Another Goodbye...

Some people might think that since I move so much, it should be easy by now, right? No, it's not. I remember how much I didn't want to move from our home in Washington. I was happy! I didn't want to leave. I'd lived there the longest I have lived anywhere, 5 years. I also remember just trusting God that He knew what was best. Sure enough, He was right as always. I love Taiwan! In fact, after only being here a week, I almost felt guilty about enjoying my new home so much already. Haha!

Since the very beginning of living here I have fell in with Taiwan - it's people, culture, food, and beautiful land. I don't know if it's because of my stage in life or what, but since moving here I really feel like a part of Taiwan and all the people I have met here (Taiwanese and other nationalities). They will always be a part of me and in my heart. I'm going to miss everyone here terribly! At the same time, I'm excited to go back to the States and see my family and friends. But.... I don't want to leave! As you can see, I'm having conflicted emotions. Haha!
When I'm tempted to worry though, I remember these two verses:

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11

"Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Genesis 28:15

I especially like the last one since it promises that He will bring me back to this land ;)
I know I can trust my God, I trusted Him before and He brought me here! His plans are always Plan A and I don't want to interfere with them. I'll just have to see what the next adventure He has planned for me.

But to all my friends in Taiwan; I'm going to miss you so much! But I will see you again, if not on this earth then in the next. <3

Racing up the 101

I gingerly opened my eyes as my dark room was suddenly illuminated by my light.
"Oh! The race is today!" I practically jumped out of my bed in anticipation. We were going to run up Taipei 101 with it's 91 floors, and 2,046 stairs! The problem was, I was still kind of sick with a flu/ cold...
Well, God was going to have to help me. I knew we had to take a health check-up too and that made me a little nervous.
All of us runners; my dad, my mom, Inah, Benjamin, and myself, met at the MRT (metro). My dad noticed that Benjamin didn't have his tag on his shoe.
"Do you have it? You can't run without it." my dad commented.
"Yeah, it's in my bag right... right...Where is it?" He said, rummaging through his bag. Apparently, he left it at home! Luckily he rode his scooter and was able to zoom up the mountain, find it, and meet us again in time.
We just milled around in the drizzling rain for about an hour until we could line up. They had separated us all into groups because of the amount of people and how narrow the staircase was.
I remember looking up at the 101 as far as my neck could tilt. It was slightly intimidating yet exciting at the same time.

 Soon, my parents got in line with the rest of us not too far behind for the health check up. I was starting to get nervous. I wasn't sure want to expect. Soon enough, I could see they were taking people's temperatures.
"Uh oh. I've had had a fever the last week. It had gone away, but it still makes me nervous."
Benjamin was in front of me and when he finished, he kind of paused to see what would happen with me. As the guy put his instrument over my forehead, I prayed and tried to prepare myself for the likely disappointing of not being able to run. Those three seconds seemed so much longer! He looked at it and said, "Okay, good" and waved me in. I couldn't believe it! I was so excited, I was in! I high-fived Benjamin and Inah and went to find my parents.
I ended up being in the same group as my dad. We waited and slowly winded our way in line into the building. As we got closer, we saw that they sent people one at a time with a few seconds in between to space them out. Being next in line, the guard looked at his watch, said 'go', and I was off!
I knew that there was no way anyone (at least no normal person) could run all the way to the top, but I was excited and decided I would run at least a little and then maybe at the end. Well, after 12 stories (so 24 sets of stairs), I had run all I could. My lungs started hurting really bad but I kept going; 24th floor, 30th, 35th, 49th, 52nd ... man was I getting tired! It wasn't so much that I was tired, but that my lungs felt like they were going to collapse! I started stopping more often for water, but every time I stopped, I would start coughing like crazy.  I wanted to be done by the 60th (something) floor.
"Maybe I shouldn't have passed that health check." I thought ruefully. "Okay, think positive, Enjoli" I told myself. "I can do this! I'm running/walking up Taipei 101! How cool is that?"
Each floor seemed farther and longer apart though. I was just trying to survive, I decided. 84th floor, 85th, 88th, and finally 90th! Just one more! I was able to somehow run up the last floor only to walk the few steps to the finish line.
"Yes!" I pumped my hands into the air. I survived!

 I saw my mom and her video camera as I passed the finish line, but I was feeling really faint and just wanted to sit down, "and maybe get some water." I thought as I made my way over the the water stand. I grabbed a cup and sat down at the closest, open place. It was so hard to breathe, I felt faint and a little nauseated, but I was done! After a while, my mom found me. My dad had come just a few minutes after me. Somehow, I made it to the elevator and back to the bottom of the building. By then I was feeling a lot better and felt like a could function again, haha! Once there, we got our medals, bag of goodies, and our certificate. I had made it in 30 min, 7 seconds.

 Wow, God is good! I don't know how I did that; only with God's help! Afterwards when people asked how the race was, I responded; "Honestly, it was awful while running up, but so exciting and rewarding when I finished. But some advice; never run up the 101 while you are sick!"

Jesus Wins!

