A11 is my nightmare class!

And here's why. Agassi, James, Nelson and Benson are little boys that are six or seven but look like four year olds. They love to jabber away in Chinese baby talk, and only pay attention when they hear their own names. Actually, that's the case for all my students, they only pay attention when you start the sentence or question with their name, which is impossible to do when you have 18 kids in the same classroom. This class, A11, is on Wednesday and Friday afternoons, and it's an absolute beginner class. I'm often at a loss for what to teach them. I have tried to play preschool games with them, but some of them are 10 and 11 year olds and they won't play the games. (Those are the girls, Jill, Jane, Betty, Cindy and Joyce.) So, if anyone out there in blogger-land has any bright ideas about how to teach English to A11, let me know what you think. Suffice to say that right now I dread Wednesday afternoons and by the time Friday afternoons roll around, I'm thrilled to see the little darlings behinds scooting out the door. I throw my fist in the air and declare it officially the weekend (although I still have two classes after this one, neither of those compare so I don't mind.)

Well, I wanted to get this post up since I told you guys I would show more pics of my students. Here's A11...more to follow.

Until next time,

Larissa




Agassi, Tony, Kevin, and Willy


James, Nelson, and Benson


Benson is very bright, and fun to teach


Jill, Cindy, Joyce,Betty, and Jane


Sarah, Viola, and Emily

"Counting the Cost" was

the title of our sermon this morning at Victory English Fellowship here in Hsinchu. It was taken from the passage in Luke 14 verses 25-33, one of the hard teachings of Christ, where He says, "Whoever comes to me cannot be my disciple unless he loves me more than he loves his father and his mother,...(lots of other people)...and himself as well." Our pastor wanted us to be reminded of what it means to be a believer in Jesus. It made me think of what it's "cost" me to come here, and why I did it. I have to admit that although my main motive for being here is to please God with my life, sometimes I know that I'm here because I love adventure (which is how God made me) and I want to make some money teaching ESL. But, whatever my motive, the cost is the same. On day's like today, it feels a little more costly, because today's my parents anniversary...Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! (pictured below in July at Dad's 50th ordination year celebration)...and on special days it just makes me realize the things I'm missing back in the States. (Don't let me give you the wrong impression. If I was in California, I would not have traveled to Oklahoma for their anniversary today, so that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that on special days, and always on Sundays, I think of being far from family and friends and I miss them.)

However, here I am, and here's where I'm supposed to be, and one of the reasons I know that is because of the way my parents raised me and taught me to live with my eyes open to ways I could be a witness. This week I had a significant and unexpected conversation with one of the people at my school, and it further solidified my reasons for being here. Thanks again for your prayers and your supportive comments. Keep 'em comin'!

Next weekend I will be on a staff trip for Saturday through Monday, so I appreciate your prayers for good conversations and team building.

And, one more time, Happy 56th Anniversary to Mom and Dad! Here's to one more...at least ;)

Until next time,

Larissa

I WAS living at Falls Creek, but now...

I'm living in Dallas. O.K., for all of you that are confused, I'm still living in Taiwan, but it just SEEMED like Falls Creek, and it just SEEMS like Dallas. Sort of. (There are a lot more Chinese people in Dallas than I had remembered.) You see, yesterday morning I moved from a small town, Chutung, where I frequently felt like I was at youth camp in Oklahoma, the camp I grew up going to (check out Falls Creek Baptist Assembly on the www if you want to learn more), to Hsinchu, which is a city, full of traffic and people, but where I'm housesitting in an apartment complex that's huge and new with a pool outside my front door. (Yes, I know that will impress some of you...Kim...more than it does me.) These standards are all very general and contextual, so let me explain a little further. Chutung is a big town really, about 80,000 people with all a westerner could want, according to the Chinese (because there's a Domino's, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and KFC.) But, it has a small town feel with narrow streets and neon lights only on the main street. At night when I would be walking around after work, I would often feel like I was going back to my cabin at Falls Creek after a long day of bible classes, worship, sports, icee's, hanging out with friends and looking for boys. (O.K., some things haven't changed.) Hsinchu, on the other hand, is a city of about half a million or so and it reminds me of Dallas, only because I once lived in Dallas for a summer with some friends. We shared an apartment that overlooked a pool, the weather was hot, and we had the windows open a lot so we could hear all the sounds of the city. That's where the comparison to Dallas stops. (So all you people that want to explain how Dallas cannot be compared to a much smaller city in Northern Taiwan, can just save your breath.)

