Lions win. or so I heard

The Detroit "football team" Lions defeated the Washington Redskins today 19 to 14. But it's hard for me to celebrate because the game was blacked-out for every TV within a 75 mile radius. Why can't I watch my home football team try to win their first game in "644 losing days, 21 losing months, 18 losing Sundays, one losing Thursday, four starting quarterbacks, one fired coach", and the disaster known as Matt Millen? [source]

Lions QB, Matt Stafford, counts the number of Lions victories since December 23, 2007

The National Football League has a rule that a game can only be shown live to local markets if the stadium sells out. 100%. Every ticket. I cannot understand this outdated and obsolete rule that has been in effect since the late '70's. It seems totally backwards that any sports team would EXCLUDE people from supporting their local team. Supposedly, the reason for this rule is because TV executives don't want to show empty seats in the stadiums. Which is totally stupid. I'd much rather watch my team, no matter what the attendance was.

Why can't TV execs and advertisers realize that I'm only going to glance at the Vikings games, but I'll watch the whole Lions game?

Why aren't teams furious that they can't connect with fans who are faithful customers and potential customers. I might be enticed to attend a home game if I see what a great experience it is. How can I see what I'm missing if I can't see the game?

I'm happy that the Lions won, but somebody needs to change the blackout rules, cause one win isn't going to fix the Lions attendance issues.

wow

I thought our kids were big.

An Indonesian woman has given birth to an 8.7-kilogram (19.2-pound) baby boy, the heaviest newborn ever recorded in the country, a doctor said. The baby boy is pictured here next to a baby of average size at a hospital in Medan, North Sumatra.

(AFP/Dede)

[source]

For Barry (and any other hunters)

I saw this on cnn.com today. If any of you readers are hunters, be inspired!

July 12- last day

Here it is. The final blog entry reviewing my trip to Taiwan. I know it's been a long process, but this has been really helpful for me to relive the experience and relearn some of the things God taught me along the way. Thanks again to Becky and the kids for supporting me on the trip and to my dad for inviting me along an amazing journey. Well... that pretty much covers all my readers, on to the story!

I set my alarm for the ridiculous time of 5:30am on Sunday. I really didn't want to be up that early, but I wasn't sure exactly how long it would take to get to the airport and how long it would take to get through customs, so I figured I should err on the side of early rather than late. Oh, my departure time? 9:30am.

I got up and packed and walked out of the hotel by 6 and walked about 4 blocks to the bus station. They had buses leaving every 20 minutes to the airport. I happened to board a bus just as it was leaving, so that saved me 20 minutes at the station. I also wasn't sure how long the bus ride would be; my guess was about 1 and 1/2 hours, but it only took about 45 minutes. And there was almost no wait to go though ticketing, security, or customs. Yeah, I was seated at my terminal at about 7:45. I really wished I had my hour and a half of extra sleep, but it was better than being late. As the flight ahead of mine boarded I couldn't believe the number of people who ran up in the last 15 minutes.

I ended up flying back the same way I came to Asia. The flight from Taipei to Tokyo sat on the tarmac for quite a while before we left and there was a lengthy walk to my connecting flight so when I got to my gate I walked right on with only about 10 minutes to spare. I was a bit nervous because I didn't want to sit in a foreign airport and try to figure out the mess of getting home, but I would have liked a chance to check out Tokyo. Next time, I guess.

The flight back to Detroit was Loooong! The problem with a 12+ hour flight is that you try not to look at your watch for as long as possible, and then when you feel like you are almost home and you can't stand to be in your seat any longer you look to see that only 6 hours have gone by. It was tougher because I finished all the books I brought along and the movie they were showing were totally lame chick flicks... and we were only halfway home. I tried to sleep on the plane to help with the jet lag, but I wasn't tired much even though I didn't get much sleep the night before. We arrived a bit early in Detroit (about 45 minutes ahead of schedule) but only one set of the doors worked on our 747. Of course, I was seated near the back of the plane so it took FOREVER to get unloaded. Back on American soil, I got a ride home (it is so nice to live within 10 minutes of the airport) and then drove 3 and 1/2 hours to spend time with Becky and the kids at her parents place in Indiana. It was great to see them and get some huge hugs from all the kids and Becky.

And it only took about 3 days to get my body and brain back on Detroit time. Then I went led a youth trip to Washington, D.C. the following week. Whew!

It was an amazing adventure and I really hope to go back someday.

July 11

My last full day in Taiwan. It was bitter-sweet to think about that fact as I woke up that morning. It was Saturday and all there was on the agenda was for me to speak to some of the youth from the mountain villages and then Ben and I would return to Taipei. Dad, Foster, and Kelsey would stay in Taiwan until Monday and then spend a couple days in Hong Kong.

