA's, esp. those who are not saved. Pray for cool weather (esp next Thrusday!) Pray for BJ, shawn and Christine, our three team member who will not be coming back in September. And pray that the school will turn our internet back on. I know it might not seem like a big deal, but it's become an extremely big hassle with no internet.

So, from the Kinmen team: bye bye! See you next school year!

Samuel Bavido

Written: July 2, 2005

Well I’ve never taken this long to write an update. It’s like how on earth do you write about the last year of your life and confine it to about a page of text. Well after half a week of trying I realized you can’t. So here goes nothing…

Today is a day I never thought would come. In many ways this is the end for many of us here in Taiwan. Almost a year ago 11 members of our team met in the San Francisco airport and boarded a plane that would take us to this place we now all have learned to call home.

A year later I find myself closing the door to my room in Hualien and telling Ben and the other girls that our ride was here to take us to the train station. We all boarded the train from Sincheng and headed to Taipei. Later that morning we had a chance to see everyone once again for a press conference and a final chance to say goodbye.

I don’t have words that can describe the things that I was feeling as I began to say goodbye to some of those people that I would never see again. In fact these last few weeks for many of us have been extremely sad.

Saying goodbye to the teachers and children that we’ve worked with on a daily basis for the last 9 months truly is heart breaking. For many of us we came to Taiwan only knowing that we were there to teach English. We came with the expectation of teaching children and being a light of Christ. Yet for many of us I don’t think we realized the full extent of how it would change our lives. I know for me coming to Taiwan has changed my life. In fact, you can’t come to Taiwan and expect not to be changed. These children have the ability to break even the hardest of hearts. I came with the purpose of giving to these people and children and the exact opposite happened. It was the children and people of Taiwan that gave to my life and changed it forever.

There is a phrase that I know is all through out Hualien and I believe all of Taiwan. It’s four small words yet powerful and something that has become true for me. “Touch your heart Taiwan” those four words is exactly what has happened in my life. Taiwan has touched my heart. This nation, these people have touched my heart in a way I never imagined.

I had the privilege of teaching at 4 schools these last two semesters. One of the schools that touched my heart was Jing Mei. Jing Mei, is actually one of the Taroko aboriginal people groups. As I came to learn Jing Mei is the poorest of the poor. Ninety percent of the children that I taught there probably only ate one meal a day. In fact some of them would even bathe and get their water from the little creek that ran down through the school off the mountain.

One of the saddest parts of this school is the fact that these children have no homes to go to. I will find the parents passed out drunk as I arrive at school Tuesday mornings. In the afternoon or evenings, when the children come home they come home to grandparents or mothers, that are passed out drunk. Some are lucky to have a father, but most fathers are in prison. Now if that doesn’t touch your heart in someway maybe what I tell you next will. The lack of care and neglect of the children ended up in the death of one of my 1st graders just a few short weeks ago. In fact if the mother picked up her daughter from school and wasn’t caught up in gambling and drinking she would’ve never drowned in a pond next to the school.

Now for many of these children they will too one day follow in the footsteps of their parents. My only hope and prayer for them is that they in someway saw Christ in my life. For many of us here in Taiwan all we can do is pray and be a light.

This year has been full of fun and excitement as well as good times and bad. There where days when we thought we could do anything and days where we thought like giving up and not wanting to go on. Yet as I reflect back over this last year and where I started and where God has brought me I see the goodness and greatness of God.

I’ve seen God work in amazing ways through his Spirit in the lives of the other teachers serving here in Taiwan. I’ve seen God answer our prayers and change the lives of the students and teacher’s we’ve seen every day for this last year. I’ve felt at times when I had nothing left to give I felt the prayers of all you back in America and was strengthened and encouraged. Truly we are grateful for all that you’ve done in upholding us before our Father in Heaven.

I sit here wondering what to say next or how to say it. Im really left without anything to say... so thank you for listening.

Joshua Smith
Kaohsiung