7/26 – 11am: High speed railway to Kaohsiung
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Arrive around 1pm and get picked up by Aunty
7/27-7/29: Finish school registration, medical appointments, and
government registrations
It's been four days since I've arrived in Kaohsiung now and honestly, amazing thing has already happened. I'm sorry for not updating everyday! Internet's been kind of hard to "catch" because I've been using some neighbor's wireless and he/she turns it off around 10pm at night... unless they stayed up with me.
I've officially, FINALLY, finished unpacking and settling into this room. Blame the stupid "set up yourself" wardrobe that took me forever to fix.
What it was before...
My friend from Chicago, Jerry, and I actually did get a chance to meet and boy, were the two days an adventure. To start off, in order to pick him up I had to ride the subway train by myself for the first time.
Inside of one of the stations
It is definitely not as complicated as the one in Chicago since Kaohsiung only has two lines (orange and yellow). But with the station names in Chinese (and them being somewhat hard to read English translated), I was frightened. I made it though with an hour to wait since he missed his first train. An hour later of finally seeing him and heading back home, we headed out to the night markets.
We practically ate everything we saw: stinky tofu, Taiwanese style fried chicken, noodles, drinks, chicken again, beef on a stick, etc. The two markets we went to were PACKED to the point that right when you start walking into it, you can't move. Other than being all sweaty and sticky at the end of the night, it was awesome.
The next day we headed out to a church he served on a mission trip at 4 years ago: Shou Shan Church. It was kind of awkward because the whole church thought Jerry and I were dating because Jerry told them he stayed at my place overnight for the trip in Kaohsiung. This one lady who knows Jerry made him stand up and introduce himself, then shifted her eyes onto me and said, "Who is she? MMMM?" in front of the whole congregation. Jerry right away said A friend! A friend! But she smiled and said awkwardly, oh, a FRIEND but right away came and sat down and said Girlfriend, right? I thought it was hilarious. Oh, the culture difference.
Met a lot of people but there was one particular person I met that still amazes me God made us meet. Her name is Gloria, graduated from UIC, been teaching English in Kaohsiung for three years, goes to this bilingual church I'm planning to check out, and was the fellowship of Servants. We even got to talk about how we were doing spiritually and how these three years were for her spiritually. What scared me was what I'm going through spiritually, was how she started off also. We exchanged contact information in the end with a ride offered if I ever want to check out the bilingual church in the future. God provides.
Jerry left that same day for Taipei with the mission team and I headed back home alone. It felt weird, not speaking in English and having someone I know from home not with me. To be honest, loneliness was, and probably still is, one of my biggest fear. God has definitely already placed a lot of people next to me. Many churches, through the connection of my mom, called me asking how I am doing, if I've settled down fine, and if I need rides to anywhere just call them. A lot of English teaching positions in these churches has opened up also!
I cannot say more that God, really, truly, provides. Always have and always will.
Schedule:
7/31-8/5: Visit
family in Taichung
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Meet up with Jason Lee
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Maybe a short visit to Taipei with cousins?
8/5: Return to
Kaohsiung
Prayer requests:
1) As these teaching English positions opens up, I will with wisdom and discernment, know which ones to accept and reject.
2) I got my state ID and signed health insurance forms! Next are the medical appointments and last school registrations. Please pray that these will continue to go smoothly!
3) Church searching has started. Please pray that God will make it clear to me which one to stay committed to this one year.
4) I've had a lot of opportunities to share the Gospel with my grandma already but her heart's still hard. Please pray that God will soften her time and continuously remind me His timing, not me; His wisdom, not mine.