So, I moved into the city, only about 15 minutes from my work, 10 minutes from my church, and in another 10 or 12 days, I'll be in my permanent housing, sharing a four story house (4 bedrooms, 3 baths) with a friend from church. The rent is half of what it would normally be, for two reasons...Jacqui's been praying (that's a friend from Temple in SF, thanks, Jacqui!) AND the family that have been living there for 10 years are paying the other half so they can use two rooms for storage. My roommate, Julie, and I don't mind this arrangement, since our rent will then be only about 1/3 of what I paid for my small room in San Francisco. (I'm making you work for those calculations, huh?) Suffice to say, it's a great deal and I'm thrilled.

This morning, I'm off to teach a seminar on worship at a retreat for youth from my church. Many of you remember how difficult it was for me to write the youth bible study curriculum earlier this year...well, it came in handy when I was preparing for this seminar. Matter of fact, my prep lasted about half an hour, since two of those lessons deal directly with the subject of worship. I'm glad I did that...now!

I will check back in later on. As always, thanks for your prayers and comments. Sorry, no pics. I'm using someone else's computer.

Until next time, Larissa

“Davy, (bum, bum) Davy Crockett….

…King of the wild frontier” (imagine the tinty sound of elevator music accompanying these lyrics). If you could complete that song in your mind before you read the words on the blog, you can imagine how obnoxious it is for me to have to hear this tune playing at my school everyday, intermittently with old Carpenters songs (every sha la la la, every whoa whoa still shines), and a bad rendition of Edelweiss, all played without lyrics on a xylophone!!! I’m stuck in “bad musack hell” here and I can’t get out! The next time you are in an elevator or a dentist chair and you hear the musack, think of me having to endure it everyday in TW, and pray I don’t pull the wires out of the wall. I think that might blow my witness.

Well, I had to share that with you, but really I just hope you have a good rest of your week and no matter where you are or what you’re doing today know that I’m praying for all of you to have significant conversations with people around the memories of September 11^th, 2001. I had a good one today but will be sharing that offline. God is still good!

Until next time.

"God is Good!"

This is Sophia 1 (there are 2 Sophia's in her class so she's Sophia 1). Her mother and sister are also my students (stop the insanity) and they all three took me out for the day two weeks ago after church on Sunday. I took this picture after much pleading with Sophia and as you can see she was not very happy about it. I like her a lot and I think she's warming up to me too. I have other pics of my students in class that I will post soon.

It's Sunday night and I've been planning lessons for the week but wanted to share this with you.

We had a great day at worship today. One of those days when you’re absolutely certain it’s not about you, and God shows up powerfully. I’m so thankful for this, since as I said last week, many on the team are from the youth group and they are young in their faith. (They like to play the songs that they can personally sound good on.) We are all still learning that worship isn’t about us and the younger we are the more shocking that discovery is it seems. This morning, we were late getting started, and yet it was still really early so everyone was tired and low-energy (we’re at rehearsal at 7:30 on Sunday mornings). We rehearsed and every song sounded flat and out of tune and frankly sort of embarrassing. I started to worry a little. God gave me the strength to power through the line up of five songs and when it was time to turn the stage over to the worship team from the Chinese church, we went to a back room to continue rehearsing “unplugged”. Today was the last day for two of the youth, one of whom has contributed a lot to the worship team in the last five years. (He’s a little genius child heading to Northwestern University this week to study some ridiculously complicated major). He plays about five instruments and does them all well. So, needless to say, he will be missed by all. But in God’s sovereignty, we have just added two very good musicians to the band, so we’re not going to be hurting too badly. Well, all this to say, we rehearsed as long as we could and none of us felt very certain about the songs when it was time to go out and start. However, we gathered together and prayed. We asked God to be honored in our worship and to not let us take lightly the privilege and responsibility to lead people into God’s presence in their time of corporate worship each week. Well, when worship began a miracle happened (at least one!) The opening song that had been giving me fits in rehearsal was “Trading My Sorrows” (shout out to my Nicaragua team “Si Senor, si si Senor…”) and right on the front row two guys stood up and were clapping right away. I know God sent them because the team got encouragement from that and the presence of God was among us throughout the rest of worship. It was great to be able to say to the team later, that although we knew we were not as prepared as we should have been this morning, God knew our hearts desire was to worship and lead others into worship and He made that possible. I’m thankful tonight for the mercy of God, for all of the team, especially for Kenneth who will be heading to school this week and for Mari, a teacher from South Africa that helps me a lot with the worship team. And I’m thankful for you, for your prayers, and your emails of encouragement.

