Zai jyen! Ming tyen wor yao zo ler. (Goodbye! Tomorrow is my last day here)

It is with much sadness that I sit down to write my last blog in Puli. It has only been 8 weeks, yet it seems like I've lived here for months. We've made so many good friendships and had so many fond memories and I am so thankful to God for this experience to come overseas.
Well before I completely lose it with sentimentality, I should probably update you all with the latest news.

Christmas
We were given a lift to Kaohsiung by Dr Chu who was going there for some Christian outreach event. On the way he picked up one of his friends who was a magician (and a pastor) so we got to see all his magic tricks in the car (some of which we could work out, but others were pretty amazing!) and then as we neared the end of our journey we decided to teach them how to sing "Skippy the Bush Kangaroo". If you had heard them singing you would have laughed, as none of the words were recognizable... but they thought it was amazing that they could sing a song about a kangaroo. Then they taught us to sing "Jesus loves me this I know" in Mandarin, but all I can remember from that is "Yesu ai wor" (Jesus loves me). Once in Kaohsiung we hoped on a bus which took us all the way to the very very southernmost tip of Taiwan called Heng Chun.
Pete and Jade's church in Sydney support a missionary from Australia who lives in Heng Chun and so we stayed with her for the 4 days of our Christmas break. Christine is a very amazing lady who works very hard to tell the people here about Jesus. As we spent time with her, we had many good chats about what she does and some of the problems she encounters. She had just hosted an overseas short term mission team before we arrived and yet was still willing to have us stay with her and annoy her.
On the Christmas Eve, we were shown around the town of Heng Chun and saw the fresh meat markets (with large cow hearts hanging on hooks in front of you) and the old city gates and walls (once designed to keep marauding invaders out - but now the town spills out of these containment walls and into the surrounding countryside). In the afternoon we went for a leisurely bike ride around the area and got to see a nice scenic view of a nuclear powerplant (we don't have those in Australia) and some new rice paddies being planted. At night time we celebrated Pete's birthday and Jade and Christine made him a delicious carrot cake. Seeing as we had the candles out, we also struck up our own set of Carols by Candlelight which was in direct competition with the karaoke across the road.
The next morning I arose early; not to rush and open presents, but to call my family who were 3 hours ahead of me and so although they were awake, I'm not too sure that I was 100% with it. It was good however, to speak with them and I can't wait to see them all in January!
Most people in Taiwan do not celebrate Christmas and so was no church service on in the morning, so Christine decided to take us to the beach for a truly Australian Christmas. Now what seems to be the problem with this? Namely that it is winter here in Taiwan and most people do not swim in the ocean in winter. However, Taiwan is very tropical, so I got to spend my first Christmas on the beach surrounded by beautiful green palm trees and a crystal blue sea. The sand was as hot as it is in Sydney (my feet hurt!) and I even managed to get a little sunburnt (even after applying copious amounts of sunscreen). We swam and ate and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves so that by the time we got home we all headed inside for a well deserved nap.
In the evening we were invited to join with some other Australian and American missionaries at a nearby OMF 'holiday house' for Christmas Dinner. We met Phil and Irene Nicholson who are from Sydney (Phil will be one of the main speakers at this year's Katoomba Easter Convention) and were able to talk with them about their experiences of being missionaries and Taiwanese living. They admitted that the food we were eating in Puli was probably 'extremely traditional Taiwanese' food (which they didn't like either!) and so I feel much better about my food issues now.
After dinner we spent some time singing carols and playing some fun games together and I was so encouraged to see how God is using these people to spread his Word here in Taiwan. I pray that they would continue to be faithful and that many more people here would come to know about Jesus this year.
In the middle of dinner we were interrupted by what sounded like an explosion. In fact it was a funeral pyre with fireworks next door and the neighbors were burning this giant ornate paper house to 'send it over' to the afterlife. It was so sad to see these people imprisoned in the chains of empty religion, chasing after things that cannot save them. They really need to hear about Jesus!
On Sunday we had a quiet day at home and in the evening went to the Kenting Night markets in the nearby tourist town. Then on Monday we went for a short walk into the town before heading home to Puli.
We learned a lot from talking to Christine and the other missionaries whilst in Heng Chun. They are faithful people who deserve our prayers daily. I was challenged to be more prayerful for them and I was amazed at the way they live their lives amongst the Taiwanese here.
On the way home, God gave me an opportunity to talk to a man about Jesus. As we were on the train, the man sitting next to me started talking to me in broken English and we got to talking about his family and job and the Taiwanese politics and then I asked him if he had a religion. He said that he thought all religions were the same, so I was able to talk to him abut why Jesus is different. I don't know how much he understood, but please pray that our conversation may cause him to think more seriously about who Jesus is.

Well I'm sorry to have to run, but there is so much I need to do before we leave tomorrow. I will be back in Sydney on New Year's Eve and will turn my phone back on then if you need to call me (0402 575 856).
I will also write my final blog on New Year's Day sometime so until then, God bless and keep running the race!

Jimbo

"Wor men nee sherng dun jyair hao" ("We wish you a Merry Christmas!")

Well it's Thursday here in Puli and it's another beautiful warm tropical winter's day. Winter in Taiwan is more like autumn in Australia, so all those warm clothes we packed have not been of much use so far. Oh well, I'll soon be in the stinking hot Australian summer... can't wait to hit the beach!

Dinner with the Boss
On Monday night we were invited over to Dr Chauo's place for dinner. He also invited Dr Chen (chief of staff), Dr Wally (chief of internal medicine) and Dr Chu (the ophthalmologist). Dr Chauo is a lovely Christian man who initially helped us organise the whole elective. He knows one of the Christian doctors in Sydney (Dr Cole) who came to Taiwan 25 years ago, and his English is very good. He specializes in paediatric neurology and we had some interesting discussions about language development and how to learn new languages using child development as a model.We ate a lavish feast and drank some lovely mint tea and it was great time of encouragement and fellowship.
Apparently Dr Chauo's family were some of the first converts to Christianity in Taiwan when missionaries first came to Taiwan many years ago. It's amazing to hear about how 4 generations of his family have all been serving Jesus as doctors in Taiwan (they are all ENT doctors except for him) and I thank God for how he has been working through this family!

"I was in a day spa dum-dum... D-A-I-Y-E!" - Zoolander
Dr Chu happened to have a couple of complimentary tickets to the New Era Spa Resort and so yesterday Pete and Jade and I went up to the mountain (well more like a hill 10 minutes walk from the hospital) to have a spa. The spa was amazing; it is 'supposed' to be heated from the molten lava that heat underground water to make hot springs, but Dr Chu thinks they may use gas heating now. I think poor Pete and Jade found it a bit too cold, but I loved running from the hot pool (42 degrees) into the cold pool (22 degrees); whilst Pete found much amusement in pressing all the buttons on the spa pool to make lots of bubbles (even though he didn't want to actually sit in the pool himself). Pete and Jade stayed the night in a log cabin there whilst I headed home feeling much refreshed and as wrinkled as a prune from the water.

