Love River

For a long time I've thought, "Wouldn't it be great if Taiwan's churches would host open-air evangelistic crusades in the cities" because the Taiwanese really flock to these kind of events. Even if they don't know what's going on, they will go out of curiousity. And they seem to love crowds. The more people, the merrier.

Then, to my utter delight, I learned there would be an open-air worship and prayer service along Love River, hosted by the Taiwanese churches in Kaohsiung. So I went and checked it out. It was awesome! You could sense the Holy Spirit's presence and quite a crowd gathered for it. What an effective way to reach out to Kaohsiung residents since there are always tons of people walking along Love River in the evenings. I'm sure many unbelievers heard the gospel Sunday night as they were out for their evening stroll.

Here are a couple pictures of the meeting:



The meeting was actually from 6pm to about 10pm, so it was pretty dark outside. The below picture is what it really looked like. The above two pictures were taken with a slower shutter speed to let in more light.I decided rather than to sit down at the meeting I would continue walking along Love River because a. if I sat down I would get eaten by mosquitoes, b. it was 32 degrees -- too hot to sit among a crowd of hot bodies (lol), c. the service was all in Chinese/Taiwanese so I couldn't understand it (no, my Chinese is not that good yet), and d. the walk along Love River is very beautiful. So I walked along and took pictures of some of the scenery. Here are some of them (note: it was very dark out, so if the picture is light it is because of a slow shutter speed)

Here are some dragon boats awaiting the Dragon Boat Festival and races in June. It is a big event in Taiwan.






A close-up of the water:




There are usually lots of musical/instrumental performers along Love River. Sometimes they don't spread themselves out enough and their music clashes with the next performer 10 steps away. But overall, it is really cool to listen to the different kinds of music. Here is a picture of a girl singing while her mom plays the keyboard. I'm not sure if they were taken donations for themselves or raising money for a charity, but the boxes in front are donation boxes.

Bible Study

I finally started the women's Bible study I've been wanting to get started for quite some time. We met this morning at my apartment. Only 2 other women showed up, because most people who wanted to come were either away this weekend or couldn't make it for some other reason. I suspect there will be several more women next week. But it was really good.

Costco!

I visited Costco yesterday! It was my first time to go there this year, even though it is only about 30 minutes away from my home (it took me longer however because I got lost, as I usually do). I was able to get my membership through my school so I only had to pay 500 dollars ($16 CAD) instead of the regular 1200 dollars ($39 CAD dollars). Yes, it was very exciting because it made feel like I was back in Canada . . . well, almost. It's mostly the same setup as Costco in Canada, with a few differences, like it's two floors instead of one, and their fast food bar serves iced coffee instead of hot coffee. I expected they would serve rice and seafood, but no, they have the same menu (hotdogs, pizza, etc.). I walked through the aisles and wanted to buy everything! It all looked so good; and it was so much cheaper than regular stores in Kaohsiung. But the problem was, I came on my scooter, so I could only buy an arm's load of stuff. I actually only ended up buying three things: shower gel, power bagels, and antipasto (mmmn!). When I was almost up to the till, I remembered that the main thing I came for was cereal. But looking at the lineup behind me I opted to go without. Yes, there were a lot of people in Costco. (I will never again complain about the crowds at Costco in Canada!) There were lots of food samples to try. . . that is, IF you could snatch up a sample quick enough. It was like a race between dozens of hands. lol. And that was if you could even get near the table, which I usually couldn't because it was too crowded. So, needless to say, I didn't get more than a couple samples. I guess I did pretty good. :-)

Our Pet

Here's Janice's and my "pet" BiHu (that's Chinese for Gecko). He lives in this apartment with us and often makes a stange chirping noise. I like him because apparently he eats mosquitoes. On the other hand, I like to keep my distance from him. I'm not sure if I'm more scared of him or if he's more scared of me.

Boat Ride

Tainan Tour

Janice invited me to join her church for what she called "a wild worship outing." Sounded interesting, so I went. Turned out to be a tour of Tainan historical sites. It was great, though unfortunately, I couldn't understand anything the tour guide said as it was all in Chinese and Taiwanese. But ah well. It was still an experience I've never had before to tour around with two busloads of Taiwanese people.

Here is where we had our "wild worship service." Haha. I found out that Janice just meant "worship service away from home." It was held in the Tainan seminary. Very nice building.

Here's Janice and I.
Here we are eating lunch in the lower floor of the seminary, after the service.
Our lunch. Lots of seafood, as usual. It tasted ok, but was stone cold. I guess our service went to long. haha.
Here I am with our super-enthusiastic tour guide. He toured us around all afternoon.
Originally, Janice told me we'd be home by mid-afternoon. We didn't get home until about 10pm. There were just so many things to see and do. Here we are at a sort of museum of sea creatures. Behind me is the bones from a sperm whale.

Guests

I went to a wedding party on Saturday evening. It was great fun and good food. Here are a few pictures of some of the guests. I forgot to get a picture of the bride and groom! Oops!

From left to right: Kyle (Taiwanese friend), Aaron (OMF Partner from Canada), and Franky (OMF Partner from UK)
More guests. . .
The cutest guest. . .

FOR CURIOUS WOMAN

The sign says, "FOR CURIOUS WOMAN." It made me laugh. Actually, it made me really curious. What an excellent way to attract curious women! :-) After I took this picture, my curiousity got the best of me and I ventured inside. It was just a bunch of women's clothing, but there were lots of curious women rummaging through it.

Romantic Hotel

If you can't read the writing on the blue sign, it says, "Romantic Hotel." Isn't it the most romantic hotel you've ever seen? If you want a romantic getaway in Taiwan, just let me know and I'll book you a room. It's a skip 'n' a hop away from my apartment.

Students

Here's 6 of my students playing at ChengChing Lake. Our whole school took a field trip there in celebration of Easter.

Sushi

Here's me with some friends at a sushi restaurant in Kaohsiung. The guy and gal on the right are English teachers who came with OMF (as I did in 2004). The girl in the middle is Sandra -- a good friend of ours from English church. The girl on my right is Summer -- one of my friends from when I was here in 2004 (it was great to hook up with her again). The girl beside Summer is her good friend (she's really cool too).