Waiting for the End

(Thanks Linkin Park for the help)
These last few days have been kinda weird, at least for me. It's been weird because I know in the back of my head that in a few days, I'll be back home, leaving one world and going to the next. Boy, two weeks go by quickly. Wasn't it just yesterday that I looked up at the towering Taipei 101? Can it really be two weeks since I felt a bit intimidated when first meeting these kids? Savor your time here in Taiwan, who knows when you'll come back. Cherish your time with the kids, you may never see them again. Yeah, so that feeling is kinda weird. The feeling of grabbing onto a fleeting moment. Holding on to what you haven't got. It's mixed feelings cause we get to go home and all of the loved ones we've missed. We get to go home 70 degree weather (or 60 degrees haha). We get to sleep in, and not have to apply sun screen and bug spray every morning. But honestly, I bet that most of us kids would be willing to trade all that for another week with these kids. When coming to Taiwan, I didn't really have many expectations. And I wasn't really sure about what to make of the kids? Living in Taipei for the past two weeks has been a joy. But the real thrill came from being at Ai-Hsin. When I think about Taiwan, sure, I'll think about convenient shopping or the cheap food. Yeah, I'll remember the amazing views and the memorable heat. But ultimately, it'll going to be about them. About how we played hours of ball with F.K. and Terry and Bee and Ian. It'll be about the craft times we shared together in the children's center and how it would fill up with laughter and smiles. About the lunches we had together everyday. Yeah, we'll all remember how we hung out at the Orphanage Olympics and at 八仙 water park. Holding on to all these memories, it's hard to say goodbye.-宫昳男

雲上太陽

Throughout the our time here at Ai-Hsin, we have sang a lot o songs for VBS. Some of them were in Chinese and some of them in English. All of the songs however, were taught by us. Yesterday though, the kids sang a song for us. The songs called 雲上太陽 ( Sun Above the Clouds.)  When they had sung the chorus the first time, I told myself that this was special. Goosebumps. Chills. You could feel the energy and power that they sang with. And it was all of the kids that sang; not just the girls, not just the little kids. All of the kids. Every time they got to the小雨part, the decibels would just shoot to the sky. Uncle Ricky said that it was the sounds of angels singing. He has only cried after listening a song two times. That was one of them. Certainly one of most memorable, heart warming moments of the trip. Oh yeah, and I also found my favorite VBS song.

Here at the Wall

This trip has been lots of been. Talking with the kids is a blast. Playing ball with the boys is something I look forward to. Dancing with the kids is fun as well. Painting the wall? Ehhhh. It's really not that fun. It's hard work to crouch for ten minutes and scrape off moss from the wall. It's not fun to mix paint (which smells weird). And it's not fun to paint the wall while other kids are playing ball. It takes discipline to buckle down and get to work. Our kids working however, wasn't the only problem. Another big problem was the kids working. I mean, they were all hype to paint the wall, but  they're still kids. Haha, kids who don't understand that using too much paint means dripping paint (not to mention a waste of the paint we already mixed.) But I'm proud of our team. I'm proud because we pulled through. We came through on our promise of painting their walls, even when they asked us to paint additional ones. I'm glad that our team came together accomplished our goal. An added bonus: the newspaper came and did an article on us. Yeah, I was in a newspaper!! I think its cool that Ai-Hsin is getting some publicity and, well, I just think its cool that we got into the paper. Anyways, I gotta say, the walls look pretty good. 

Doin' Work

In the Paper! 

Water Parking

I'll be honest, I don't think I've been to a water park since I went to Wild Waves in 7th grade. I guess I had forgotten how much fun a water slide could be. Forgotten the thrill of cooling off in 90°F  weather by jumping in a cool pool. Forgotten feeling the warm sun shine on my skin. (Speaking of sun, nearly all of us looked red after the trip. It's okay Mom, I didn't get burned at all. Really, I wasn't red at all. It's because I was applying sunscreen every hour and listening to the kids says "你好白". Thanks (I guess they forgot what we told them about Seattle weather; whatever, better white than burnt red.) Getting to Formosa Fun Park required an hour long bus ride, which I enjoyed because we got to see more of the Taiwanese "countryside" (I don't really know what to call it, but its outside of Taipei.) Anyways, the views were borderline breathtaking (see picture.) Our time with the kids at the water park was also very special. It was awesome to see all the kids with huge smiles on their faces as they went down all the different slides. (Side note: the views from some of the slides was incredible. Actually, the view looked a lot Seattle would if you were looking from the South toward the North. The green hills, the buildings, the water. Yup, all that from the top of a water slide.) Many of these kids have never been to a water park, so it was a happy day for them as well. When you spend eight hours a day with  someone, you will form a certain bond. That bond only strengthened after going on the trip, possibly cause we just hung out with them (no teaching or anything). I think after today, on a scale out of ten for how comfortable they are with us, I think they've hit an eight. We'll all remember this day for a long time; the conversions, the jokes, and the laughs that we shared together.