It was really cool to wake up and step out into the streets of the village of Tuban. It looked like something out of a movie or painting: the mist hanging low in these jungled, mountain peaks. It was breathtaking. I'm not a morning person, but I would enjoy mornings a whole lot more waking in that environment.

MeiMei prepared an amazing breakfast for us. The table was filled with assorted breakfast foods and fruits. MeiMei asked me if I wanted some mango juice and then picked up some fresh mangos off the table and dropped them in the blender. Wow, it was sooo good.

We decided that since we had plenty of time before I needed to speak that we would drive down the Taiwan coast and visit one of the popular local beaches. We didn't really have enough time to swim, but we thought it would be a cool last place to visit. We loaded up the van and... grind, revvvVVV! Matthew was stepping on the gas, but we weren't going anywhere. So we all stepped out as he kept shifting in and out of neutral all the while he starts rolling backwards down the sloped street. He eventually reached a point where he had to back into a wall/fence or else he has going to back off cliff. We started praying (and laughing) really hard and finally Matthew got it into first and rolled around town for a bit at 50,000 rpm to warm up the engine. It goes without saying that we were a bit unsure about getting into the van, but there was no other choice.

We ended up at a beautiful beach on the southern tip of the island. It was at this point that I really wished I had a swimsuit on because the coolness of the morning had faded and the water looked really refreshing. We followed up our brief visit to the beach with a stop at McDonalds. Oh man, I'm not a huge Mickey D's fan, but it tasted sooo good. I had a hard time going back to chinese food after that meal.

We were a little bit late arriving back at the first mountain village, so we had to walk in after the service had already started. Fortunately there was a group of four seminary students from England who were also there and they started off with a game, a few songs, and a short devotional. Having them start helped me to not feel as nervous and I shared with the students the lessons that they need to be active in teaching to their home churches. There were around 50 Paiwan students there, and we recognized some of them form the week of camp, so it was nice to feel like I could relate to them a bit. I had a great translator in Caleb, a native Taiwanese who is studying at Asbury seminary.

After I spoke, Caleb, Ben, and I headed back to Khaoshuing to take the high-speed train to Taipei. I ended up back at the YMCA hotel at around 11pm and ran into trouble.

They didn't accept the credit card that I had on me, I didn't have enough Taiwanese "new dollars", and the couldn't accept the American cash that I had on me. So I walked the downtown of Taipei all by myself from about 11pm to midnight looking (unsucessfully) for an ATM. I even had the desk clerk draw me a map to an all night money changer, but it was a dead end (and I know I followed the map correctly). I texted Becky for help and fortunately she happened to answer and was able to get me a different credit card # that I could actually use.

It was actually pretty cool to wander the streets alone. It's a really nice city and I'd love to go back someday.

With my hotel paid for all I had to do was go to bed for the last time in Taiwan.

Kids these Days

Evan completed his first week of school today. And he's doing great!

Obligatory 'leaving the house/first day of school' photo

He seemed to do good emotionally for the first couple of days, but on Thursday night of last week he became very sad and didn't want to go to school the next day. I asked him why and after a bit of working him he told me "I don't have any friends". My heart broke for him. I did my best to encourage him that he's a great kid and everyone is new, that he just needed to ask some kids to play; but what I really wanted to do was hold him in my lap and tell him that he never had to go to school again...ever:)

When I picked him up on Friday he had a big smile on his face. I asked why and he said "I made a friend!" I was soo happy to hear him say that. Then I asked what his name was and he had no clue, haha:) Becky thought it was a bit strange, but I told her that's just what to expect with a young boy. He probably won't know any other kids name that he plays with, and even if he might learn it by chance, that's all he'll know.

He was glad to have the weekend off and has seemed to like school the last couple of days as well. With a little encouragement he even found out the names of some of the kids he plays with (Joseph, Peyton, and Liam). We're also excited that a girl who goes to our church (Ella) is in the same class with him also. She's a fun, outgoing girl and I know that helps him through the day.

The strangest thing about him going to Kindergarten is that I have almost no idea what he does for 3 hours during the morning. I've always known what he's up to and now I can barely find out what he does. All I know is that between 8:45 and 11:45 he has recess, practices counting, and eats lunch. I have a lot more sympathy for my parents trying to talk with me about what happened during school hours. Sorry mom:)

I do think it's pretty amazing that Evan says they are learning to count to 30. Thirty! Kindergarten ain't ABC's and counting to 10 no more.

He also came back sick after the second day. It's like a germ factory in there. But he seems to be getting over it pretty well.

July 10

Friday. The last day of camp. After a long Thursday I was glad to be done, but sad because our time was over. It was tough to connect with students because of the language barrier, but it was fun to be with them and it was sad that our time together was coming to an end.

We started Friday with one last service. Before the service, Dad had asked me to say one more thing during his 30 minute sending message, but fortunately he didn't call me forward. I just didn't have any idea of what to say other than "thank you".

