September 2006 Archives

Hello everyone, this is Christy Langemann from the Chiayi team! This is my first year teaching in Taiwan , and I find that I am probably learning more than I am teaching! Along with the challenges that have come my way have been wonderful blessings that I am happy to share with you.

We are in our fourth week of English teaching, and so are settling into our routine for the year. Some highlights have been…

…Being greeted by bright, shining faces of students eager to learn and have fun.

…Sharing our many adventures together as a team and growing together.

…Spending time with some of our students' parents - they've been wonderfully generous with their time in taking us all over the county.

…Trying all sorts of new an interesting food including: pig blood, chicken feet, fish eyes, octopus and "stinky tofu"! Most of the food here is really yummy, though.

For me, the past six weeks that I have been in Chiayi have been ones of learning to trust in the Lord more and rely only upon Him for the task that He has called me to. God is faithful to bring me out of my "comfort zone" so that I will lean on Him more fully. How glad I am that those "everlasting arms" are always under me!! When I look at my circumstances, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. When I remember that God is in control of my circumstances, it is much easier to rejoice in Him! Surely the joy of the Lord is the strength of His people (and the students love enthusiastic & joyful teachers)!

My first class this morning was a first-grade, to whom I am teaching the alphabet and phonics. Most of my students did not have English names, so I was given the privilege of naming them this morning. After teaching, the students all raced to the front to give me a hug. Chubby (and not so chubby) little arms around my neck give me a boost like none other! How I love these precious children.

My other morning classes today were the 5th & 6th grade. The students are a little older, of course, and know a bit more English, which makes conversation with them a little more meaningful. In between classes I usually have a crowd of students around my desk, asking me questions, getting my email address, and generally just wanting to hang around. Then there are the students who like to sweep and clean up the English classroom between every single class. How can I not thank them? They're so sweet!!

In case it sounds like this is just the dream job, it is and it isn't. There are real challenges, and you can pray for these. Most of my first-grade classes tend to get a little wild and I need wisdom in reining in little boys' energy and channeling it appropriately. Communicating with teachers and directors has its own difficulties as we have language and cultural barriers to cross. The teachers and directors are GREAT, though, and I enjoy working with them.

Various members of my team have had opportunities of sharing with Chinese teachers and parents. Pray that we would truly shine God's light and speak His truth to those we meet here in Taiwan. Thank you muchly for your prayers!!

~Chia Yi
~Christy

This has definitely been an unusual start of a semester of me. Last year I came back to Taiwan on a team I already knew and to schools that I had already taught at for some time. That's not the case this time around.

Five new teachers have joined my team, who I had just met sometime before I left for summer vacation. Also my schools and schedule changed. Because King Car and the Kinmen Government started a new after school program, me along with 5 others were assigned to teach it. Since I am going to teach after school, I wasn't able to stay in the 5 schools that I have taught at since arriving in Kinmen (2.5 years ago). Along with teaching the new program, I was also assigned to two new schools. On top of all of that, I am planning on taking Bible courses over the Internet.

To be totally honest, this has probably been the hardest start of a new semester since the 1st one, maybe even harder. It has been a struggle to adjust to many of the changes. With my new school schedule I have more time in the morning to study, but I don't have a lot of time to visit with friends and students after school because I am still teaching. Until today I'm still trying to find out a time when I could see some of my old students.

Concerning studying, I'm still trying to get started with that. I wasn't able to get everything straightened out while I was in America, so I'm in the process of ordering books for my courses. By the time I receive them, I will be very far behind in my class. However it looks like the Professors will help me catch up.

Though the 10 classes a week that I teach in school are going fairly well (I teach with two good teachers), the 10 after school classes have been difficult. Ever since my CF!E days in Oklahoma and Ohio, I was supposed to teach with at least one other teacher in the classroom. However, the after school class is mine. I'm the only teacher and I'm responsible for all the kids. I guess this will give me great training if I ever become a full time teacher, but right now it sure isn't easy. With the Government and the school not being on the same page concerning the program has put more pressure on me ( or at least it feels like it). So far classroom management has been one of the main outward problems, but I still feel like I have control. There not bad kids, just a little difficult at times :)

With all the changes from on line courses to working with new leaders in the Government (plus a new school soldier who serves as a go between us and the Government) they have been a few bright spots. One of them is the new team. I am the leader of a team of 9 this semester (7 girls and my brother). The girls have been great, spiritually mature, and THEY CAN COOK!!!!!! My brother has been a consistent companion as usual when going through all the difficult situations. I don't what I would do without out him.