My last Bible study here(sigh)
Last night while Jade and Pete where at the spa resort, I went to Bible study with Dr Chu at Dr Tsai's house. It was great to read the Bible and sing and pray with them all; I'm really going to miss the friends I've made here! We studied Acts 27 and I am amazed at how similar it is to the story of Jonah (where God's messenger refuses to preach God's message to the ancient world's capital city). In Acts 27 however, it is the sailors (not God's messenger) who don't believe God, whilst Paul is keen to preach God's message in the capital city of the ancient world.
After Bible study, one of the dentists said that her sister had been at the paediatric clinic and seen a very important American doctor with little hair (guess who?). Her sister had assumed I was a very important doctor from America because I was 'supervising' Dr Chauo (the hospital boss). We all had a good laugh about that and they all said that in Chinese culture, a lack of hair is a sign of wisdom and riches. I am still waiting for both of those though (wisdom and riches)... hahaha!

Dinner with Sammy
On Tuesday night we were taken out for dinner by one of the nurses Sammy. Sammy works with the mountain health teams and visits the mental health patients (especially schizophrenics) to deliver their medications. She really cares a lot about her patients and even bought all 70+ of them Christmas presents (out of her own pocket). She is also very blunt and frank with people (which is extremely rare in Taiwan because of people wanting to preserve 'face') which meant that we all get on really well with her.
She took us from the hospital to a nearby strawberry field, where you pay money for a box and some scissors and then you go and pick strawberries from the field for as long as you like. I'm not normally a fan of strawberries, but they were really nice and so I ate a few. Then we went to meet her family, (Mum, sister, brother-in-law, brother, brother's girlfriend and brother's girlfriend's daughter) who all share the one house. Then she took us to a nearby restaurant which sold really yummy beef soup noodles (they are hard to describe) and we ate these pancake-like things whilst Sammy's 3 year old niece ate this Italian millet like food which we all thought tasted quite foul. Then she took us for dessert, but instead of having ice-cream, we had shaved 'ice-milk' (they basically freeze milk then grind it up and put flavoured toppings on it). It was really really delicious and was also very cheap! I wish we had it in Australia!
Then we went back to her house and picked up her family and went to Taichung to visit the night markets. We had to carry her poor niece around on our shoulders because she was too tired to walk and I got many funny stares from the locals as I walked around with Sammy and a 3 year old Chinese girl on my shoulders. We ate some really spicy food (we tasted the 'mild' one and were almost crying) and then drank some 'bubble tea' (it has these really yummy jelly-like blobs in it which can cause you to choke if you haven't been warned about them). We didn't end up getting back to Puli until very late but that was okay because we had a very interesting time.
During the course of the evening, Sammy told us about herself and her family and she has been through some very bad experiences and has had to face some awful things in her life. She told us that she is looking for 'answers' to the questions in life and so we were able to share with her what we believed about Jesus and she wants us to give her a Bible in English so she can read it. She even says she feels like becoming a nun in order to escape for a while and find some meaning/answers in life. As we talked she even told us about how she has had to forgive certain people in her life and the way she talked sounded like the way that Christians talk. She is so close to the truth and it's really sad that we have to leave next week, because there is much more we could have said. We are going to invite her over for dinner next week before we leave and I would ask you to pray for her. I think God is working in her life and I pray that she will soon come to know Jesus.

Christmas plans
Today we are heading off to Heng Chun to visit Pete and Jade's missionary friend who lives in Heng Chun. It will be nice to have some time off hospital before we leave next week.
In the foyer of the hospital they have erected a life size Santa Claus statue that dances when plugged in and belts out lovely little Christmas ditties. It's nice to hear some familiar carols now and then as we wander the wards, making miss the festivities that are going on back home.
I hope all of you back home have a safe and happy holiday season, remembering the amazing news of Jesus our Saviour's birth and celebrating with family and friends.
I will miss all of you heaps and am looking forward to seeing you all real soon!

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favour rests!

Jimbo

"Have yourself a merry little Christmas"

Well, now begins the final 10 days of my trip. It seems like only yesterday I left the clean, quiet suburbs of Sydney and came over here. I think I'm finally becoming comfortable with the food and noise and language barrier. But I am definitely missing all you guys... so I will come back!

Weddings Part II
On Sunday, we were privileged to be invited to the wedding of Dr Lai's brother-in-law at the local restaurant. Once again we didn't get to see the ceremony but came along for the 10 course banquet that followed. Even though we had only met him briefly at Mr Cow's wedding we were seated up the front near the bride and groom's table, which is a sign of honour here. At the last wedding we attended, I thought we managed to do fairly well at disguising our dislike of some of the bizarre culinary concoctions. However, it appears that perhaps they were more perceptive than we thought, as this time we were placed on the vegetarian table and served all sorts of colourful (purple spring rolls?) delicacies. This was not the only surprise. We were also seated next to an American lady and her 14 year old daughter (from Miami) and we were as surprised as they were to see other Anglo-Saxons at an Asian wedding. Apparently they have lived in Puli for 13 months and before that lived in Taichung for many years, so they can both speak fluent Mandarin (which inspires me with hope in light of my poor efforts at speaking Mandarin). As we talked to them they told us that apparently there are about 100 'white' people living in Puli (we had only seen 1 up until this point!) but apparently many of them don't wish to be there and so they sit indoors all day and talk to the other foreigners here and don't venture out into public much. I think that's pretty sad, because the Taiwanese people here are very friendly and eager to befriend us 'Westerners'. During the wedding, there was more aboriginal dancing and this was followed by karaoke, which our American friends were quite keen to participate in.
Unlike in Western weddings, where everyone waits to formally farewell the bride and groom, in Taiwan the bride and groom stand by the door and people trickle out of the wedding as the please, shaking their hands and having photos taken. Apparently they also take all their official wedding photos days or weeks before they get married so often the dress you see the bride wearing is not the dress she is wearing in her photo.
Dr Lai was really nice in organizing a lift for us to get home. However he failed to mention that this lift involved riding in one of the wedding cars. So we got chauffeured back to the hospital in a nice black car with red wedding ribbon tied all over it. Very nice!

Visit from Australia (or is it London? Or Hong Kong?)
After we got back to hospital, our friend Carmen from medical school in Sydney (but she is from Hong Kong) came to visit us. She had just finished her elective in Kent (England) and was visiting her boyfriend in Taiwan and so popped over to Puli to visit us. It was nice to see another familiar face and we showed her our hospital (there's not much to show so that took all of 5 minutes) and then took her to the paper factory (where they make paper the old fashioned way). She only got to stay for one hour (but I wouldn't stay for more than an hour in Puli if I was a tourist here) but it was fun to catch up and hear what had been happening in England.
NB: I know Carmen reads this blog, so I must say 'nice' things about her (haha - just kidding Carmo! You are always nice to me!)