Night Market

Outside of a Night Market

Perhaps it's the if not one of the trademarks Taiwan. The night market was a pretty cool place to be honest. The outside has a bit of a Times Square-esque feel with the bright lights and advertisements. But the heart of it happens underground... where the food is. What happened.... Uh, I had to repay a debt to Uncle David. He took a bunch of us youth out to dinner after a meeting once, and instead of taking my money, he told me I had to eat 臭豆腐 (stinky tofu.) Yeah, Uncle David was willing to buy me a meal so I can eat 臭豆腐. Anyways, there's no way that I would ever eat 臭豆腐. Actually, 臭豆腐 turned out to be disgusting (haha, what a shock.) I'm not sure why people pay money for that stuff; you could find it for free in a Honey Bucket (or one of those squatty potty; it's probably more fresh anyways.) Apparently, Allen liked it. He can taste authentic Taiwanese culture all he wants-I'd rather taste 大陸 culture anyways (that comment was not political at all, in anyway). For me, the shaved ice (or snow or whatever) was ridiculously good. They mix ice and milk, and they shave it, its texture is kinda soft, kinda like snow. I'm not a sweets person, but wow, it was really good. Night Market is one of those things you just kinda have to experience to understand. There's a lot of people, a lot of different smells and sights. I don't like shopping, but that was pretty fun. (yeah, I forgot my camera. Sorry, couldn't upload many pictures. I think there's one of my eating stink tofu. But who wants to see that anyways?)

Top Five Adjustments I've Had to Make

台北 is s very different city than Seattle,  台灣 is a very different country than the United States. There were some adjustments I've had to make. Here's my top 5: 


 5. The Weather Okay, this one's a bit of a gimme. To be honest, the weather has not been that bad for me. It's hot, it's humid, but that's what I expected. I wouldn't say this applies to everyone on the team, but I've gotten along with the weather pretty well. Still, applying sunscreen everyday and the sauna conditions still called for adjustments.

 4.The MRT Stations/Buses In my opinion, Phildaelphia's SEPTA is still the worst public transportation for a city (for multiple reasons, including the "what the heck is this subway map saying" factor as well as the "crap, I might actually get shot" factor. How's the MRT? Is it good transportation? Sure. Are the trains nice? Absolutely. Is it easy to find your way around? Ehhhh, that's questionsable. Tapei's transportation is very nice, but getting lost isn't.

 3. The Time Zone This one is also kinda of  an obvious one, but it's effects are kinda uncontrollable/more powerful than the weather. I think its getting better though and this one would probably fall out of the top 5 within the next few days. A lot of us are able to sleep longer into every morning, but that might be because my two roomates stay up later every night watching TV. Either way, we still seeing some "Dead Man Walking" faces in the morning.

 2. Traditional Chinese(繁體字) For the record, I think that Simplified (简体字) is so much better. But that's probably cause I'm biased since I only know 简体字. Reading 简体字 is already is already pretty straining for me. Traditional is that much worse. "Hey, Emily, what's this word say?" " That's chicken". "What? I know what chicken is! That's not chicken. Wheres the bird on the side (鸡)? (The bird is 鸟). But look at chicken for traditional: 雞. See!?!? Where's the bird?!?!?!?! No bird!!!! (haha total freak out moment). Anyways, you get the idea. I like to keep it simplified, but that's kinda of an excuse of not being able to read. Anyways, it's not like I'm some  简体字 scholar; my reading level was pretty low to start with, so that's why this one's at number 2.


1. Taiwanese-Chinese

Alright guys, keep it chill. 

And at number one, it's the way these kids are speaking Mandarin. I'm not talking about just adjusting to people saying "你要怎麼樣"(hahahahahahaha)  all the time and not trying to laugh. Say what you want, but I find it hard to understand the kids some times. Their accent, is well, their pitch is high and some of their terms they use are completely foreign to me. Sometimes, (feeling like a dork), I have to say "Huh?" and have them repeat. Regardless of pronunciation accuracy or slang, or lacing of Taiwanese, I'm still adjusting to their language, and hopefully, it should be better soon.

