A Sabbath Morning in the Police Department

"Oh no! I left the camera in the taxi!"
It was Sabbath morning and we were on our way to the 'Big Event.' The Big Event was a big gathering and church service of all the Adventist in Taiwan that was sponsored by the conference. It was also a celebration for all the people getting baptized. From our church, we had seven people (Praise God :) ) come up for baptism during the evangelistic series a little while back. I helped with the children's program and in all, the Evangelisitc series was a great success.
My dad had to leave early so, that left my mom, sister, and I to figure out how to get there. Thankfully, a friend graciously offered to meet us at the MRT station and help us find our way to the hall. We were going to take a bus to the MRT, but it was taking a while and a taxi conviently showed up.
"Let's just take the taxi," my mom said,"who knows when our bus will come, it's taking forever!"
We waved the taxi and hopped in. About fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the MRT station. My mom payed him and then we got out of the taxi. We started walking to the other side of the station where we were supposed to meet Shin. This is when my mom halted and gasped, "I left the camera in the taxi!" We immediately turned around and ran back to the road where he had dropped us off. My mom peered through a few of the parked taxis, trykng to sen if it was the right one, but it was in vain. The taxi had already left. One of the drivers beckoned us to hop in his taxi, thinking that we wanted a ride.
"No, I left my camera in another taxi!" My mom tried to explain.
"Enjoli," she said, turning to me,"Hurry and go get Shin!"
Turning around, I  quickly run back to the other side of the station. I got quite a few stares as I ran by. I could just imagine their thoughts: "Who's that white/American girl all dressed up that's just running through the station!?"
Finally, I spotted  him in the crowd.
"Hi, Happy Sabbath!"
"Hi!" I gasped  for breath, "You have to come ... Quickly...my mom ... Left her camera... In the taxi!" I exclaimed between breathes.
His smiled turned into a worried frown. "Let's go!"
So, we ran back to the other side of the station.
When we arrived, my mom brought us up to date, "I kept telling this guy that I left my camera in a taxi, so he told me to call this number. Apparently, that 'number' was the police department. So, the police should be here soon." My mom sighed. Not surprisingly, she was very stressed and worry.
Shin immediately began calling and talking to people.
Soon, the police came and talked to us. Of course, we had no clue what they were saying, but Shin translated for us, "He said they are going to check the cameras surrounding the MRT to see if they can see the taxi you came in and it's number." He translated. "Stay here and I'll go with them to the Police Department around the corner and watch the video cameras."
So we waited...and waited ... And waited.
"I'm sure they'll find it. And I guess if we don't, well, you keep talking about getting a new camera." I told my mom, trying to cheer her up.
We waited for about an hour or so after they left when Shin called us.
"We can't find it, but if you want, you guys can come over here and see If you can."
So, we walked over to the police office. We kept watching the video but we couldn't find ourselves either!
Suddenly, mom my spotted  the bottom of her long, church dress in the video.
"There I am! We are right there!" We couldn't see the license plate of the taxi though. Our taxi had pulled in between two other taxis and dropped us off. It just so happened that right as we get out of the car, a bunch of traffic goes by. If my mom had not worn a long dress (which she debated on doing) there was no way you could have seen us.
The police went back in the video and played it in slow motion. After a few tries, we saw the license plate!
The police went right to work and called the number. Turns out that it was only the number of the taxi, but eventually they got a hold of the driver.
We were just talking amongst ourselves as we sat in the office chairs, when they told us the great news; they had got a hold of the driver and would be here in about a half hour!
You can know without a doubt that we thanked God for the miracle he performed.

Lost... Again!