"Real food" (not CBS)
On Friday night Dr Nathan invited us to his house for dinner along with one of the residents (Dr Lin). Dr Nathan, his wife Yvonne and their 3 children used to live in New Zealand and so they understood the kind of food we were used to and understood the kind of culture shock we had been experiencing, so they cooked us the most amazing Western meal ever! I would probably have to say it was the best meal we've had in Taiwan! Yvonne cooked these marinated lamb chops with pasta and salad and cold chicken and beef. It was fantastic (they even used Flora margarine imported from New Zealand) and we all enjoyed the meal (except for poor Dr Lin, who having never left Taiwan before, found our Western meal as foreign as we find normal Taiwanese cuisine). Over dinner we were able to talk to Dr Nathan and his wife about their experiences of life in Taiwan and New Zealand and hear about how God had been working in their lives. He told us the story of how he met his wife, and how he had come to end up working in Puli. Dr Nathan really has a passion for his medical work and for his family and for serving the church and for telling people about Jesus. He has been a great encouragement to all of us over the last 6 weeks.
Dr Nathan's oldest 2 children are 13 and 14 years old but his youngest is 13 months. Her name is Joy and she is a real cutie! The whole night she kept us amused with her antics and the story of her birth is quite amazing (medically, it was quite risky and 'should' have required a lot of surgery but in God's grace she didn't).

Christian stuff
I would like to first correct something I said in a previous blog, which I think may have been read the wrong way. I wrote about the concept of 'losing face' and how that is something that is seen as bad in Taiwanese culture. "Losing face" in Taiwan has more to do with other people's perceptions of you than your actual worth. What I meant to say was that in Philippians 2:7, Paul speaks about how Jesus "made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant" and I meant to refer that to say that this concept (of Jesus humbling himself voluntarily) may be quite foreign to the Taiwanese culture. I did not mean it to say that God the Father somehow lost his honour or glory, so I apologise if this caused some confusion (or claims of heresy - I like to eat steak, not be burnt at the stake!).
On Friday we were able to talk to Yvonne and Nathan about their Christian lives and it was a testimony to God's grace how he has been working through their lives to grow them in maturity as Christians and use their lives to bring others to know Christ.
On Sunday morning before the wedding we asked Dr Nathan if we could go along to his church with him (we had been to 2 other churches in Puli but not his one yet). His church is a rather small church named Puli Grace Church and is held in a large room above a set of apartments or shops. The church people were very friendly and we even saw one of the nurses (Ching Pai) there from our ward (who Pete and Jade are jokingly trying to set me up with - I don't think she even speaks English!). The first song we sang was "Blessed Assurance" which I could only remember the first verse to in English (it's hard to remember the English words when they are singing in Mandarin). Then the pastor (a lady) welcomed us formally and the whole church (all 30 or so of the congregation) came up and shook our hands individually. The lady pastor got up and preached a sermon, which went for about 30 minutes. I was extremely impressed by their thoughtfulness, as when they knew that we couldn't understand Mandarin, they got one of the local university students (who could speak English) to stand next to her with a microphone and translate the entire sermon as she preached it.
The sermon was about how we should learn to be like Mary because God blessed her as she listened to God. It sounded very similar to the 'prosperity gospel' (saying that we must expect to have a lot of physical blessing in this lifetime - while denying the reality of the suffering that Christians must endure as they take up their cross daily to follow in the footsteps of their Lord Jesus) in some respects (but I have heard Dr Nathan talk against the 'prosperity gospel' at hospital?) After the sermon, we sang "Blessed Assurance" (again) repeatedly again and again. Then they had a time where we all held hands and prayed together (all together at once and out loud) and it sounded like a zoo (I'm sorry to say) and people were punching themselves in the stomach as they prayed. I'm afraid it reminded me of some of the Pentecostal practices that I have seen in Australia and it seems that the appeal of blessing and wealth and happiness 'now' is very appealing to the Asian culture.
Now without entering into a debate on the whole Pentecostal issue; I only wish to say that there are many people in that church who do love Jesus and persevere tirelessly to make him known in their lives and the lives of others (like Dr Nathan), but that the unbiblical teaching about 'expecting' God to give you lots of material possessions and some of their church practices (praying in what appeared a very disordered manner) seemed very unhelpful. I really wish I could spend some more time here, talking to the Christians about the Bible and encouraging them as it seems they often don't get 'fed' much 'real food' from God's word. I'm sorry if I sound a little hard line or judgmental. I do not wish to be either, but I do want to see people here come to know God as He has revealed himself in the Bible. It seems that people here can (not necessarily 'are') be in danger of following a 'Jesus' that the Bible doesn't teach.
On the way home we talked to Dr Nathan and Pete mentioned what our sermons in Australia are like (explaining a passage). Dr Nathan said he felt that often in his church he wasn't 'fed' well, but that he had to 'feed' himself with his own personal Bible reading. Keep praying for him and his family, that they would be fed as they read God's word and that they would continue to be a great witness to Jesus.

This morning Dr Wally and I were doing our ward round and halfway through he said "Quick, we must go!" I followed having no idea what was going on, but when we reached the 6th floor, we walked into the room of the lady with cancer (who had become a Christian) and she was being baptized! It kind of seemed weird to me to have a baptism in a hospital bed but then again, I was baptized in the Unigym pool, so I can't talk! She prayed with Pastor Tsai, Dr Chu, Dr Nathan, Dr Wally and myself and then Pastor Tsai baptized her (just with a water sprinkling - not a full immersion Baptist dunking) whilst she was till breathing on an oxygen mask. It must have made for quite a sight for any passerby. After we sang a hymn, there were some more prayers and then we left. It is so amazing that in this Christian hospital they can talk to patients so freely about Jesus. I lament that we are not able to do the same in Australia. Pray that the Christians here would continue to use this avenue to reach all people with the gospel!

Well, I will probably write another quick blog on Thursday before we head off to Heng Chun for Christmas (we are visiting a missionary from Sydney there). I pray that all of you back home will have a blessed and happy Christmas.
It is so amazing to contemplate the message of Christmas. On the Old Testament, the people could not come into contact with God directly. At Mount Sinai, they could not touch the mountain. As they wandered the desert, God had to be separated from them by a tent/tabernacle. When Uzzah touched the ark (which represented God's presence to the people) in 2 Samuel 6 he fell dead. When God lived in the Most Holy Place within the temple, the high priest could only enter once a year before God and only after offering many sacrifices. Yet the message of Christmas is the birth of "Immanuel" which means "God with us"... the perfect and holy God became one of us and dwelt among us. Our broken relationship with God was restored and now we can call the God who is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29) our Father. May he be praised!

God bless,

Jimbo

8 sleeps till Santa comes! Yay!