 I always look forward to our annual ECR; English Church Retreat. It's always uplifting, reviving, and also a lot of fun. This year's speaker was Elizabeth Talbot from Jesus 101. She was awesome. She just had this way about making everything easy to understand, fascinating, sometimes funny, yet always profound. I enjoyed it so much, I would like to share with all of you some of the things she talked about that I found interesting.

During the first meeting, Elizabeth Talbot talked about Revelation 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End..."
Okay, so most of us know this short, simple verse. If you dig a little deeper, you'll realize something beautiful. God says He's the Alpha and Omega. What does that really mean? Well, it's the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet. So, in other words Jesus is our A to Z. This is the cool part! We all have problems, right? I can guarantee you that your problem starts with a letter between A-Z. That's what's awesome!  He will always be there and He can help you overcome any problem you are having.
The verse also says He is the Beginning and the End. Meaning, God has been with and knows your past, He is here now, and He will continue to be with you in the future. We don't need to worry and ponder too much on the past because Jesus is the past! We don't need to worry about now because Jesus is the present. And we don't have to worry about what will happen in the future, because that's what Jesus is. It's amazing how powerful and beautiful this simple verse is. 

She also talked about how Jesus is our Goel. It's a Hebrew word which means 'kinsman redeemer.' The translation of this word is used many times in the Bible. For example, Boaz was Ruth and Naomi's goel. He was their nearest kinsman or kinsman redeemer.  In Bible times, the goel of the family had four roles: 
1.) Redeem a relative who had sold himself into slavery
2.) Redeem property that was given up by a poor relative.
3.) To avenge the blood of a murdered relative.
4.) To appear in a lawsuit as a helper for a relative to make sure that justice was down. 
We have someone who has done all that for us; Jesus. We are slaves to sin, but Jesus died on the cross that we might be redeemed. He has a place in Heaven ready for us because he avenged His own blood for us. I love this image of Jesus and am so glad He is our Goel! 

Something else the speaker said was very applicable to my life. We were all born with a purpose which means God has a plan for each and every one of our lives. Elizabeth Talbot is a pastor and she told us a story about how even when she was young, she loved to line up her dolls and preach to them. As soon as she said that, I remembered that I used to do something very similar! I would line up all my dolls (and Emily, my sister. Haha!) and teach them. I always loved to play teacher and read to my little sister. Since I was two years old, I told everyone I wanted to be a teacher.  I realized how many teaching opportunities God has provided for me in the last few years. I've taught in Tanzania, Summer school here in Taiwan, I help at Outdoor School with the upper grades and Adventures Club with the lower grades currently, and I’ve taught kids in lots of other small ways. When I heard her say that, it was like the Holy Spirit nudged me and said, "See? I have a plan for you too, Enjoli." 

I want to mention one other thing before I close. She talked about the Woman at the Well and the differences between her water and Jesus' water. I love how the Bible describes what she did when she ran to tell the town that she had met Jesus. John 4:28, "The woman then left her water pot, and went her way into the city..." This is also a symbol. She finally accepted Jesus' living water, left the past behind, and then shared Him with others. You know, the gospel is like a gift exchange. We bring death and exchange it for Jesus' gift which is eternal life. Jesus dies, and we walk away with the Water of Life (like the woman at the well). It costs us nothing, yet it costed Him everything. What an awesome God we serve! Satan has lost and Jesus wins!

A Crazy Run

"Ugh" I moaned as the light in my room turned on at 4 am.
"Make sure you're up" my dad said, "We leave in a half hour."
I stumbled to the bathroom, splashed cold water in my face, and then threw on some warm running clothes.
I glanced out the window. Yep, the forecast was correct; extremely cold and lots of rain. In fact, rumors said it might even reach 2 degrees Celsius (35 F)  in the city!
"Well, this should definitely be an interesting day" I thought, not knowing how interesting it would be...

At about 4:45, we were all in the van.  Marcy, my mom, Shin, Benjamin, Joel and I were doing the 1/2 marathon, my dad, Danielle and Jean-Raymond were doing the 10k, and Emily, Melissa, Patrice and Tracy were doing a fun run (3k). I was just shivering with excitement ... and probably the cold, haha! Fumbling in the dark, we tried to pin our numbers on our shirts, and tie the scanner on our shoes. We all jumped out of the van and joined half of Taiwan (so it seemed) ... there were SO many people. Literally thousands of people all lined up behind a giant starting line. We quickly joined the mass crowd of runners decked out in plastic raincoats.  Before we knew it, the countdown finished and we were off! Well, we then started tiptoeing/jogging in place until we got to the starting line with thousands of others.
Benjamin was close behind me as I tried to run to the side and pass the massive crowd. We ended up staying together the whole race.
"This is like an obstacle course!" He commented once. "Haha! Your right!" I said while a I jumped over a puddle, dodged a few people, ran around a thrown raincoat, and tried to avoid running into anyone. We continued running in the dark and rain for a while, just trying to get ahead of the multitude. After a few kilometers, it cleared up a little and we could run our pace a little easier and not have to worry as much about running into people. In the beginning, my nose and fingers were just connected icicles to my body, but soon enough the running warmed us up a bit. The plastic raincoats everyone were wearing littered the side of the road.
"Oh! There's the Grand Hotel." I pointed. "I wonder how long we've been running. I haven't seen any signs yet."
Just a few minutes later, we saw the poster which read "6k."
"So, we run 6 kilometers in a little less than a half hour."
We continued to run as the sun slowly peeped behind the shadowed mountains. It was also really cool to see the city below as we ran over an overpass.
We continued just running and running and only 'stopped' to grab a cup of water or energy drink, swallow, toss the cup to the side, and continue running.

