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.