Good evening to all down under (I really don't get the term 'Down Under' because now that I'm in Taiwan I don't feel 'Up Above')

Christian Stuff
God is amazing isn't he? Yesterday we went with Dr Benjamin, Dr Nathan and Pastor Yao to sing carols to the patients and talk to them about Jesus. As we went to visit one lady, Dr Nathan began talking to her son. Apparently this lady has end stage cancer or something and when she was in the ICU Dr Nathan talked to her about Jesus and she became a Christian. After we had sung some carols and prayed for her health, Dr Nathan began to talk to her son about Jesus and then Dr Nathan asked him if he wanted to accept Jesus as his Lord. The son said 'Yes' and we prayed for him. It was so amazing to see how God has been working through the Christian doctors here as they proclaim the good news of Jesus to their patients (unlike in Australia where we are not professionally allowed to raise the subject). Then another girl called Jessie (not to be confused with the male doctor Jesse) heard us singing carols and joined us as we sang and then later that night asked to follow Jesus too. I've never seen people so willing to turn to Christ. I pray that these will be serious commitments and that these 2 people will become established in their faith. It's so great to see God working his purposes out each day.
We also got to speak to Mr Lin (the man with the tracheostomy tube) again and it's actually quite a good opportunity for us to talk to him about Jesus because basically he is stuck in bed all day and can't talk and we so we talk to him in English (he was a journalist in Taipei and so can speak English when he is not being ventilated) and he has to listen to us whether he likes it or not (in a good way). Please pray for him, that he would come to know Jesus and understand why this is such good news.
I've noticed whilst I've been here, that many of our patients are recovering from attempted suicide (which Dr Benjamin pronounces as 'swchayersai' and we don't understand him so he draws a line across his throat with his finger and we quickly get the point). It's really sad to see the people here resorting to such drastic measures to solve their problems. A lot of people here seem to lack hope for the future and they really need to hear about God's message to them. Many of them try to hurt themselves after having an argument with their spouse or partner and many don't survive. Pray that the churches here will hold out the hope of eternal life in Jesus to them.
This morning we had Bible study with Pastor Tsai and the doctors. To be perfectly frank, it's not much of a Bible study at all, but more like an opppurtunity for him to talk about whatever seems to be his topic of the day which he then uses to encourage them all to be good little doctors and it seems to have very little to do with Jesus. I know I am sounding pretty critical and I apologise if I do, but in the last 6 weeks I have not heard this man (who is entrusted to teach the word of God) talk about Jesus for more than a fleeting second. I really hope that my impressions about him are wrong, but I have some serious reservations about his ministry.
Last night however, was fun! We had the annual Christmas concert bash and the doctors and their wives and little kiddies got up and sang some Christmas carols and when they sang 'The First Noel' in Mandarin I felt like I was back home at the carols in Cooke Park (Parkes' version of the Domain) and it suddenly hit me that I am a long way from home and won't be with my family for Christmas. So I felt a bit sad about that. But the rest of the night was 'interesting'. The nurses did some aboriginal dancing and then this one doctor (I think he was a doctor) got up and sang about 7 songs and talked in between each song and he just kept talking and talking and talking and you realize that when you can't understand what they are saying, that sermons seem to go for twice as long as normal.

Hospital
Has been very busy! I feel like I'm doing more work here than I do in Sydney. I can't wait for a break when I get back home... but then again, I've got to prepare for Bathurst Mission... oh well!

This weekend
We are going to have dinner with Dr Nathan in a few hours time, then possibly go to a wedding on Sunday (we still aren't sure) and then hopefully we can find the Aussie Christmas Carols on Pay TV (apparently they ARE on, we just don't know which of the 122 channels it is on).

Steak!
On Wednesday, Dr Benjamin took us out with Sami the nurse (one of the nurses we works in the aboriginal villages - we are going to her house for dinner next week) to a steak house! Wow! I have never eaten a steak that was so nice (maybe it's just cos I had forgotten what steak tasted like) and it cost $6AUS for the steak which came with noodles and egg and all you can eat buffet. Poor Pete and Jade however felt sick and couldn't eat much so I made the most of the opportunity and ate away! We also introduced Sami to 'ice cream spiders' which she didn't seem to keen on.

Politics
Finally those silly trucks with their election campaigning have disappeared and only a few lone posters remind us of the election that once was. Apparently the 'blue' team won (the KMT who are pro-China?) and the DPP lost (the green team who the president belongs to). This means that the status quo is maintained in Taiwan which some people like (because it means China will not send the reported 600 missiles it has aimed at Taiwan over the Taiwan Strait) but others don't like (because the blue party blocks all the legislation that the green party president puts forward and the blue party like China and steal money and are supposedly corrupt). Apparently both China and America are happy with the result and since the election the Taiwan economy has been faring better so I guess that's always a good thing. There is much more to Taiwan politics than this but if you ask me in Australia I can explain it to you (there's some weird stories about politicians with IV drips in parliament).

Well sorry to dash but I have to go to one of those boring Friday afternoon meetings which they always seem to put on from 5-6:30pm on a Friday (what a stupid time for a meeting!)
Hope that you all have a festive weekend and buy your Christmas presents and send Santa your list!

God bless,

Jimbo

Only 2 weeks left... (sigh)