"Oh, look up there." Benjamin motioned to me. "Looks like we have to run up that big hill."
"Ugh." I hate running uphill. The uphill run was the last 1/2 marathon I had run. This one was supposed to be flat. :/
It wasn't too bad, but was very tiring. After about 13k, I was starting to lose my energy and get a bit tired, but we ran on. At one point we saw Marcy and my mom running as we were headed in the opposite direction (there was a turn).
"Hi!" we waved to them.
"Oh great."
"What?" Benjamin turned to me.
"Oh, just one of the pins holding my number just came unclasped."
I spent the next few minutes trying pin it back without jabbing it into me.
It started to get colder as we ran in the opposite direction with the wind on our wet faces.
I was very grateful for the water stop when we had only 3 more kilometers to go. I quickly downed the refreshing drink. I noticed there was a symphony playing for us.
"Wow that's nice."
I didn't think about it too much because by then, I was just trying to keep myself going.
"I'm... so...tired!" I panted.
"Me... too." Benjamin answered.
"Just keep running. Just keep running. I'm almost there. Just 2 more kilometers!" I told myself.
We were planning on picking up our pace at the last kilometer, but when we got there we only had enough energy to just keep going.
"It's so close... but so... far." I gasped between breaths. What seemed an eternity later, we rounded the last bend and we could see the giant finish line.
"We can do this!" we said as we picked up our speed (I don't know how we did. The only reason I think I did was because whenever I see the finish I get a spurt of energy so I can just be done, haha!)
"Let's finish together" he suggested, so I grabbed his hand, lifted them up and then, YES!!! We finished!
Then out loud, "We did it! We did it!"

I stumbled forward and collected my medal and towel. I dropped down on the wet grass and then laid down. It was too bad no one was there at the end for us, but just a few minutes later my dad and Danielle came over. They had finished the 10 a little earlier and had come to see us.
"Good job! You did it." My dad congratulated. "There serving some hot ginger tea over there if you want some."
"That sounds good. I'm not cold yet, but I know I will be. Ugh, but you'll have to help me off the ground."
He did, and Benjamin and I went to get some tea.
"Let's go to the finish line a look for the others!"
I agreed and we walked to the sidelines for them.
"Is that them?"
"Oh, never mind."
(A little later...)
"There they are! Right there!"
We shouted and Benjamin waved his towel in the air to my mom and Marcy as they came into sight.
"Jia yo! You're almost there!" I encouraged. Soon they crossed the finish line. We decided to a wait a little to see if one of our other runners would come. Soon, we gave up and went to join the others. We stood around for about an hour after finishing and I was absolutely freezing! I couldn't stop shivering and chattering. My shoes to my knees were soaked as well as most of the rest of my body. As we started looking for the others, I could hardly walk. It was incredibly painful. I was walking like a penguin for two days afterwards, lol!
The walk to the van seemed an eternity away, but finally we jumped (well, more like slowly eased ourselves inside) the warm van.
We joked that our next run would probably be in a Typhoon, because each run is crazy. The first one was straight up a mountain, this was in record coldness, so the next one might as well be in a typhoon!

A little later, we found out that I had won 5th place in my age group! I was super excited. I would have even won some money, but apparently there weren't enough people in my age group. Out of those thousands of people, I would think that would be more than enough, but that's okay. :p  I was elated that we had made our goal as well! We were under two hours; 1 hr, 57 sec. to be exact.

As we were waiting in the van to pickup the 3k runners, Danielle was talking on the phone with her sister who was still on the mountain.
"Really?"
She hung up the phone and squealed, "It's SNOWING on the mountain!!!"
We all immediately looked out the window and sure enough, you could see the mountain dusted with snow.
Yes, you heard me right. It actually snowed on the tropical island of Taiwan. I know.  Wow. It was the coldest it had been in over a decade.

The Taiwanese were hilarious. After we were all cleaned up from our race, we drove up the mountain to celebrate with hot soup and hot chocolate. On the way, we saw tons of cars who had purposely piled snow on their cars and put little snowmen on their wind shields! It was pretty funny. There was a lot of traffic too. It seemed like everyone in Taipei wanted to see the snow and take picture.  Can't blame them.  We did too!
(On a sad note, we heard a couple days later that over 80 people had died from the 'extreme' cold weather. It was mostly because their bodies weren't used to the cold, and just didn't wear enough. Probably a lot of homes don't have heaters either. Anyways, I've been keeping their families in prayer)
So, pretty crazy day, don't you think? :)