Another Friday morning...and

I'm feelin' fine. Looking forward to the weekend, as always. I've been really exhausted this week after double duty last week, but thankfully it's been pretty uneventful. I have a lot of extra responsibilities to take care of this morning at school to finish the week a little better ready for next week, so hopefully I'll get to work early today.

Thanks to all of you who prayed for me last week. I totally needed it. The upsides to my taking that on were 1) the children were a welcome change to the children I usually teach, and
2) the co-teacher turned out to be a Christian Chinese lady that goes to the Chinese language service at my church, so she was great to hang out with for a few hours a day.

What does welcome change mean? Well, the children I usually teach have such limited language ability that I'm constantly having to slow my speech and choose my words carefully, then evaluate how I can better explain myself when I'm met with the blank stare of not understanding. This is tedious to say the least, and it's often discouraging and frustrating for me, and no doubt for the children. However, the children at Hsinchu International School (HIS) were mostly speaking English well for 3 and 4 year olds. It was like taking care of preschoolers back in Oklahoma when I was 15. The biggest challenge everyday was keeping them interested in whatever activity they were doing at the time, and making sure the three Japanese boys (Shogo, Ryota, and Masatoshi - no lie) weren't planning the next invasion of China in their daily summit meetings. (These three would speak Japanese to one another in these huddles that looked very intense when the rest of the children would be playing at recess. It cracked me up. When do these patterns form in children. Intensity at age 3? Wow!)

So, HIS was a great diversion to my routine, and I welcomed it. I was thinking this week, that although I was actually in the states just 11 weeks ago, it really seems like it's been much longer since I was there. It feels to me like I've been gone for 8 months or something, which I guess I have in total.

Anyway, please pray for me to be encouraged in the remaining 8 weeks until I get to take a 5 week break this summer. I'm excited about the plans shaping up for my trip to the states and Canada. I'll be singing in my friends wedding on July 4th in Toronto, so that will be a blast. The following day, I'll go to NYC for a few days with a couple of SF friends to enjoy the sights and culture of New York. I'm really looking forward to seeing friends and family in San Francisco and Oklahoma as well. And then I'll come back to Taiwan to finish my contract, which I've extended until next March. I'm excited, but exhausted too. Thankfully, I no longer have a cold (but with children sneezing in my face on a regular basis that could change, so thanks for praying for my health.)

I will post some photos of the children later this weekend. What a crack up!

O.K., must run. Until next time, it's May, and I'm in Taiwan! Aagh!!
LC