Prayer Requests

(Note: Sorry that the number of pictures of gone down. There are some concerns about posting pictures of the kids, so most of the time, I'm not taking many pictures during the day.)

Everyone is in good health and we are adjusting pretty well to the time zone. More importantly, the kids are definitely opening up to us. There is an obvious difference the kids on the first day compared to today. They're more willing to talk with us and it would be fair to say that a lot of them are enjoying their time with us. Worship is going well, though most of the older kids are slow to join us. For the older kids, VBS and English was sluggish, but is picking. The boys are still driving the conversions (with F.K. leading the way), so please continue to pray for the girls; we hope that they will be more vocal during the lessons the future. A big moment today was when one of the kids, Terry, responded when we asked them about their feelings about church. He said that he saw church as a comfort in his life. Terry has been one of more active participants and we are really glad for his willingness to share. Ah, and one more prayer request: team tensions are building and if leave unchecked, it could really undermine our team. What would the kids think if they saw that our own team was fractured? Please pray more continuos maturity from all ther group members wherever we go. We have to remember that our own agenda cannot compare to the health of the team. Until next time, peace out from 台北.

Day 3

Even though today is technically our second day at the orphanage, it was our first "real day". I mean that today was the first day that we did our worship songs, VBS, and English teaching. At the start of our worship songs, I was, uh, having thoughts. I saw a couple of high school boys that I hadn't seen, and they didn't seem like quite the guys who were going to sing. Maybe it was just me, but I felt like they were really watching how we were going to lead worship. Are they really into it, or are they just faking it? Its hard to fake genuine. Our team responded well and we were pretty convincing in our motions, and especially the dancing and rapping. We split into our VBS groups, and for my group, it was me, Jennifer Ai-yi, Uncle Ray, and Emily. Our kids were a mix of high school boys and girls, of, well can't really say number cause some of the kids kept leaving. Lets say about 5 or 6 on average. I knew most of the kids, but there were a couple of new kids, so we asked them for their names. One of them decided to name himself F.K. (yeah, it stands for that), which the teacher says stands for Frank (yeah, okay...). And another one called himself Q.U., which is a pun on "kill you". Yup. Anyways, I wasn't expecting too much out of this group's guys, but actually they were the top participants in both VBS and English. Their English level is about what we expected of them, maybe a little better.

You should know that these boys like to play basketball. We ended up playing a 5 on 5, full court game.    And remember F.K.? He's a baller; he ain't no Zach LaVine, but he's was the best one on the court. F.K. actually turned out to be a friendly guy; all the kids follow his lead. I think he's the type of kid who seems like he's only goofing off, but actually pays attention. So it goes to show, don't judge too early. In terms of prayer, I believe that these kids are warming up to us. But can we make an impact on a deeper level?

Ai-Hsin Orphanage

"Defend the oppressed. 
Take up the cause of the fatherless" Isaiah 1:17

(Note: I'll try to keep this post shorter than the previous).
Top Highlights from July 16th

1). Jennifer Ay-yi was using the bathroom in the MTR Station. Instead of pressing flush, she apparently hit the secuirty button instead. We all thought some creep (or Dylan haha) had ran into the ladies' room. Secuirty ended up going into the restroom with a siren and red lights flashing.

Relaxed Uncle Ricky?

2). Uncle Ricky's Advertisement. It's kinda self-explaintory. See the Red Billboard.(ok, so among our team, there's conterversory about whether its actual Uncle Ricky. You make the call.)

3). This is the big one: going to the Mustard Seed Orphanage. The actual orphanage is actually pretty nice. It's safe to say that these kids aren't living in 3rd world condition. Obviously, they aren't as comfortable as us living in America, but they're enviornment is pretty good.

Kitchen at the Orphanage

After about an hour long orentiation (tour of the campus and history of the orphange), we got to go into the houses. The rooming was divided by age and gender. So I'm assigned to Home of Faith, which is the house for the high school boys. From what I heard, the younger kids were pretty excited and were actively enagaging. Our house, well... The teacher that is in charge of the house said that the only things the boys liked to do was reading comics and using the computer (great.) Anyways, the house was pretty quiet. On the brightside, there was one boy who enjoyed music and dancing (yes, we better get him to talk to Johnathan.) However, he also liked to talk about cell phones and technology and we spent an hour talking about the perks of iOS and Android. The downside, half of the house was still sleeping (we came at 11:00am) and one of the boys got in an arguement with the teacher over his chores. Anyways, I think these guys will be a challenge. As the day progressed however, more of the kids loosened up and were more talkative. Actually, the younger boys are more violent than the older ones as they're prone to get into fights. Stay tuned on this one.