Taipei
Well on Friday afternoon we hopped on a bus to go to Taipei. Since we have caught a few buses here in Puli, we are now pretty good mates with the bus ticket seller man. As we waited for our bus, the ticket man offered us each 3 small bananas, one large banana, a photo he took, a bottle of water and a business card each. He is a pretty friendly guy and he keeps also offering us betel nut which we decline (its this red nut thing that is apparently carcinogenic and gives a bit of a narcotic 'high' if you chew it - on the side of most roads they put young girls wearing minimal clothing in glass booths with neon lights to sell this legal 'soft' drug... it's quite sad to see them everywhere).
When we got to Taipei we landed smack bang in the middle of the city and were met by Pete and Jade's friend Vivian. Vivian is a Taipei local who came to Sydney a few years ago to study and went to Pete and Jade's church. She had a class on that night (people have class during the day and at night and on the weekends!) so she showed us where to meet her after her class and then left us to explore the CBD of Taipei. However, we first required some nutrition and having been deprived of dairy products for a long time, I made a beeline for the large neon sign which advertised my former employer, Pizza Hut! The Pizza Hut we went to was pretty packed and the Works costs about $10 (AUS) there (which is expensive for Taiwan) so I just ordered a Hawaiian pizza. It was actually nicer than an Aussie Pizza Hut pizza and the whole restaurant made me feel like I was back home.
Then we decided to explore this large shopping centre which is in the CBD and on top of it is this large tower. We took some photos and then our friend from Sydney, Mark Woo, called us to see if we wanted to meet up (he is now doing the 2nd bit of his elective in Taipei) and so we tried to find him in Taipei Main Station (like Central Station in Sydney) but it ended up taking him most of the night to find us, by which time Vivian had finished her class and we decided to head home and meet up with Mark in the morning.
Vivian took us to her house in a cab and began telling the driver off in Taiwanese (different from Mandarin) because apparently he was trying to take us the long way. During the course of the weekend we probably caught about 8 cabs throughout Taipei and each one was fast and cheap, much nicer than the Sydney ones.
Vivian lives with her family in an apartment in the 'nicer' part of Taipei. I was able to stay on the top floor of their apartment which meant I got basically a whole apartment to myself for the weekend (not that we actually spent any time there apart from sleeping!)
In the morning we woke up and headed off straight away to a local restaurant for breakfast. We ate all these dumplings and beef rolls and it was the most delicious breakfast I've had in ages. Apparently the restaurant is famous because it was the last place a young army official was seen before he mysteriously 'disappeared' (all sorts of conspiracy theories abound!).
Then we raced off to the MRT (Mass Rapid Transport) station to catch a train to the beach/river. I must say that having seen the Taipei railway system I am very envious now and don't see why CityRail in Sydney are so inept at producing a decent public transport system. In Taipei a brand new single deck train arrives at every station every 4 minutes and they travel much faster than in Sydney. The ride itself is so smooth and even better than the new Millennium trains that the NSW government is boasting about. And to travel from the CBD to the edge of the city cost us about $1.20 (AUS) which is much better economically than CityRail's prices.
We met Mark on the train and Vivian took us to this place where the river meets the ocean and it had a lot of classy stalls and shops (kind of like the Rocks area in Sydney). We bought fried ice cream (really yummy!) and then we bought these huge ice cream cones for 30 cents (AUS) and as we walked along we saw this drink vendor selling these strange looking drinks. Mark Woo told us that they were toad's eggs and were a delicacy in Taiwan. It took us a while to realize he was pulling our leg and now I realize how foreigners must feel when we tell them about 'drop bears'.
We caught a ferry across the river and then had lunch at this restaurant famous for mussels (I just had some rice and noodles) and then we walked up the promenade eating at every second stall or so.
Then on the way back we stopped off at a jade market (Jade wanted to go to a jade market) and whilst Vivian and Jade tried on every bit of jewelry there, Pete and Mark and I were assaulted by a little child who had found a big stick and thought it would be funny to whack the foreigners with his big stick. We tried to outrun this little monster but everywhere we went he managed to follow us! Eventually we left and Mark said we should go to the 101 Tower shopping mall, but that there had been threats to blow up the tower on that particular night. That didn't particularly sit well with me, but we went anyway and the fact that I'm still here to talk about it means that obviously it didn't happen.
Tower 101 is the biggest building in Taiwan and stands at 101 floors (hence the name!) and the bottom of it is a huge department store so we went in and tried to have our picture taken with Santa (this badly dressed American Santa who spoke Mandarin quite well) but he said we had to spend a certain amount in the shopping mall before we could...so we didn't!
Then Vivian took us to these huge night markets where we ate some Maccas and then did some shopping for most of the night. I managed to do some Christmas shopping and we ate more food and it was lots of fun! The night markets were so crowded and apparently you are not allowed to sell things in the middle of the 'arcade' area but people do anyway, but the police came along so the vendors quickly grabbed their carts and did the bolt through the crowds.On the way home we walked through some of the city, then caught a cab home and crawled into bed dragging our blistered feet behind us.
On Sunday, Vivian had class again but she dropped us off in the CBD and we met up again with Mark and we also met up with Jesse (the resident doctor from Taipei who was working in Puli one month ago) and he showed us around NTU Hospital; which is the biggest and most prestigious hospital in Taiwan. It is about 3 times bigger than Australia's biggest hospital (Prince of Wales) and the doctors here work longer hours than we do in Australia.
Then we went to a souvenir store where we did some more shopping and then Mark and Jesse helped me find a bargain on some electronics in the CBD.We managed to have lunch at KFC (this time it was nice - thanks Steph!) and then we walked around some more arcades in downtown Taipei and we visited this old theater that has been restored before hoping on a train to go to CKS Memorial Hall.
CKS was this famous guy in Taiwan's history who basically helped found the country as it is today (kind of like an Abraham Lincoln or George Washington) and they have this huge park with a giant white gate and avenue which leads up to a huge temple like building which holds a statue of CKS in it. I heard somewhere that CKS was a Christian, but I'm not too sure if that's definite. There were heap of people there and Vivian met us after her class there. The whole place was really big and next to the CKS Memorial ther are 2 enormous temple looking buildings which are actually the national Theatre and National Opera (kind of like the Taiwanese equivalent of the Opera House).
Then we headed off to a museum which is dedicated to what is known in Taiwan as "2/28" when there was a mini-revolution in Taiwan and the government killed almost 20,000 people (apparently). It was quite an interesting (and sad) side of Taiwan to see and then after that we ate a nice meal of steak in a Western restaurant before rushing across town to hop on the bus with 5 minutes to spare.
The whole weekend was so rushed and busy (a bit like life in Taipei from what people here tell us) Vivian, Mark and Jesse were so hospitable to us and kept paying for all our meals and taxi fares (even though we argued with them, to let us pay - they are quite insistent and sneak off to pay the bill when we aren't looking). I really enjoyed the weekend and we all had a blast racing around Taipei in 48 hours. There's heaps more I could write of, but clinic started 5 minutes ago so I got to run.

Will write again soon (when my feet have stopped blistering from Taipei)

God bless,
Jimbo

Watch out Taipei, here comes Jimbo!

Hi everyone,

Sorry I won't be able to write my usual 4 page ramble... but I'm feeling sick today and am about to head off to Taipei in a few hours for the weekend so I'll keep this one down to 2 pages max. (I hope)

Hospital
Things at hospital have been very busy lately. I have been visiting the ultrasound labs, neurophysiology labs, endoscopy clinics, paediatric clinics, dermatology clinics and rheumatology clinics. I have been working from 7:30am till 5:30pm mst days and combined with our busy social life, this has left me really tired and I think this is probably the reason for me being sick at the moment. For the med nerds out there, "James is a 21 year old male who presented with a 3 day history of myalgia, headaches, diarrhea, rhinorrhoea and fever. Nil significant previous Medical history."I think I am on the tail end of it, but please pray that I will get better soon!

Bible study
Dr Chu invited us to his Bible study the other night which was really great. We were able to see 'hands on' what the average Christians here in Taiwan think/feel about stuff.The study was on Acts 26 how Paul defends himself in front of Festus and Agrippa and it was great to really to read Paul's defense of the gospel. We were able to talk with the Christians there about how the Old Testament (Moses and the prophets) testify to Jesus. The Bible study leader was really amazed to hear some of the stuff we talked about and asked Jade if all Christians in Australia knew their Bible that well. I think there is such a need here for good sound Bible teaching here. The Christians we met that night seemed so keen to understand God's word better and I was really touched by their love for each other.
Dr Chu also took us out for dinner beforehand where we ate these awesome pancakes and dumplings. We then got taken to this mountain overlooking Puli where you can view the city by night. It was really pretty (I hate using that word but that's how I would describe it).
One morning this week, there was a monthly chapel service for the hospital where we sang some songs and heard a Bible talk from a psychiatrist. He spoke from the passage in John about the loaves and fishes and started his sermon by saying that the passage was NOT primarily about Jesus but about the boy with the loaves and fishes. I didn't agree with this and although the rest of his talk was good, I don't think that the passage was saying that. It's been hard to work through these kinds of issues over here. Often they preach the right things, but they use the wrong kinds of passages to back them up. Pray for the people here, that they would understand God's word.
Wednesday afternoon we were given the oppurtunity to go around the hospital with Dr Chu to visit the patients and takl to them about Jesus. Thank God for the great freedom that they have here to evangelise patients in a Christian hospital. We went around and sang Christmas carols for the patients then we prayed with them and Pete was able to talk about Jesus to one man who had a tracheostomy (I think the poor guy couldn't have argued with us anyway, becuase he couldn't talk!) The man apparently understands English (because he is a journalist in Taipei) so pray that this Christmas he would come to know the hope found in Jesus!

Taipei
Today I am off to Taipei for the weekend. It promises to be heaps of fun and we are going to do some shopping and hopefully go to the largest night market in Taiwan! We are hoping to spend tomorrow with Pete and Jade's friend Vivian and on Sunday to catch up with med friends from Sydney. I will try to take some photos to share with you all online.

