(Display Name not set)March 2005 Archives

Hope Unseen...

Why is it so hard to be patient? Why do I want to have everything my way right now? Why can't I trust the Lord to work out His best in His time?

"...let patience have her perfect work that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."
James 1:4

I want SO DESPERATELY for my dear friends to know Jesus. There are times when the only word to describe the longing in my heart is "burning." It literally hurts. I see such need everywhere I look. I know, without doubt, that my Savior can meet those needs.

In my mind NOW is the best time. The way I see things my motives are right, my desires are right, thus my time table must also be right. The Lord is teaching me, however, that His ways are higher than my ways, and His thoughts are higher than my thoughts. His will is always best. If I had my way right now, I would miss out on the lessons He wants to teach me as I learn to trust and wait on Him. In His classroom I am learning to hope.

What is hope?
I have a long way to go, but the Lord is showing me that it is certainly more than just wishing for something you don't have.
It is anticipating something in the future that will benefit you or those you love.
It is working relentlessly toward a goal in the face of seemingly impossible odds.
It is praying that God will bring it about in His time, and maybe even use you as His instrument.
It is being willing to have your heart broken by the things that break His heart.
It is seeing your dreams come crashing to the ground.
It is holding on when there is nothing but HIM to hold on to.
It is sitting back after all your human efforts are exhausted and trusting and waiting, watching and praying, with the realization that only He can fulfill the desires of your heart.
It is surrender of our will and way to His higher and holier plans and purposes.
It is learning the meaning of communion with Christ and fellowship in His sufferings.
It is sitting at His feet and learning the lessons He has to teach you.
It is becoming His hands, His feet, His voice to those around you as you take on His character.
It is never giving up even when the longed-for thing seems too long in coming.
It is knowing that in spite of our painful inability, He is able.

"Do you believe that I am able to do this?...

"Yes, Lord...

"According to your faith, be it unto you..."
Matthew 9:28-29

Keep loving, keep waiting, keep praying, keep learning, keep hoping...

"...but hope that is seen in not hope, for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."
Romans 8:24-25

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen."
Hebrews 11:1

Rebekah ~ Lu bei ke
For the Kinmen team

The past two weeks have been especially busy. Nothing out of the normal, though, I guess! It seems every spare moment has been filled with something...(even if that "something" is playing volleyball with high school friends, or hanging out with the team...:D) My list of "Things I Need to Do Today" is about three weeks behind. Right now, my "Stuff to Prepare Before Facing that Third Grade Again" list has taken a higher priority.

A lot of us have been sick recently. Please pray that God would give us His strength. Last week I missed a few days of school because of sickness. One day, I was feeling sick and decided to go to school anyway (because, of course, all the students were sick too. The Kinmenese like to go to school regardless of sickness). I decided that if the Kinmenese can go to school when they are sick, so can I. So....I went....and now I can proudly say that I am truly a 金門人!!! (smiles all around)

It has been a challenge and a blessing to be learning lessons in teaching this semester. Often, it is so hard to go from class to class and remember what I am to be teaching. Already twice this week, I have walked into class with the wrong book... No, I'm not that stupid, it's just difficult when you go to a different school everyday and only see one class for forty minutes per week.

Learning what my place is in "classroom management" has been a difficult lesson as well...... Hmmm.....maybe, that's all I'll say about that....

Today, after teaching my classes in the morning, I sat in the school van thinking about this verse: (Psalm 83:18)

"That men may know that Thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the Most High over all the earth." This is truly our purpose as Christians living in this world. To be the salt and light that proves, to this world, that God really is God.

Please pray for us as we continue our daily and weekly routines of teaching.

Pray that God would "be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us. That [His] way may be know upon the earth..." (Psalm 67:1)

A 真正的金門人!
Lucas

Wow. And wow again. Today has been totally insane. It's been different, exhilarating, fun, exciting and disappointing. Right now I'm actually feeling semi-depressed, but I think that's just because I'm tired and my emotions have been going nuts all day. I just told Megan that I am so ready for tomorrow to be Sunday...except tomorrow is Monday! AHHH!

So this morning starts with church. Shawn and I took our bikes to church, riding through the alley ways. I've finally figured out how to get to church using only the alleys: it only took me a full month of being in Kinmen to learn the way!

Joy, our pastor's wife, translates the church services for us. Pastor Samuel gave a cool sermon about the effects of Christ's resurrection on Jewish society. Then we had English Bible study (basically Sunday school in English). Bible study is taught by Tim, a new teacher at the college here.

At any rate, we finished (45 minutes late! Tim kinda get's caught up in his lesson sometimes...) and had lunch together. When I got home from church we found that Sandy from King Car had arrived. I hadn't met Sandy before, but BJ had told me a lot about her, so it was cool to finally have a face to put with the name. And she brought us a bunch of King Car chewing gum, so she and I are now very good friends (at least until the gum runs out!).

Sandy's boyfriend is stationed here on Kinmen with the army, so he came over as well. I'm not sure how much he actually got to visit with her though: within half an hour he was totally sacked out on the couch, in spite of 14 screaming people in the same room as him.

The afternoon was a blur of visiting and volleyball (lots of screaming
involved there...nobody here on Kinmen really knows how to yell and scream properly- I even had to give a girl lessons on how to yell my name).