Anyway, life probably isn't as bad as the email sounds, but I would appreciate your prayers. Pray for a right focus and that I'll be meek and wise in responding to all that life throws me over here. Pray for the Church. It looks like Mr. Jernigan will lead the Bible Study I had led last year. I with a teammate will go to "small Kinmen" and start one there (I taught on that Island last year). Pray that I and the team will correctly respond to the trials and spiritual attacks that we face daily. Praise Him and thank Him for the team he has placed in Kinmen, Taiwan. I believe He will do marvelous things over here. I really do. Thanks again for holding the ropes :)

May the Lord bless you and keep you. Numbers 6:24-27

Kinmen
Drew Stewart
1 Chr.28:10

Well, light2taiwan I’m glad to say is back and better than ever. You’ll notice that lots of things still need to be updated and fixed for the new school year. Thanks to the untold laziness of the administrators (Daniel and Josh bow…ok mostly Daniel) it may be a few weeks before it’s all updated and done. We’ll see how it goes. The one thing I am going to be working towards as fast as I can is getting all the new team addresses up so you can send our lovely team members luscious boxes of cookies, wonderful “I’m thinking of you” cards, butterfinger candy bars (for the Nantou team), and anything else you want to send. It’s really nice to know that there’s people back home praying for us.

This website is an extension of that. We feel like this is our way of doing a little “payback” for all the praying you do in the states on our behalf. You have the right to know how God is working here in Taiwan though our program and so if all goes well we’ll have an update every week from each team. Also, look in the photo gallery for images of your friends and family as they teach their way through the year. We’ve had some pretty crazy things happen over here and a thousands words just won’t cut it at times. Sometimes you just need to see it to believe it.

Look around the site if you will, you’ll find blogs, photos, personal profiles of all the teams members, images and location info for each team, e-mail addresses for some of our team members, as well as the weekly updates from our lives. Please e-mail the admins if you think of something you’d like to see on the site. We’re also very interested in knowing if something doesn’t work. You can contact us by clicking on any of the “contact us” links found around the site.

As a basic update on what’s happening this year we’ve 4 teams serving around the island of Tawian.

One team in Nantou County which is on the main island pretty much right in the middle. Nantou is a mountainous area with many little villages near by. Although the villages are often less than 500 people Nantou city itself is around 300,000. Our (I’m part of the Nantou team) teaching involves mostly smaller schools though there are one or two fairly large ones. We have an after school program in the afternoon, Jr. Highschool every other Friday, and a special “English day” program where we travel to small mountain schools to teach on the Friday we don’t have Jr. High. Nantou County is considered the religious capitol of Taiwan and boasts more temples than any other county. You can imagine that we deal a lot with spiritual warfare here. The Nantou team members are Joel Feig, Zack Feig, Daniel Neu, Kristen Richmond, Mai Lewis, and Nicole Simpson.

Another team is in Chia Yi. Chia Yi is the County on the south border of Nantou. Chia Yi is home to one of the most beautiful national parks in Taiwan, the Ali San Nantional Park. The teaching area around Chia Yi is very similer to that of Nantou. Both smaller and larger schools. This is a new location for our program and so I really don’t know a whole lot about daily life in Chia Yi. I’ll let the team tell you about it in future updates. The Chia Yi team members are Christy Langemann, Jessica Lindley, Sarah Lindley, Lauren Little, and Ruth Hug.

Yet another team can be found in Hualian. This beautiful county can be found on the east coast of Taiwan. It’s perhaps the most remote of the teaching locations in the fact that it’s not near any large city areas. It’s also known for having a large amount of indigenous aboriginal people. In both Hualian and Nantou counties it’s easy to find the aboriginal people. I’ve been told by the teachers in Hualian that they mainly have the Amei tribe but also the Bunong people as you also find in Nantou. The Hualian team members are Jocelyn Krauter, John-Eric Hope, Adam O’Conner, Ruth Strickler, Regina Lehman, Catherine Leskowat, and Naomi Leskowat.

Lastly we have the Kinmen team (pronounced Jean Men…don’t ask me why it’s spelled with a “K”) Kinmen is a small island west of Taiwan that is actually closer to China than the Taiwan mainland. On a clear day it is possible to see the mountains of mainland China right across the strait. As you would imagine being on a small island tends not to lend itself to traveling very much. This doesn’t bother our teachers in Kinmen. They’ve taken it as an opportunity to build strong relationships with several of the people they know and see every day. They get to teach every single school on the island and so because of this they know nearly every child. Kinmen is known as being a close knit world where not only are our teachers workers on the island, they’re also friends to a large part of the island. The Kinmen teachers are Andrew Stewart, Lucas Stewart, Megan Jefferies, Rebekah Gilley, Dominique Coffing, Jarita Kulp, Lauren Cyrus, Jane Turner, and Rachel Grindall.

I hope this helps you understand what you’ll be reading over the next several months. We’re real people doing real work for a real God. We need real people back in America to really pray for real miracles every day.

God Bless and I hope you’ll stick with us through all of our updates.

Daniel Neu
Nantou, Taiwan
Light2taiwan.com Administrator

Light2taiwan is back up and running! Weekly updates will be starting again as well as images being uploaded often. Sign up to get the updates as they happen and as always please remember to pray for us as we work in Taiwan!