Maybe it's that feeling I get when buying a bubble tea back here that I'm getting a ridiculously overpriced drink which tastes like it's made from a can, when I can get a much more delicious one at a fraction of one American dollar. Maybe it's that urge to stop at the 7-11 near my house to get some tasty drinks and those triangle sushi things. Maybe it's my feelings of missing the brothers and sisters at Siang Shang Presbyterian Church in Taichung. =)
If all that isn't a clue, I LOVE TAIWAN! I love the friends, skies, smiles, laughs, lifestyle, family, blessings, and the FOOD of Taiwan! Although this mission trip was unlike any other mission trip I'd experienced, I still thoroughly enjoyed it and treasure the moments. It wasn't as spiritual as I would have liked, it even felt like my spirit was going down at times.
I started out my trip in Taiwan landing at the Taoyuan airport and going through about 8 days with my relatives going sightseeing and meeting with family I hadn't seen in years. I expected that I wouldn't really gain much to prepare for the actual mission, but I did. I sat in on a youth service, an all-Taiwanese language service (combined with youth, all the time), and received words of wisdom from brothers and sisters in Christ. In a way, I was very thankful that the relatives that I was visiting first were from my mother's side and all Christians. They took really good care of me and although they didn't shower me with anything material except for FOOD, I felt the love of family.
I Love Taiwan (ILT) began with an orientation in Shin-Chu Seminary in that city. The orientation was lovely, because while in the States' before arriving in Taiwan I was totally clueless about ILT affairs. When I arrived at the orientation everything seemed to fall into place like a puzzle and all the arrangements had already been made for everything I could've worried about! Also, the 8 days prior had allowed me to brush up on using mandarin and Taiwanese a lot better, as well as gotten ridden of any jet lag, even though I didn't have any. At orientation there was a very cheerful atmosphere and a very open place to learn. I met up with the other members of my team- Victor from Canada, Ji Young from Korea, and Nan Hee from Korea, as well as the church organizer Ching-An from Taiwan. We familiarized ourselves with each other and had all questions answered by Ching-An. The orientation closed with a sending service which included a foot-washing ceremony. It was very moving to have our feet washed by the staff of the orientation. After that, the grand group of ILT participants, numbering around 50-60, separated into their small groups and left for each different church.
And so we rode by car down to Taichung city for a few hours and arrived at Siang Shang church after buying little toys for the children for use during the actual program. We had just happened upon the church's first Saturday night youth service, which was exciting for their youth and for us. We had laughs trying to translate the sermon from Mandarin or Taiwanese (I forgot) to English so that we could tell the two Koreans on our team. Afterwards, there was a nice farewell party for their resident youth director, Yi-Jun, who was leaving. Lots of the guys in the church serenaded her with a song hahaha and the girls just hugged her and cried. Finally, we met our homestead (host) families and went home with them, all four of us separately.
Work began shortly after Sunday, which was made up of sunday service (me having to walk about 20-minutes to church from home) and a visit to this muddy beach place and dinner. The program did not start for the children until Wednesday, so Monday and Tuesday were planning days. The team was divided into groups, with the Taiwanese group as the church youth who had volunteered to help, the English group as Victor and I, and the Korean group as Ji Young and Nan Hee. Our first day of planning, we were told that the Taiwanese group would lead Taiwanese songs and games every day, but we would lead English time or Korean time on alternate days, with English time first.
