Sunday | Taiwaneers

Children’s Church

Christianity, Michael's Posts, Our Taipei Life 4 Responses »

Feb 012009

Several Sundays ago Pastor Joel told the church that if anyone wanted to help out there were two ongoing ways we could. Option one: if you are an early riser come early to church and help set up as we meet in a space at a university so it must be set-up and taken down every week. Option two: teach children’s church. I am not an early riser so I very quickly ruled out option number one.

A few weeks ago I approached Pastor Joel and asked for more specifics on teaching children’s church. We talked about getting involved in the church more and he expressed interest in me helping with videographic projects because my Thanksgiving video was such a hit. I told him about being involved in small churches and such back home and how I was up for anything. All of that didn’t hinder him from helping me with my original question though and sign me up to teach children’s church. Today my turn to teach came!

Pastor Joel’s instructions had been that they weren’t using a curriculum presently so I had about 40 minutes to teach the youngsters anything I wanted. What fun! It got me thinking of the children’s church lessons I had given back at Immanuel Christian Fellowship in the States and that got me excited. Following curriculum has always been less appealing to me then just telling stories from the Bible. With curriculum my brain has a certain amount of stuff to get through which gets me thinking about the end-game whereas loosey-goosey makes me zany, childlike, and fun. Sometimes, like now, I realize just how weird it is that I can see these things about myself but for some reason I still can’t make my reaction to curriculum the same as my reaction to loosey-goosey. Self-realizations are strange things.

I just recently finished reading through Genesis so after thinking over a few stories I decided on Joseph. Saturday I made myself a little cheatsheet of the high points in the story so I could find my way if all the pressure of being in front of a group of kids made me lose my train of thought. I also picked out a Bible verse that we could memorize and thought about questions I could ask the kids before and after to stimulate greater reflection and life applications from the story. All this preparation was making me nervous!

Well Emily and I got to church, took our seats and enjoyed ourselves as usual singing songs to praise the King of Kings. Then greeting time came and afterwards the kids and I adjourned to our conference-room turned children’s church facility. Uncle Moses, an extremely sweet older Taiwanese man who teaches children’s church a lot and has basically taken on the mantle of filling in whenever there isn’t someone else signed up to teach decided that he would be my assistant.

First we played an introduction game because “I’m new” I said “and don’t know everyone that well.” The kids were great! There was 1 boy (poor fella) and 4 girls from 10 to 5 years old. Once introductions were over the kids were getting the picture that I was a different sort of teacher then they were used to and conversation was flowing like crazy from all over the room. By this I mean the kids did not sit quietly by and listen respectfully once they realized I didn’t expect them to. It was great! This lack of order did not prepare them for what came next though.

We started talking about Joseph and his family. We talked about how his family was kind of strange. After all his father had two wives and Joseph had all these brothers and Jacob actually had favorite children, Joseph being one of them. Jacob even had a favorite wife. We also talked about how Joseph’s family was kind of like those of us there because his family lived far far away from their relatives in a foreign land which was not the custom and how we live far far away in Taiwan from our relatives in a foreign land. I should mention at this point most of the kids were from America. It was really cool to see light bulbs go off in their brains realizing that they have similarities with weird, polygamous, Old-Testament families. “Who wants to help us act out the story and play the part of Joseph” I asked. This amount of craziness proved to be too much and instantly I was looking at an empty conference table as they all dove underneath it to ensure I didn’t misinterpret anything as a gesture of volunteerism.

Well after they got used to me acting out all the parts myself they decided they wanted in on the action and came up for air. Stepping from side to side, signifying my jumping from Jacob to Joseph in a conversation about the colorful coat my actions made one little girl in between giggles tell me “this is the craziest Sunday school I’ve ever been to.” Pay dirt!

I got no where near the end of the story. We stopped where Jacob has been told Joseph is dead and Joseph has been sold as a slave in Egypt. I asked them if they could remember the story until next week when we could continue it and they said they could. Uncle Moses had brought snacks so we all enjoyed ourselves for a few minutes until the big church let out! The little Taiwanese, five-year-old, adopted girl who’s parents are a mixed-couple so she speaks perfect English had sat on top of the table the whole lesson. She definitely seemed to be in her own little world most of the time but during snacks she looked up at me, smiled, and said “I like you Michael.” “I like you too” I answered back.

Teaching children’s church seemed to change something. After church more people were talking with us and it seemed like there was this threshold we had crossed in terms of how the tried and true members of the church thought of us. It makes absolute sense. Its a very transient church since many foreigners come to Taiwan for 6 months or a year to learn Chinese or teach English in a cram school and then leave. Teaching children’s church seems to have helped communicate our membership into the New Hope community. Not that we weren’t welcomed before because we definitely have been, very warmly. Its just now it seems like we’ve reciprocated that welcome and communicated our acceptance of the community membership. Its a great feeling!

Reading in the Park

Michael's Posts, Our Taipei Life, Taiwanese Culture 3 Responses »

Jan 292009

Sunday was a beautiful sunny day. After church Emily fell asleep for a nap on our bed basking in the warm sunlight coming in massive amounts from our room’s wall of windows. I decided to bicycle down to a big park not far from our home on Taipei’s southwest side and do some reading.

Arriving at the park I continued biking through it looking for a good place. I found it in a bench on the edge of a big area of red dirt with tall, hardwood trees every couple of square-meters or so. The sunlight could still reach me nicely but filtered through the trees. Bright enough to enjoy and dampened enough to make it easy for my eyes to focus on my book’s pages without needing to squint. The area’s purpose seemed to be to give people a comfortable place to walk barefoot on the hard-packed dirt. Except for the trees the dirt was bare.

In the middle of the area was a woman. She was dressed in normal, everyday clothes. Very close to her she had a little push-cart. On the push-cart was a stereo that was playing “Taiwanese exercise music.”

I don’t know what else to call the music. Its very mellow, methodical, and simple. A voice every few seconds alternates between two commands in Chinese which probably mean “up” “down” or something like that. It’s the kind of music that never seems to go anywhere. There are no climaxes, no beginnings, middles, or ends. It just plays with the Chinese voice every second or so alternating commands.

The music is turned up loud enough to be heard in about a 50 meter radius but echoing through the trees its high volume doesn’t hurt your ears no matter how close you are. Scattered around this area of music are people. Men and women, all at least 40-something up to those whose bodies are so weathered from life that one thinks this might be there last Sunday exercise. None of them stand together. They aren’t lined up following the leader. It isn’t a crowd but a gathering of people exercising in unison.

The exercise is like a dance and everyone knows the steps. The Chinese voice says a command and everyone bows forward, sweeping both arms to the right of their body up past their back with a graceful control of fingertips. As they reach their body’s flexible limit in that direction the Chinese voice gives the alternate command and everyone reverses the direction of their arms without any lapse in motion. Timing is perfect. Everyone knows the music and motions well.

One very old lady not far from where I’m sitting is too old to be graceful. She makes all the same motions as everyone else. While everyone else perfectly times their movements so that as they reach the end of one direction they begin their reverse she doesn’t. She begins each movement with a push and thrust. Willing her body to movement she gets her arms and legs going. Instead of fighting momentum to increase grace she embraces it, needs it, to make it to the next exercise.

This is the setting I had for the next few hours while I finish reading Descending From Duty by J. Ryan Fenzel. Life is good.

A Sunday Afternoon

Michael's Posts, Our Gui-Shan Life No Responses »

Mar 302008

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 but it better to say he’s visiting us doesn’t it. My friend has a layover in Taipei on his way to Indonesia to spend some time there. 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.