Did I mention in my last post how much I love how safe Taiwan is how kind the people are? Well, it couldn't have been more true last Thursday.
I had previously been instructed to go to my friend, Danielle's house after school, because they (my parents) were going out. So, as I slung my bag over my shoulder, I started walking alongside my friend, Vivian, to the bus stop.
"Which bus are you taking?" She asked as we crossed the street.
"Well," I answered, "Today I'm going to my friend's house so I can take either the 5 or the 15. Oh look! There it is! Bye, I'll see you tomorow!"
"Bye bye!" Vivian called as she waved.
Taking a seat, I glanced at my watch. It read 5:15. "Hmm." I thought, "I should be there in about 20 minutes, add or subtract a few minutes for traffic up the mountain."
I gripped my seat as the bus lurched forward. The bus started to drive down the busy road and I leaned back and watched the scenery. Suddenly, I sat up as the bus driver turned to the left.
"Wait a minute!" I thought. "We are supposed to go straight up the mountain, why did he turn?!"
He continued to drive and I continued to get more and more nervous. None of my surroundings were familiar at all.
"God? Where am I going? I could use some help. Please just help me to get to Danielle's house safe and sound." I prayed inwardly.
I considered getting off, but, that wouldn't help me any because I wouldn't know how to get back! So, I continued to sit in the bus while I kept driving and dropping of people. Finally, the last person got off and it was just me. The bus driver turned around in his seat and started 'yelling' (he wasn't, but the Chinese Language makes it sound like they are sometimes) at me in Chinese! Of course, I had no clue what he was saying!
"I don't understand," I tried to communicate with him, "I only know English!"
"Ah" he answered. " uh... Final. Finished. Um, all done."
By now he had parked and turned off the bus in huge parking lot. Things were not looking good. I had come to the final destination of this bus route, and it was the last round one as well. This guy was off work; off duty for the night. I was very lost, somewhere in the middle of Taipei city, with a bus driver that can't really speak English, and I had no way or idea how to get back.
"Where are you going?" He asked.
"Yang Ming Shan." I answered.
"Ah. Hmm..." Then he mumbled in Chinese. Finally, he said something that I took to be "sit down" by his gestures.
As I sat down, I watched as the bus driver went back to his seat, started the engine and turned around!  He ended up doing the whole route again so he could take me back to where I had started.
I was so thankful for this driver who had gone way out of his way to take me back since I was lost.
"Shea Shea!" (Chinese for thanks or thank you) I thanked him as I stepped off the bus and started over. Only a few moments later, my bus arrived I finally was on the right bus.
Sigh. If only it ended there, right? But no, I had to go get lost again.
As I stepped off the bus, I noticed it had become very dark and a little cooler. As I trudged up the mountain road, I thought, "Shouldn't the short-cut to their house be pretty close by?" I kept walking, but I didn't see the gazebo where I was supposed to turn. I was almost to my house when I realized I had definitely passed the shortcut. I thought about just going home and forgetting the whole thing, but I knew the my parents would come to pick me up at Danielle's house. If I wasn't there they would be worried. So, I decided to turn around. After a while of searching, I still couldn't find the short cut!
Abruptly,  I stopped and peered down a road with a sign I recognized.
"Oh!" I exclaimed out loud, "This is the other shortcut to their house. I'll just take this one." Eagerly I
 strode down the road until... There was a fork in the road.
"Hmmm. Right or left?" I pondered for a few seconds. "I think it's to the left." I hadn't take this short
cut for a long time because I usually take the other one 'by the gazebo'. I followed the road until it became dirt road, then a trail, and then a tiny, little, narrow path that was leading me into the vast unknowns of the mountain. Now, there had been street lights the whole time I had been on the road, but now I was by a creek or something, in the jungle, on a tiny little path, and now there were no street lights. Finally, I turned around.
"Forget it! I'm just going to go home." I told myself.
So, I walked all the way back to the road and then all,the way up the hill back to my house. I was just so tired, hungry and very sore. The reason I was so sore was because just a few days earlier, I had a 'fight with concrete' and the concrete won. Let me explain.
So, my friends and I were outside walking back to the school (we had just gone out for lunch)
under the MRT station (MRT is like a subway or train). There are these huge, round, concrete pillars with a cement square around them that hold the track up. Now, I was walking backwards because my friends were all gathered around me and some of the girls were playing or doing something with ID badge which was around my neck when suddenly, "SMACK!" I fell back into the cement square and smacked my head really hard on the huge pillars. They told me afterwards that they just kinda stared at me, not sure what to do. Finally, one of the guys pulled me up.
"Are you okay?" They all wanted to know. "Um, ya kinda." They insisted I go talk to Mrs. Longfellow (a teacher). I didn't think I needed to but I reluctantly went. It's a good thing too, becuase my arm had a big gash and was bleeding, a big bruise and cut on my hip, lots of minor scratches, but the worst was my head. It was throbbing! I pressed ice on it the fir the rest of school. I had a big goose egg. My back has been hurting periodically too, but it's much better.
Anyways,I was sore and tired as I trudged homeward bound. Atleast, I reach the gate, but...of course it was locked and the gatekeeper wasn't there.
"Ugh!" I moaned. "I just want to go home and hop in bed!" I waited a while, but nobody came, so I finally decided to try and find the shortcut to my friends house again.
"God please help to find that silly old gazebo and the shortcut!" As I walked back down the road in
the dark, I kept telling myself (out loud) "You're fine, Enjoli! You can do this! You'll find it in no time.
Thankfully, I was right.
"Thank you!" I shouted as I glanced heavenwards. I briskly walked down the trail to the school campus (her house is in the school campus).
"Oh no! What if the school's gate is locked?!" I remembered. "Well, we'll just have to see."
I arrived at the gate and it was open! Finally, I arrived at their doorstep and rang the door bell. As Danielle let me in the house I exclaimed, "You don't know how happy I am to see you!" I then proceeded in telling her the story as she fed me some supper, becuase I was really hungry and hadn't eaten much all day.
 About a half an hour later, my parents arrived.
"Did you have fun?" My dad asked.
"Well... I just got here 30 minutes ago."
"What!?" He exclaimed.
"I'll explain in the car."
As we drove home, I retold my story.
"Did you pray when you got lost?" My mom asked me.
I answered,"Are you kidding me?! I was praying the entire time!"