4).When we got home, us kids decided to wind down a bit. So we decided to start our own dance club, but that's our secret...

Taipei

Most of Our Team at Sea-Tac

Los Hermanos after first landing in Taiwan

The Always Lovely Airline Food

Taipei 101

Ride to Our Hotel

So first off, this is a blog of our Ai-Hsin Trip in Taipei, Taiwan. Hopefully, I can update everyday, but we'll see if time permits. The majority of our team left Seattle at 2:00 am Saturday landed in Taipei on July 15th, 2012 at 5:00 am local time. (Johnathan, Rachel, and the Laws flew earlier.) The flight went well and everyone survived the 11-12 hour flight. I personally enjoy flying and actually got a few hours of sleep. This is in contrast to my wing-man (aka, Allen), who are on his 5th movie by the time we touched down. What hit me first about Taiwan was how green it was. My image of China has always been ?? (Mainland China), which usually lacks anything that is naturally green. I also noted the blue sky, which is a always a rarity in China. (Side-note: the Men's bathrooms were pretty high-tech; the urinals had monitors on them; now I can watch TV while taking my pit stops too :p) We were already bracing ourselves before we took our first steps outside, but the temperature was actually pretty manageable. The adults however, quickly pointed out that 81°F at 5:00 in the morning meant that the infamous heat would be coming. After an hour long bus ride, we reached our hotel/apartments and then set out for breakfast. On the topic of breakfast, the whole team feels like we've being eating all day. With jet lag, the day always feels like its a few hours earlier than it actually is. Example: "Yo, Emily, what time is it? Like 12?" "Actually, its 8:30". Ugh. Either way, breakfast was enjoyable and cheap (of course). Since we did not actually go to the orphanage today, we set out to see a bit of Taipei and get used to used the to using the Taipei MRT (the subways). Since it was the early morning, the streets were not very populated, and we actually got our own private space on the subway (a farcry from the mutated game of Twister that is played on the packed Beijing subways.) We primarily hung  out at Taipei 101, which was formerly the tallest building in the world a few years back. It is also at the heart of Taipei's commercial center, is home to a Nike Store, multiple McDonald's and Cold Stones, as well as American Banking Giant JP Morgan Chase. I didn't know before today, but the a lot of Taipei 101 is a some short of super mall that only has stores with European names. If you enjoy mall therapy and have couple thousand dollars to spend (neither which apply to me), then Taipei 101 could be a field day for you. However, Taipei 101 also has a nice book store (called Page One) and a food court. Page One not only had everything you could find at a Barnes and Nobles, it also had another whole section of Chinese Written books as well as English Books translated into Chinese. Books aside, its always nice to find a public place where there isn't constant noise. The Food Court was pretty awesome in my opinion because of its wide variety of selection. My brother and I opted for a bowl of noodle soup, while some of the ladies chose Japanese Cuisine. Oh, and there was Dylan and Elkan (whom, by the way, we call the "Power Rangers") spent considerable time carefully picking out their lunch today. In the end, the Power Rangers shared a six-piece KFC Fried Chicken. (I know right?) For desert, a lot of us went for some frozen yogurt, which has been all the rage in our Youth Group lately (Don't ask me why; froyo, or any sweets for that matter, aren't really my thing). The was a place called Hielo, which, for the record, Emily claims blows Yougurtland away. "I'll never go back to Yougurtland". Like I said, I don't really know why people care all that much about yogurt. Regardless, the team got back to the hotel after weaving through the  humidity, numerous shopping malls, and the MRT station. By the way, fashion is another difference between Taiwan and Mainland. I have never seen any men wearing the V-neck and patent leather dress shoes combo in Mainland. I figured that I just have to expect to see some more, uh, advanced fashion; especially I saw a guy wearing sandals that Julius Caesar probably wore. At our hotel, we met up with the final member of the team, Rachel. It was a fun day, but the real work begins tomorrow as we will be meeting the orphans for the first time. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Proverbs 31:8-9, "8 Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. 9 Speak up and judge fairly;defend the rights of the poor and needy." Hugs and Kisses Back Home and God Bless.