Taiwaneers

We slept in and missed church today. After waking up I walked down to the OK Mart convenience store down the street with an umbrella to shield me from the light drizzle to buy some milk and orange juice. One of the little neighborhood boys ran to catch up with me on his way to the store as well in what looked like his pjs. I said hello and he laughed. On the way back I ran into two of the other little neighborhood boys crowding each other under their little umbrella who said hello.

Back at home I put on a pot of coffee, stuck two slices of homemade bread (Emily’s getting good) into the oven to toast, and got the pan hot for frying an egg. I’ve never been very good at keeping the egg together when frying but low and behold, after asking my wife for advice on how she does it so well, today I managed to fry a restaurant worthy sunny side-up egg for the top of her toast. Thats the way she likes it, a fried egg on top of a dry piece of toast.

Sticking butter on my own slice of toast, pouring orange juice for my wife and delivering her breakfast to her, I poured myself some coffee and settled onto our couch to read a little in Bob Dylan’s autobiography Chronicles volume one which I’m about two thirds through. Hearing the patter of the rain outside only added to the perfect beginning to the day.

After a half hour or more Emily and I put our books aside, turned to where we’ve been reading in the Bible, Revelations, and read around four chapters discussing as we went. I got out my guitar and music sheets and we sang some praise songs and prayed. Its so great to be able to have church in the intimacy of your own home with the woman you love and the Creator of all!

Yesterday was great too. By happen chance we ended up spending several hours at the apartment of Peter and Angela, an American guy and his Taiwanese wife, their 5-month old baby Amira, and two young assistant professors from Ming Chuan, Michael from Australia, and Graham from Scotland. It was great to spend some time with people more our age/place in life after so many hours in class with a bunch of versions of myself at eighteen.

I met Michael a few months back at a two day camp thing that Ming Chuan held for students who wanted to go. He was one of the workshop presenters and rode with us on the bus back home. We sat together and talked during the ride. His Ph.D is in film studies and he was fun to talk to. Anyways last week I saw him through the crowds at Ming Chuan’s 51st anniversary celebration and was able to wave a quick hello before having to keep moving to stick with Emily in the masses. I emailed him saying sorry for only giving a quick wave and he invited me and Emily to yesterday’s little get-together for some poker and good’ol hanging out. It couldn’t have turned out better. Peter, the American guy, is a third year student at Ming Chuan so my worries of being a student among a bunch of academics was replaced with genuine enjoyment for the level of conversation. Although it made me miss my brother, Marty, John, and the Liberty guys!

Tomorrow I have an Accounting quiz and one for Calculus on Tuesday. Wednesday through Friday we have spring break and are going to go with Megan down to visit our good friend Sandy in the middle of Taiwan. Sandy’s planned what seems to be a very fun trip and it’ll be great to see her again. If you remember she is the wonderful person who, with the help of her father, helped us find our apartment, picked us up from the airport when we arrived, took us on our shopping spree to outfit our crib, and in general has helped us with all those pesky details of life. We love her so much!

We’re going to have our first visitor from America in a few weeks too. Technically he’s just passing through really but it sounds good. My friend, Jeremy Hicks, has a layover in Taipei on his way to Indonesia. He’s a missionary with New Tripes Missions on his way after relying on God for so much. His lack of pretention and pride combined with his desire to follow God everyday the best he knows how inspires me. If you want to check out his blog its http://pecohicks.blogspot.com/. Anyways all that to say I’m eager to see him and spend a few hours with another guy from back home!

Well I guess that’ll do it for now.