The camp ended after the service; to send everyone out they did a really cool balloon drop. Then we took another hundred pictures and said our good-byes to the students. Then we (our team of 8) drove back into the mountains and "enjoyed" another beautiful/terrifying drive.

It was even scarier than last time because we had all our luggage with us (adding a couple hundred pounds to our rear end) and we got stuck behind a semi-truck hauling rebar. If you've ever seen a rebar truck before you know that the steel hangs several feet off the end of the truck. So we are winding back and forth, going up hill, with 8 people and our luggage, with cliffs on our left and the "trench of death" on our right, in the rain, and Pastor Matthew is tailgating the rebar truck like he's in a NASCAR race. Our windshield could not have been more than a few feet away from the truck on many occasions. I sat mildly terrified in the back seat of the van, but my Dad got a great look at it from the passenger seat. There were times when he was literally hanging on to his seatbelt with both hands as a nervous reaction to our proximity to the huge truck in front of us.

We made it to the mountain village that we had visited earlier in the week (wednesday) and dropped off some of our luggage to make the trip further into the mountains a little easier. After the drop off we drove across the bottom of the country to end up driving back up north along the coast along the pacific ocean. We turned off the highway and across a one lane bridge (but not a one way bridge) and headed up to Tuban. This is the village where Pastor Matthew recently accepted an appointment from the Taiwanese FM conference.

I need to take some time to comment on how Pastor Matthew, his wife MeiMei, and daughter Cindy were fantastic hosts during our week together. They are warm, friendly, inviting, energetic, charismatic, fun-loving, caring, Godly people. They live in a tiny 3 room apartment attached to the church (2 of the rooms are bedrooms) and have little of the comforts we are accustomed to here at home. Still, they offered us everything they had and were very generous, I really enjoyed being with them.

We arrived at the village late in the afternoon and had some time to walk around the community and meet the people. The mountain villages in Taiwan are small, poor towns inhabited by the aboriginal tribes of Taiwan. Tuban is home to people from the Paiwan tribe (the other major group is the Rukai). We met a young man named "Tennis" (with a T) who gave us a ride though the narrow winding streets on a scooter. It was fun to have a second motorcycle ride. The excitement made me really want one here at home. That night Dad gave another sermon, bringing his weekly total to 7 different messages in 6 days! It was amazing to listen to how God lead Dad's messages to be uniquely fitted to each congregation and audience; I know if it were me it would be really tempting to just give the same lesson 7 times, but Dad really poured out his heart and listened for what God wanted to say to each group.

That night I stayed up to prepare for the message that I would be delivering to a group of students the next day. I had a pretty solid idea of what I wanted to do, but after listening to Dad all week the bar had been raised. Plus I knew with speaking through a translator I would need a better outline since I would be constantly pausing and I didn't want to lose my place. We went to bed that night on the floor in the apartment. It was a rough night not just because of the hard wood, but also the sweltering humidity. I was also excited because there was just one day left in Taiwan!

July 9

Let's pick up where we left off in Taiwan, shall we?

Thursday was the roughest day. There were definitely some fun and interesting moments, but it was a tough day emotionally.

Like Tuesday, the day began with my dad leading 2 back to back teaching sessions. In the first session I led the students in a battle of "we love Jesus yes we do, we love Jesus how 'bout you!". For those of you unfamiliar with this Christian arena competition, a group of people yell out that phrase and then point at another group/section on the word "you". Then that new group repeats and returns the phrase a little bit louder and a little bit worse. They caught on pretty well; we did it in English since I can't lead it in Chinese:)

The second session was all about encouraging the students to go out and make a difference. I shared stories about the things that the students I work with are doing in Dearborn to make a difference. It was really cool to stop and think about all the ways that these kids are involved in the church and community. Once again I led the band with "How Great is our God" as Dad led an altar call to pray for students who wanted to be blessed to take a new step of faith.

Dad "bringin' it"

Then we went out to lunch with the ministry leaders who put together the conference. We went to a Japanese restaurant. I had never been to a Japanese restaurant, but I'd already tried just about everything else, so why not, eh?

It was a really nice time to share with the leaders of the Free Methodist youth in Taiwan (most of them were youth pastors in the conference). Pastor Craig, who was the main speaker in the evening, shared with us that he has made it his mission to start 30 churches in his lifetime (he's currently started 5). The food was fun as well; the first first thing we had was sushimi... raw fish. I first tried Black Tuna sushimi, an expensive fish, which was actually not that bad. It wasn't slimy like I thought it would be. It was firm, moist, and flavourful, I'd probably eat more of it. Then I tried some swordfish sushimi, which was just ok. There was some other food that I tried but I can't remember as well a huge breaded shrimp that was pretty good. I has some wasabi on something... too much wasabi. HOT HOT HOT! One of the last things we had was a strange coffee- flavored jello. It looked just like regular jello, but it tasted like regular coffee.