Anyway, sorry this one is so short, but I'm not feeling 100% today. Hope your all have a great weekend in the Aussie summer and hope we win the cricket (thanks Greg for the update)!

God bless,
Jimbo

Here comes the bride... da dum da da!

Morning!

Concerto
On Friday evening Grace invited us to a concert that was being held in the hospital auditorium. We don't exactly know what it was for, but most of the audience was under the age of 10 and those few adults present were mainly supervising the paediatric population. The concert itself though was a collection of classical music being played by a pianist and a flautist and a opera singer. It was actually quite good, but I think after the first hour the novelty wore off and Pete and I became like restless kids in a church service. It was quite strange to see kids sitting in a concert with an intravenous line inserted with the drip hanging above their seat. I must photograph one of the 'drip-kids' before I leave!

Weddings
This weekend we were invited to the wedding of Mr Cow (I think that's how you would spell his name). Mr Cow was one of the aboriginal drivers who had taken us up to the mountains 2 weeks ago and although we had only met him recently he invited us along to 'experience' a traditional Taiwanese aboriginal wedding.
Now in Taiwan, the wedding focuses mainly on food (why am I not surprised?) and so we only attended the banquet part of the celebrations (apparently they got 'officially' married in a small ceremony beforehand). Apparently it is more 'prestigious' to invite heaps of people and you gain more 'face' by having lots of tables of people at your wedding.
Basically they rented out this huge restaurant and had it packed with a LOT of tables and it began with some traditional aboriginal dancers doing a dance thing that kind of looked like a cross between hip-hop and the Maori hakka. I managed to video some of the dancing and will put it into the email account later. Then came an aboriginal band, which was apparently composed of the local constabulatory. It was quite bizarre seeing aboriginal policeman seeing in a rock band at a wedding!
Then began the food! I used to think a 3 course meal was big, but we had a 10 course meal which included a lot of seafood (which I very subtly managed to avoid) and some kind of beef stew and duck and goose and fish and we just kept eating and eating and eating! I have finally learnt to pace myself when eating Taiwanese style and so I managed to get through the entire banquet without feeling like my inards were about to burst.
In Australia, we are accustomed to there being a lot of speeches about the bride and groom. Well in Taiwan, there was one brief speech about the bride and groom, but other than that, the bride and groom just mingled with the guests and visited each table. It was very informal but very loud!
Another notable presence at the wedding was... you guessed it! Politicians! This exciting election is going to be held this Saturday so what better way to dispense your election propaganda than at a wedding! Apparently it is quite normal for this to happen, although I feel if a politician crashed my wedding I would have not been as content as they were.
We were sitting on a table with Dr Tsai and Dr Lai and their families. During the banquet I was introduced to Dr Lai's brother in law who is getting married on the 19th December. We only met at the wedding, but by the time we left he had invited us all to his wedding. I can't say that I would be as hospitable as that, but the people here are truly generous towards foreigners.

Real food
After the banquet, we were all longing for some good ole Aussie tucker, so I whipped up some of Mum's famous Chicken and Potato Bake (which I cooked in a wok - sorry Mum!) which I must admit tasted really good and made me homesick!

Different church
Sunday morning we decided to go and visit another church in Puli and see what it was like. Fortunately for us, we did not have to travel far! 50 metres from our place is a church building across the road from the hospital. Apparently it was set up 15 years ago by a group of Christians who were meeting up as a Bible study group. Now it is a large church full of old and young people (including the founding missionaries) and many of the doctors who work at the hospital attend this church, including Dr Bill who is an anaesthetist who studied at UNSW (for his masters in medical education) and now his wife and son and daughter live in Sydney while he works in Taiwan. They were in Puli visiting him and so we were pleasantly surprised to meet people from Sydney at church. The church building itself had a similar layout to Parkes Baptist Church with the Communion table up the front with a set of big wooden chairs next to it and a baptistery behind the table and an almost identical cross shaped motif on the wall behind the baptistery. It was scary how similar it looked.
The church meeting began with a time of singing and we sang some old Songs of Praise classics like "Father, we love you, we worship and adore you; Glorify thy name in all the earth" and we even sang the Doxology "Praise God from whom all blessing flow". They also sang some Mandarin songs which seemed quite lively and the singing was led by a group of singers up the front and a piano player, a drummer, 2 recorder players and 2 violinists (grrr! - now I know why the Sheus play the violin - EVERY Taiwanese kid learns the violin here!) Then immediately after the singing the pastor got up and preached straight away for about 40 minutes. Normally I can handle a 40 minute sermon, but when you have no idea what's being said, you tend to get bored pretty quickly! After the sermon we celebrated the Lord's supper, which was really great! It was really encouraging to be united with these believers in Christ even though we couldn't communicate with them as freely as we would have liked. Then after church we were invited to go out for dinner with Dr Bill and Dr Benjamin and Pastor Yao.
We were taken out for dinner at this really nice restaurant which served 'Western food' and so I got to eat some delicious lamb chops for dinner. Over dinner Pete and Jade got to talking to Dr Bill about the Bible and Dr Bill was saying how he believed that the dietary requirements set out in the Old testament law were 'a manual' for how we should live today (i.e. we should eat what the Old testament Israelites ate because God wants us to eat that way). Pete and Jade were able to talk to him about what we believe as Christians (about the law and its relationship to us today because of Jesus) and he said he had never heard that before and is interested to find out more! Pray that we will be able to talk to him again and encourage him from the Bible.
During dinner whilst Pete and Jade were talking to Dr Bill, I was able to chat to Dr Benjamin and Pastor Yao about their experiences of Christianity in Taiwan. Both men became Christians during their teenage/college years and both of them are keen to see people know about Jesus. Dr Benjamin told me about how in his youth, there were many Christian doctors but now there seemed to be fewer around. He said that apparently within their hospitals they would regularly meet up with the other Christian staff (nurses, etc) for fellowship (kind of like the 'Hospital Bible Talks' in Sydney hospitals?).
Pastor Yao asked me what church was like in Sydney and so I told him about Unichurch and the work that happens on campus amongst students. He was amazed that 600 university students would come along during the week to hear the Bible being taught and to have fellowship. I think I sometimes take for granted the great privilege it is to have so many Christian brothers and sisters on campus at uni. I asked Pastor Yao what the church was like in Taiwan. He said that he struggled with getting people to be involved in the church and in evangelism. In Taiwan, people are 'consumed' by their work; something I think Australia is heading towards quite rapidly if we're not careful. Pastor Yao said that people were reluctant to come along to Bible study due to time constraints and that a lot of people who attended church didn't have a strong knowledge of the Bible. Pray for the Christians here, that they would come to a mature knowledge of the Son of God (Ephesians 4:13)
Apparently youth/children's ministry here is also very hard. In Taiwan, children are forced to study in their spare time (in order to get into a good high school so that they can get into a good university to get a good job to get a lot of money to look after their parents and bring 'honour' to their family) and so it is hard to get the kids or teenagers along to church or Sunday School or youth groups. Thank God for the amazing opportunities we have in Australia to tell the gospel to the youth of Australia and pray for Taiwan that they would be able to find opportunities to share the gospel in their 'busy' society.