On our first attempt at planning English time, Victor and I chose songs like Open the Eyes of my Heart and One Way. For games, we planned to play Pictionary for the kids. After much practice on Monday and Tuesday with Nan Hee playing the piano for us on some songs and me practicing on the drums, we had our big debut. Nothing can bar me from the blank stares the kids gave us when we tried to lead One Way. There were too many English words, and too fast they came! Also, they would gaze at me while I played the drums, it was too strong of an attention-stealer from the words of the song! Pictionary worked well, the kids had a lot of laughs trying to draw things like Victor, Santa Claus, Shrek, a petting zoo, zebras, and "prayer". The kids surprised me with their artistic skills, hehe, even when we tried to give one of the more disobedient kids a hard one like Santa, he drew it with amazing accuracy! =O
The next day was Korea day and in the morning before the camp, which was 2:00P-5:00P, we learned and practiced the Korean games/songs with the girls. They had very good foresight for the attention-span of our group of 25 or so 6 to 11 year-olds. They sang very simple korean songs with the most important thing we forgot, hand motions! It was a really fun time reading the Korean words (with English characters) off the screen and doing funny looking motions with our bodies.
So, taking experience from our day and the Korea day, we picked much easier songs for the chldren for our next English time. We picked songs such as Peace Like a River, This is the Day, and Whole World in His Hands, which all worked splendidly. We played Duck Duck Goose with the kids on that day and were surprised that they didn't know the game. It was chaotic at first, but we separated the kids into 2 groups and they all had A LOT of fun! It was great to see the smiles on their faces after successful activities, and giving them stamps in their booklets for good behavior or winning. =D
So this is the way it went while we were helping out with the camp. We even went on a field trip with the kids on next Tuesday to a very nice villa owned by a church member and a handicrafts museum. Our last day of work was the day after the field trip, a Wednesday. We had combined English and Korea time for that day and sang songs, played games, ending with lots of pictures with the kids and as large groups.
During all those days of the nearly two weeks in Taichung, we ended at 5:00P each day and had cleanup. Dinner turned out to be something different each night, as we would go to the night markets for 2 of the nights, and to church members' homes for dinner, and to parks and fun places to hang out. Note: The Pastor and his family lived in a house which was an extension (or part of) the church itself, so we had dinner or breakfast over there often.
The program actually continued for 2 more days after we left for Alethuia University in Tamsui, Taipei. But, alas, we said our goodbyes to the people and friends we had made at Siang Shang, taking a few with us to the debriefing in Tamsui. Upon arrival in Taipei we did a little sightseeing as it was allotted time in the debriefing schedule, visiting Taipei 101 and then returning to the university for the debriefing. During the daytime of the debriefing we prepared for group presentations of each church and then had that, as well as saw the presentations of the many other groups who had reunited with us back at the university. We also had Culture Night, a presentation of the country that we had started out from. It was really great seeing all the cultures' performances such as dance, song, and games.
During the nights of the debriefing we hung out in our nicely furnished rooms, inviting the Koreans from our team in and just hanging out, playing cards or talking and eating. It was great fun and a lot of funny moments. At the closing service we were given postcards on which to write a letter to ourselves which would be mailed by ILT. We had a little ceremony and were given little I Love Taiwan memorabilia gear to wear, then said some really long goodbyes to everyone as we parted ways. I guess because I didn't come home right away to the 'States I didn't get that feeling of overwhelming sadness.
Instead, I rode the high speed rail down to Kaohsiung to visit my father's side of the family. This was the lowest spiritual point of my trip, as my entire father's side is non-Christian. My Grandma even laughed at me once after I told my cousin who I was praying to and for during the grace for the meal, which I did on my own. And my relatives over there did not show love, they showed money, money for food, money for me to "buy whatever I wanted", money to eat at fancy restaurants. It was awful although I accepted it all. I felt a very deep longing to be back in Taichung because I didn't want all those frills, all the money my Grandma gave me as 'pocket change' and all the food they stuffed into me to try and make me gain weight.
Coming back, I've adjusted to life here again. There's a lot of culture shock going over there, and coming back here, I'd rather have the culture shock over in Taiwan than having to adjust back to life here. So this concludes my huge entry about my experiences in Taiwan. I took over one thousand pictures with my camera, and before I left, Ching-An burned copies of everyone's pictures for the entire team, so I have a grand total of three thousand Taiwan pictures. I cherish those photos and look through them once in a while to remember the memory that goes with every photograph, the memory of love in Taiwan.