At around six o'clock we had supper. Drew (once again!) made it for us (nobody here really cooks very much and Drew is the only person who volunteers to be in charge of team dinner...noddles for three weeks in a row...). Actually, Drew makes really good dinners...just slightly redundant. Team meeting starts around 7:20 (ok, so we're slow to wash the dishes! Give me a break!) It's totally a typical
meeting....Sandy needs passport numbers, BJ's lost a note boo(anybody seen it?), Megan has a question about this...la, dee, da, nothing really unusual. Then one James' phone rings. You never know what is going to happen when James' cell phone rings. It might be really good, or it might be horrible. At any rate, he steps out the door. Then he sticks his head back in and says, "Maybe the Minister of Education will be here soon."

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

So Lucas and Bekah start running around the room cleaning. But we're not really worried (or at least I'm not). Then James sticks his head in and says that there are people down stairs with camera's and they want us to come down. Ahhhh! I'm not even wearing shoes! So everybody runs around like chickens with their heads cut off. We come down stairs and it's not just a few people with camera's: it's a TON! There's even somebody from a TV station somewhere with a video camera.

Apparently somebody knew that I juggled, so before you know it they have me juggling for them. I actually had a little trouble seeing the balls because of the camera flashes! Then they had Bekah sing and talk in Chinese. Things kinda slow down after a while and I'm thinking that it's pretty much over. But then somebody else shows up and everybody is taking pictures again. "Who is this?" I ask James.

"He's the Minister of Education."

"For Kinmen?"

"No, all of Taiwan."

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why can't they ever give us warning?

So they have me juggle again, then Bekah and Ginger and Christine sing together (they were all wearing black shirts and looked really cool together...apparently I missed the memo on shirt color- I was wearing a BRIGHT hunter orange jacket and a tie-dyed t-shirt!) They took about a million pictures and then the Minister goes on an inspection of the dorm...these poor kids had no more warning than we did and he was looking in their rooms! Ahhh! I would have died! So at least they didn't ask to see our rooms!

Hey guys, pray for me. I've been thinking seriously about staying for next school year, but now Sandy tells us that there will only be six people on the Kinmen team next year and there will be no Jr. High. Ahhh! I love my Jr. High classes! I'm thinking I don't really want to stay and teach elementary school!

Ok, below is something I wrote about two weeks ago, but I thought it was pretty funny. It's about my first day teaching in Small Kinmen.

Something really funny happened. After classes the principle comes in to meet me. He says he wants me to come to his office and visit until it's time for the to head to the dock to catch the boat back to Big Kinmen. I thought that would be fine. From the way he said it, it sounded like it would just be me and him and the bus driver visiting together. So imagine my shock when we walk into his office and there are five girls there, all in their early 20's. They are dressed very fashionabily, their hair is done very fancily and they each must have spent an hour in front of the mirror that morning. The principle spreads his arms to encompass the girls and declares "Beautiful girls! From Taiwan!"

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, what do you do at that point? I felt like running away. I was fully expecting his next sentence to be "Pick one!" I wanted to find a hole to crawl into.

It wasn't quite that bad, but it was close. It turns out that they are students from Taiwan and they apparently have some sort of tie with the Jr. High on Small Kinmen. I never figured out what it was. But we ended up sitting in his office drinking tea (it tasted horrible! You probably would have liked it, Dad!) and trying to make conversation. It was somewhat forced conversation, but I did live through it.

Samuel Bavido
Director of Blunt Affairs, Kinmen Team

I know... I know..... The first words that come to your mind about Taiwan is probably not "winter wonder land", but it really feels more "winterly" now than last year. Seriously I'm cold here, and I'm an Ohioan! However, spring is coming.

Well, I'm sure you all remember where I last left off: Monday afternoon. Lunch time!!!!! During lunch times I have eaten many different kinds of food: tofu, octopus, squid, blood cakes, and many other squishy things. To be totally honest, I actually like most it (excluding blood cakes). At my Monday school, I always eat with the teachers. Some of them can actually speak English, which is nice.

After lunch from 12:30 to 1:30 is national nap time for all of Taiwan. When I came here I knew life was going to be different, but this was one of these things that caught me off guard. For a about an hour after lunch is nap time for everybody. I have seen shops closed, construction works lying on the street, and an entire city quiet during this period. However, I've also noticed that a lot of Asians work seven days a week; so they have an excuse. I rarely take naps on Mondays though, because Namor, my good buddy, likes to talk with me during this time. He has become a really good friend, and Mondays will be different when he leaves next month.

Around 1:20 or so, my San-Chee Bus Driver picks me up and takes me to my second School of the day. San-chee is by far my smallest school. With only seven 3rd graders and twelve 4th graders, I sometimes have to adapt the games that I play. However, small numbers can be an advantage in name learning. Especially since I also go there on Tuesdays afternoons, I now know most of their English names! My teachers, Hway-Ping and CuCu, do a very good job, and I don't have to worry about any discipline problems. Often when Cucu's class (yes, that's here real English name) gets upset during one of my games, she says "mei guanshi, mei guanshi, hao whan", which means "It's OK. It's OK. This is fun".

After school I take the 4 O'clock boat home, and I get back to the dorm around 4:40. Next update I'll tell you a little about what I used to do on Monday nights, which was quite an experience that I'll probably never forget. Many strange, sad, and hilarious things have happened on those nights. Curious? I let you know about it on March 31st.

Until next time...... See ya!

P.s. May the Lord Bless you.

Drew
(Matthew 11:28-30; Phil.1:21)