And So It Begins. . .

Kinmen County, Taiwan

So here I am, 7,500 miles from home on the other side of the world. Two weeks ago I was leaving my lovely home in Ohio and beginning a journey that would eventually bring me here, to Kinmen, a little island only about a mile off the southeast coast of China.

Kinmen (pronounced JING-men in Chinese) may be small but it is a very pleasant place to live especially where I am located. I’m living in a dorm next to a junior high school. Within a five minute walk from my dorm is a gym, a couple pools, a track, tennis and basketball courts, a bus stop, and (most importantly) a couple tea stands. I LOVE their milk tea! Yes, the Lord has definitely blessed the Kinmen team of teachers with an excellent location for living.

Living in another country definitely takes some getting used to. In Taiwan, they seem to think garbage cans, towels, napkins, and sometimes even soap, are not necessary. I’m constantly looking for a paper towel to dry my hands on after I wash them, but even if I find one there’s no place to throw it away! Oh well, that’s just how they do things here. Fortunately, since everyone living on my hall is American, there are some towels and trash cans around.

I arrived at Taipei, Taiwan, the capital city of Taiwan, on August 23 after about 24 hours of travel time. The first two days in Taipei were spent in team leader meetings where the group discussed the upcoming year. The group of English teachers also toured a small amount of the city visiting the Sogo mall, the Taipei Zoo, the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial, and the Taipei night market. Taipei was fascinating, but it was very crowded as with any large Asian city.

A giant sandcastle on Fulong Beach

The Kinmen team flew from Taipei to Kinmen on August 28. Since there was a typhoon approaching Taiwan and also Kinmen we received huge amounts of rain this week. In fact, I’ve never seen so much rain in my life. But aside from that, we (the Kinmen team) had a great week getting accustomed to our new home and preparing ourselves for teaching English which begins on Monday.

Pray that I would be a light to the darkness that is present here on Kinmen. It is my desire to love and serve my students, and to provide them with a godly example of Christ so they might one day come to know Christ as their own personal savior. 

Note: I did not take either of these pictures. I found them online.