Mountain Resorts
After dinner, Dr Benjamin took us to a local spa/resort place which apparently costs money to enter during the day but at night time is free. There are all these holiday log cabins in this green filled park and all around the park are these huge statues of people in various poses. Then Dr Benjamin took us up to the spa and he somehow asked the manger if we could take a walk inside so we got a tour of the spa which looked amazing! Apparently they use the water from the natural volcanic springs which is heated by the lava-stuff to make the spa water (but Dr Benjamin isn't sure if they use normal river water now instead).

Well that's probably enough ranting and raving for one day. I should probably go and have lunch now and leave you all in peace. Thanks for the emails and I hope you are all well and enjoying the heat of Australia (by the way, it's now cold here! But the mosquitoes still bite!)

God bless and 'zai jyen' (good bye)

Jimbo

22 days till Santa comes...27 days till Jimbo comes!

Zao un! (Good morning!)

Weather
I hear that there have been some pretty bad bushfires back home lately (especially near Parkes!) and that it has been hitting over 40 degrees! Well the weather here has been fairly moderate (it's hovering in the 20's) but this week (for the first time since we have been here) we have seen rain! Apparently today though there is a typhoon forecast which should be pretty interesting. Puli is pretty sheltered from the full brunt of the typhoons but apparently it's still quite awesome to behold. I will try to get some photos if anything exciting happens!

Hospital
When we switched doctors, I was looking forward to having a more 'relaxed' program than before. When Pete had Dr Wally, he managed to be home by lunchtime without fail every day. So when I was assigned to Dr Wally for the second half of the term I was elated at the prospect of having some time off. However, it seems that wherever I go, I am given more work to do! Yesterday I was shafted between doctors so that I actually ended up staying in hospital for longer than Dr Wally did! These long days are killing me! Argh! I'm never going to survive my internship when I graduate. Apparently the junior doctors and nurses have been joking about how Pete has so little work and I have so much work at hospital. Sigh...=(

Hospital Bible Study
This morning in hospital Bible study we looked at Psalm 65. Maybe Pastor Tsai is doing a series on Psalms or something because since we have been here I keep hearing message after message on the Psalms and I don't think I've heard one message so far that mentioned the gospel.Apparently this morning's message from Psalm 65 ended up being a talk about how Pastor Tsai used to be in the Taiwanese Olympic Weightlifting team and wore a belt. From this he drew some analogy about how Christians need to wear belts? And I think this is where I lost track of the logic. Then he showed us some pictures of the mountains and we sang a hymn in Taiwanese. It was a bit strange and I am not sure how much of what he is saying comes from the Bible and how much of what he says comes from his own personal thoughts on life. However, at the end of the study, Dr Nathan asked us what blessings God had given us (I've noticed a big focus on 'blessings' in Taiwanese Christian thinking - maybe due to the culture of prosperity and 'fortune' that pervades the society here - but so far I haven't heard anything of the suffering that being a Christian entails as we take up our crosses) and Dr Nathan said that he thought that blessings didn't always equate to material prosperity in this lifetime and so Pete and I shared our thoughts on the topic and Dr Nathan translated what we said into Taiwanese. Pray for the Christians here, that their faith in God would be rooted in the Bible and not in traditions or their own 'ideals' but in the simple message of the cross that appears as foolishness to the world.
At the moment, the hospital is conducting a competition/experiment between the wards to see who can decorate their wards the 'best' for Christmas. So now our once sterile wards have been transformed into bright happy places with Christmas trees and lights and little angels hanging from the roof. It feels weird seeing all this Christmas stuff around when the weather isn't that hot.

Early Christmas Surprise
Yesterday Pete and Jade surprised me with an early Christmas present. It was this CD of one of the major pop stars in Taiwan (Stefanie Sun) who we have all been watching on TV. It's a really awesome CD and she is a great singer with awesome songs, but what's even better is that now we can use the songs to learn Mandarin! One of the songs is called "Wor yair hern syung ta"which we have roughly translated to "I also miss him" and so I plan to try and translate some of the songs this weekend to help me in my Mandarin learning!

Half way
Today is roughly half way through the elective (1 month down, 1 month to go!) and it seems like only yesterday we arrived in Taipei. I am so thankful to God for the opportunity to come here are experience life in another 'world' from my own. I have learnt a lot about what God is doing in the world and how Christianity works in another culture. Although my Mandarin isn't as good as I would like, I think I will spend more time in the second half of the elective learning the lingo. I think we are planning to make a trip up to Taipei for the weekend soon and we have already seen so much of this unique country that I can't wait to see what this next month brings. Thanks to everyone who has kept me sane by emailing or phoning or praying. It's been so encouraging to be reminded of what's happening back home and I can't wait to see all of you!

Have a great weekend and God bless!

Jimbo

Too-to, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!

Hi!

Sorry I haven't written sooner, but I had a major presentation to complete for this afternoon, so you must excuse my tardiness.

The weekend
I love weekends!
Don't you? 2 days of no work/study to do and the chance to go to church and sleep in on Saturdays. After last week's taxing trip to the mountains, I was glad to kick back and relax in Puli on the weekend.
Friday night, we went grocery shopping and spent lots of money (well it sees like a lot of money when your grocery bill is over $700, but then that is really only $30 in Australia). We have discovered that meat costs about $1 AUS for one meal for all 3 of us, so we have decided to hoard up meat in our freezer to include in our meals each night. We 'think' it is pork ('joo-ro') but we really have no idea! It tastes nice with garlic though!
On Saturday afternoon Peter L (the computer guy) and his wife Ivy and their 2 sons (Eric and Edward) took us to this festival in a nearby village. From what I gathered, some famous person did something special a few hundred years ago and so now they have semi-deified him and made big idol/statues of him and hold a festival for him. This involves a lot of noise and firecrackers and big banging drums and really loud PA systems blaring the Macarena song over and over again. Unfortunately I had a headache that day and so the novelty of the decibel delights were lost on me. During the festival they get 2 carts and put a giant statue of the famous man/god/whatever-he-was and they get teams of men to push the cart and race the statues to the end of the road. This was pretty funny to watch (yet also sad) as they were literally 'chasing' after idols.
After we had watched the cart races, we were invited over for tea (that's the drink, not the meal - Taiwan holds tea in higher regard than Aussies their BBQs) at one of Peter L's friends houses. We chatted about politics and taxes (now don't I sound like an old man?) and the educational systems in Taiwan and Australia (sign me up for my hip replacement now!) and it was good because we were able to get Peter L to teach us more Mandarin (it's much more useful when you have someone to correct your bad pronunciation). I also discovered that 'guang-to' actually means 'skin-head' and the correct title for my alopecic hereditary male pattern androgenic baldness is 'too-to' (sounds like I'm the pet dog of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz).
Saturday night, Peter's sons, Edward and Eric invited us to go to the somewhat 'smaller' (compared to Taichung) Puli night markets. At the night markets, we spent some time shopping (having grown up with 3 sisters has desensitised me to the pain of retail therapy) and we spent some time at the shooting gallery (instead of shooting tin ducks, you shoot ballons) and we won a dodgy pair of watches that don't even tell the time (another fine product of Taiwan) and then we drank some tea before heading home for the night. It was quite bizarre because until that night we had hardly seen any young people (under 30) in Puli but at the night markets they all came out of hiding and were filling the streets with their merriment.