More later. Love to all. Larissa

an inch is as good as a mile...

that old adage proves true many times a day for me as i walk along the narrow streets next to buses, trucks, cars, scooters, other pedestrians, bicyclists, and dogs, all sort of bobbing in and out of one another's way as if dancing to some tune only distinguishable by the finely tuned chinese ear. i was wondering how long it would take until i found myself in a stand off (or worse). it happened today when i was leaving church. i looked both ways, walked slowly out into the pedestrian crosswalk (these are invisible to the drivers of any motorized vehicle), and from my left and behind me, a little old man (with a wife beater on) driving an old motorcycle slowly drove right for me. we both stopped at the same time just a couple of inches apart, me with a look of exasperation on my face, i'm sure, and him with a big smile on his face, the look of recognition that he had not timed that very well. no one was hurt, i kept walking and had a smile on my face before i got to the other side of the street. just thinking about the old guy on that bike still makes me laugh a little.

so, pray for me. not just for my safety, but also because i began ministering in a new setting today. i led worship for the congregation where i've gone the last three sundays. i had a singing group of five plus me (only one guy), and a band of four (an electric, an acoustic, a bass and a drummer). i sensed the presence of God early on in worship, so God was, as always, faithful and i am thankful that His presence is not determined by my level of familiarity in any one situation. we rehearsed after lunch as we will be doing for the next few weeks to see how it goes with everyones schedules, and that went reasonably well. can't help but feel like the new kid on the block. they are mostly high school students who are bi-cultural. chinese in ethnicity, but american in speech and attitude. ("we were like, and they were like, and i was like..." if you know what i mean.) even though they are young, they want and need leadership, and they know it. however, many times today i heard, "that's not how we do that." so i will need patience and discernment to be effective here i think.

here are a couple of pics from my church. we meet in the basement of an eight floor church building. the picture is of last weeks service, the new pastor, rocky bronson (love that name) from michigan, is praying, and the worship team is on the platform. the other picture was taken today from the eighth floor after rehearsal, and yes, there are about 100 scooters parked on the street, only one section of about five that look exactly the same on this street.

see you next time.

"take your chances" drugstore

ok, seriously, tonight i saw a big store, with the name "take your chances" on it. as i looked at it closer, it said "drugstore" in small letters next to the sign. yet another reminder that i'm living in a country where english is most definitely not the first language. some things get lost in the translation.

i stopped by a cell phone store today to try to get a sim card so i can make calls here in taiwan. it was quite an ordeal, as most things are when you don't speak the language. first, i had to go back to my room and get my spare cell phone, since there is no sim for my blackberry apparently. so, i came back to the store 15 minutes later with my old nokia and the manager, who spoke pretty good english, thankfully, began to try to help me. i didn't have my charger and the phone was dead, so he sold me one for about 5 bucks. then, i had to have a battery, because my battery was no good, so that cost me about 10 bucks. then, he was about to sell me the sim card, but he remembered he needed two forms of i.d. i already knew this and was ready with my passport, which has my visa in it, thus making it two separate i.d.'s. well, this was of great concern for the other manager of the store, who thought i didn't have the right documents to purchase the sim card. (why you need i.d. for this, i don't know.) after about 20 minutes and a phone call to the authorities, they let me purchase the card. then, i had to fill out a form, and didn't have the phone number or address for the school where i'm living (which is a shame since i just received my business cards from my employer this week...but who carries those things?). when i told them i didn't have my info on me, they began to pace a little and speak in rapid fire chinese. then i said, "i am staying at kang ning english school" and they both said "ah, kang ning!" and that seemed to make them both happy. within a few minutes i was walking out of the store a satisfied customer. so glad to know that my school has name recognition in this part of the world. just another day in the life, here in taiwan!

here are a few pictures of the town where i live, standing on a walking overpass looking both ways up the streets, just to give you an idea of what it looks like. on one side of the street, i took this picture of a residence that has been added to the top of a building. it just struck me as interesting. hope you think so too.

see you next time.