Hello from Taiwan,

Apologies for not posting for a while...the internet here is even more unreliable than the factory. However today the power and internet are up so let the updating begin. We've been here for 6 days now and praise the Lord, each day has been even better than the next.

Our graduation/goodbye party last friday was amazing, despite some initial technical difficulties. Lots of singing, laughing and crying. We were so impressed by all the work and effort that our student put into their presentations ... while their english has improved a lot, we are most pleased about how much more confident they are now about speaking and even expressing themselves through the English language. After the presentations Esther and Emily were able to share their testamonies with the help of a local missionary to translate. We really wished we could have stayed longer as all us felt that we were just starting to see the fruit of our labour, it was time to go. So after an hour of lots of pictures, hugs, gifts exchanges and kind words, we said our goodbye and rushed off to the train station.

We arrived in Taiwan on Saturday after extremely rushed morning where we almost missed our flight but luckily we got to skip the line instead of waiting at least 2 hour in the check in line. Flight was so smooth that even melody stayed the awake the entire 1 hour flight. The eldest brother of the founder picked us up, and after a Mcds lunch we made our way to the orphanage 1hour outside Kaohshing (2nd biggest city in Taiwan).

Our first impressions of the Christian Mountain Children's Home was how beautiful and peaceful it is in the mountains. A huge contrast to the busy, rainy, industrial city in China. Every day here has been very busy, however each has been very different. Some days we tutor the kids in English, other days we're pulling out weeds from the many gardens here. However we spend most of our days entertaining the kids. The kids here range in age from 3 to our age. But most of the time we're teaching/playing with the 5 - 11 year olds. The kids have been a handful to say the least but as we spend more time with them, we are getting more respect and less abuse.

Just like the factory, we're been treated so well here. No more bucket showers for me...athought I was growing quite fond of my bucket and cup...perhaps I will buy one for my Toronto shower. Even thought we have a full shower here, I still take cold showers which last less than 5 minutes each. In contrast to Esther's showers which have gotten longer and more frequent. Anyways .. we are never hungry and never without food or snacks. It's been really hot here though so we've had to keep very hydrated.

When we arrived, we joined up with a Taiwanese Amercian girl named Kristen from Florida. It was fun getting to know her and she was so helpful in helping us get to know the kids and in translating for us. Unfortunately she had to leave yesterday (Wednesday) .... but Today another American girl named Annie will be joining us. She's been teaching in the States for two years and seeks to learn about both the Taiwanese language and culture in preparation for her families adoption of two Taiwanese orphans. Pretty cool. So we're excited to meet with her tonight.

Language barrier has been more of an issue here as the kids are even more difficult to communicate with...me with my broken Mandarin and Esther/Emily with their limited yet growing vocabulary. But it just goes to show that the relationships we've made thus far are totally a testament of God's power to touch people through non-verbal means. We ask for your prayers that we will continue to be humbled by our weaknesses .... but strengthened by God's sufficiency in our ministry here.

Please also pray specifically for our patience with the kids ... that we would not be discouraged by our inability to communicate with them with words. While some of the kids are so cute and lovable, others are so NOT cute and very difficult to love. Like two days ago we had a kid through a rock at point blank range at a girl which drew blood ... the kids was only like 5 years old! (however it here right between the eyes...so that was pretty impressive to me at least). Play fighting it so rampant here and all the kids tend to use violence rather than words or reason to make their points. As some of you may know, this orphange is the home of the famous taiwanese children's choir who've been able tour around the world. We've had the privilege to hear them a bunch of times already as well as get to know them. They practice 3 times a day on top of their regular chores at the orphanage so they are much more disciplined than the non-choir kids. Needless to say, spending time with them is usually more pleasant than babysitting the other kids. But we konw that God has called us to take care of the non-choir kids so please pray that we remain focused on them and not take the "easy way out. "

Also please pray that we continue to extend grace to each other as we are now in our third week in a row together and patience has begun to run thin in some departments. However it's really good here too cause there's far more freedom and opportunity to take quiet time alone.

Anywayz, gonna end it here, so talk to you soon! Thanks to all who've been keeping up and commenting on the blog. It was only today that we were finally able to view the comments!