Church
Church on Sunday was fun! Joyce graciously picked us up again and we got to sing hymns in Taiwanese (they write the Chinese words in English letters so we can attempt to pronounce them as we sing) and the Bible reading was from Samuel (the bit about the guy who touched the ark of the covenant and got struck down by God) and I have no idea what the sermon was about. Apparently it was a thanksgiving service and o at the start the choir got up and started singing really nicely (Joyce translated it as "Praise the Lord, I want to praise the Lord" over and over again) and then all the Sunday School came up and sang for us. It was SO cute and reminded me of my Sunday School kids back in Sydney. Up the back were the big tough boys who refused to sing (the 'too-cool-for-school-brigade') and up the front were the ankle biters who have no idea that they are supposed to be singing and just grin at the congregation and incite the other similar heighten children next to them to riot and in the middle were the kids (mainly girls, cos boys are impossible to make sing in Sunday School) who actually did sing. It was very similar to a Parkes Baptist Sunday School Anniversary performance (in a good way Aunt Marge!) and then halfway during the sermon we had 2 new people join us; 2 of the campaigners for the election. I thought this was really dodge cos they waltzed right into church halfway thru the meeting all dressed up wearing their banners (in Taiwan you wear these tacky gold and red sashes with your 'number' on it when you are election campaigning) and they then stood at the door after church handing out how to vote cards. It really got up my nose that these people were doing this at church, but most of the Taiwanese people thought it normal, so maybe I'm just overreacting? What do you guys think?
After church Joyce got roped into taking the election people on a quick introduction/tour so Pete and Jade and I were left to play on the church's play equipment (which was really fun!) and this kid came up with his mother and said to his mother "That man (me) is a foreigner because he has blue eyes, but that man (Pete) isn't because he doesn't!" Then this kid proceeded to run around the play equipment like he had just been infused with intravenous undiluted red cordial. Up and down the ladders, jumping up and down on the platforms bouncing off every solid object like he was a Gummi Bear. Pete and I made a quick spot diagnosis of ADHD and hid our laughter as his mum tried in vain to bundle him into their car.
Joyce then took us to meet her dog and we realized that she actually lived above the church (the manse is above the church) and so we got a quick tour and she had a Welsh corgi named Donna who was really cute but had no tail (something about cutting it off to prevent sheep or cows getting it?? Any thoughts from a farmer in Parkes?)
We asked Joyce what she was going to do that afternoon and she replied, "Wash my dog, my father and my car!" (We knew she meant her father's car not her father, but it sounded funny!) Haha!

Banking
At long last I finally ran out of my initial money, so I had to make a trek to the bank on Monday. Now I had managed to survive for 3 weeks on only $100 AUS but decided it was time to cash in my travelers cheques so off I trekked into the dingy streets of Puli to find the bank. I had previously ridden a bike around town to find the bank, but to no avail, so this time armed with a map and determintation I walked for 30 minutes into town to find the Bank of Taiwan. After much searching and praying (the traffic almost killed me on multiple occasions - I love road rules in Australia!) I finally stumbled across this small dark alley in which the bank was situated. Not exactly the most easy place to find, but I managed to get them to convert my cheques into $23,000 NTD (doesn't that sound like a lot?) which is actually only $900 AUS but seeing as it sounds like a lot of money, I felt rich and plan to take a photo of my riches before they go (I can't think of any other time when I will have $23,000 cash on me).
On the way home I tried out the local KFC (it's amazing how you can order using charades and pointing to things) which was very substandard! I don't think I'll be going back there again in a hurry! The burger was so small and had almost no chicken on it and the fries were not like the KFC ones in Australia, they were more like stale Hungry Jacks ones.

Medicine
Being back on the wards is great! Having had a week off, Pete and I were ready to tackle the deep dark depths of internal medicine and sure enough within 2 hours of being back I had been given another presentation to do. This time I am presenting to the ICU ward meeting on the topic of "Current management strategies for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome with particular reference to the Evidence Based Medicine support for prone positioning"... sounds like fun eh? I think so too!
Despite the heavy workload, we still do get time to relax a lot and I AM thankful for the teaching Dr Nathan has given me, cos today when Pete and I showed up for ward rounds, we were told that we were getting 'shuffled' around to other doctors. So now I am with Dr Wally whose English isn't as good as Dr Nathan's so I will be learning a lot less but hopefully there will be less assignments for me (although he has already asked if I can do a presentation to the doctors on "The Australian Medical system")
Dr Wally is a lot different too in his style of medicine. One of our patients has severe chronic alcoholic problems (resulting in him bleeding in his stomach from oesophageal varices) and Dr Wally knew that the patient was a Christian so he told the patient that he needs to "be a good Christian" if he wanted to live much longer. I think he was trying to encourage the patient but I'm not sure if it worked because as we left the man broke down in tears and wept. Pray for this man that he would find comfort in God and that the Spirit would fill him (instead of wine which leads to drunkenness).
I had to stop myself from bursting out laughing today in the ICU. Dr Wally was trying to explain the bad prognostic state of one of the patients and he meant to say 'vegetative' but he came out with "He is in a vegetarian state". If it wasn't for the face mask disguising my grin, I'm sure I would have been caught out!

Coping with Taiwan
Sorry if my last blog seemed a bit despondent. I think it had been a long week and I was feeling the pressure of all the new things here. I am feeling much better now (thanks!) and God has been very good to us all over here! Friday night we all sat down and talked about how we were feeling about Taiwan and our homesickness which was good, because I realized that it wasn't just me feeling like that and then on Sunday I had a phone call from a whole bunch of Unichurch people (thanks Jeanne and Daniel and Steph and Ange and Bek and Bron and Bec!) which really encouraged me and then on Monday morning I had an inbox full of encouraging emails from back home... so thanks to all those who wrote/called and encouraged me! I really appreciated it!

Quick question
In our Bible studies that we have been doing at night, we have been looking at what Jesus death means for us. One of the questions we had that we haven't been able to find a good Bible verse for is "How can we be sure that Jesus death was sufficient enough to redeem us?" Anyone out there got any helpful passages? Thanks!

Health
Another quick prayer point, since being over here, all 3 of us have been expericning regular headaches and fatigue which has been taking us out of action for a while. I'm not sure if it's the climate or the stress of a new environment but we would appreciate your prayers for good health (and thank God that none of us has come down with food poisoning so far!)

Music
For those of you who may be aquainted with my 'diverse' musical tastes, you will know that I like to listen to anything and everything and Taiwan is no exception. Having found that there are 3 music channels in Taiwan (2xMTV and channel V) I have been educating myself on the local music here and have been very impressed. At the moment I am trying to locate some CDs next time I go into town, particularly one called WuHA (I think?) and this Singaporean singer named Stefanie (whose latest video clip we think is a ballad but has this random guy screaming in it all the time? Can any of my Asian friends explain that to me?) The only Western music they play is Eminem and Britney but I manage t keep myself amused with the vast array of funny Taiwanese artists (like this funny dance number called "UpUp").

Well anyway, I have rambled again for far too long and need to go and give my presentation to the ICU staff now, so I'll sign off and hear from you all soon!

God bless,

Jimbo