That afternoon we just went back to our rooms to crash. We were all tired and needed a break from the constant travel, but sitting down gave me a lot of time to think about how much I missed my family. Becky took the kids with her to her parents house where she could have some help wrangling all 3 of them around. We couldn't talk on the phone because mine isn't enabled for international calls, plus it wouldn't do us much good anyways since there is only a tiny window to make those calls happen with the 12 hr time difference. We were able to chat on facebook a couple times and we sent a few texts, but I was really missing the kids and especially Becky.

Not only was I tired of being apart from family but I was getting tired to the food. I had been doing my best to try new things and stretch myself, but I just wanted "normal" food. The food issue was ever more difficult because as an honored guest I was offered everything first; it was getting hard for me to face plate after plate getting shoved in my face. I couldn't just refuse everything and sit unnoticed in the corner, and I wanted to be sensitive to the cultural differences and expectations as well. I don't want to be too negative about the experience, they were all great people trying to welcome me to their culture and some of the stuff I tried I liked, but I was getting tired.

But I had a chance to get out of my funk when we met up with a friend from when I grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (yes, that is a real place). I hadn't seen Melissa Wriston in about 15 years, but we both grew up in Lakeview FM church as kids. Melissa has lived in Taiwan for about 5 years teaching english and living as a light for God in Khaohsuing. It was crazy to think about catching up with her after so many years... on the other side of the world!

Thursday evening we attended the evening session eld by Pastor Craig. This was the first evening session we attended since Monday and it was similar in many respects (loud, charismatic worship; powerful preaching) but at the end of the sermon there was an invitation for the students to come forward an receive the Holy Spirit. I have been at services before where there was laying on of hands and people falling, or being "slain", in the Spirit, but only a couple of times. At least half of the 500 students came forward and I was sitting front row watching it all happen. I should include that I wasn't sitting next to anyone who could translate for me, so at the time I could only guess as to what was going on. I'm not about to begin a debate about the theological/doctrinal implications of those expereiences and whether or not God can work in that way, but it really pushed me out of my comfort zone.

Then the hammer dropped. All of the sudden I recognize that Pastor Craig just said my name. He called my (and my Dad and one other guy) up to the front. I had no clue what was going on. I tried to ask my dad what was going on, but we couldn't really talk about what was happening and I started getting really uncomfortable. Then students start coming forward and lining up to be prayed over. I finally got the information that these were students who wanted receive a special blessing as they felt called to go into ministry and it was up to us to pray for them. WAAAY out of my comfort zone! I did not want to be the next Benny Hinn and I wasn't sure what to do, it's not like I could back out. So I prayed a prayer for me and then went about laying hands on the students as they came to me. It was even stranger because I was praying for them in English with no translation, so they had no way to know what I was praying. I put my hand on their forehead like Pastor Craig had done, but I didn't push anyone. Some fell, some didn't. But I just didn't feel right about it, mostly due to just being thrown into the situation without being asked or warned.

After the service we took about 1000 pictures with various students and leaders. I'm sure there are a whole lot of facebook pictures of me out there that I'm totally unaware of.

Finally we [the 8 of us, plus Laura (the head honcho), Melissa, and a couple others) headed to a local night market. During our late night adventure they tried fish head soup and stinky tofu soup. I was in a bad mood at this point (I hate to admit) and didn't try any of it. However, Kelsey tried the stinky tofu soup and ate this cube of something. The something turned out to be congealed pigs blood! Gross!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!more exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!

What a way to end the day.

Where did the last 5 years go?

I know I need to be more consistent with reviewing/revisiting/reliving my Taiwan trip, but there is something HUGE happening in our lives right now. Evan is going to Kindergarten tomorrow!

Our tiny baby boy is going to school.

It really hit me hard last night and I started freaking out. I felt like I had done nothing in the past five years to prepare him for this day. All of the sudden I was cramming data into his tiny ears: this is how you make friends; this is how you treat your teacher; don't take a ride from someone you don't know; don't talk with strangers, but it's ok to talk with the kids you don't know in your class; etc. I had to stop myself cause I didn't want to freak him out, or maybe because I didn't want to freak myself out anymore.

I'm so proud of who Evan is. I think he's probably better prepared for this experience than we know, but you can't help but panic when you think about the radical changes that are headed his way.

Several months ago I blogged about the options that we had been debating regarding half day vs. full day K. We decided that Evan will attend the local public school (Snow elementary) for half days for the first few months and then evaluate a transition to full day after that. I think it's a good option for us and for him, but it's definitely one of those landmark sad/exciting days that are unfolding in our lives. Good Luck Evan, we'll be praying for you.