15 Reasons Why I Like about Living in Taiwan

1.) The People - everyone here is always very kind and considerate. If you are lost, having a hard time trying to communicate, parking, or literally anything, people here are more than willing to give a helping hand.
2.) Manners - people in general are a lot more polite here.
3.) Church Family -  I felt very welcome in my new church and I love my new friends and church family.
4.) School - I was a little bit nervous to go to school (the only other time I went to school was in 7th grade)especially in a different country. I wasn't sure if it would be too hard or how I would like it, but I'm loving it so far!
5.) My Teachers - all my teachers are wonderfully and are helping me grow academically and spiritually. I'm so thankful for all they are doing. I'm very happy that they speak English as well. ;)
6.) School Friends - I have so many wonderful, fun friends at school! It makes school a lot more fun and interesting. :)
7.) Food! - fried rice, Chinese noodles, dumplings, bubble drinks, oh they are all so good! Actually, my whole family has been craving American food, but me? Nah! Give me the Taiwanese food! :D
8.) Night Markets - these are always fun to go to. Look in cool shops, eat good food and bubble drinks, and look around.
9.) Transportation - definitely thankful for the buses, MRT, and the scooters. It would be very difficult to get to school and back without them! And the scooter is way faster and easier to get around. It's fun to fly past all the traffic.
10.) Views - Taiwan quite beautiful, especially on the mountain. Looking down on the huge city is a breathtaking sight.
11.) The Beaches - of course! Love swimming in clear water with hundreds of fish swarming around you.
12.) Weather - sometimes a little bit hot, but overall, it's great weather! Nice and warm.
13.) Places - there are so many fun places to go and they are usually really cheap! I love going to the bowling alleys, and not to mention Taipei 101!
14.) Our House - our apartment turned out to be really nice! Not to mention we have a pool... (My dream! Lol!) very nice on hot days.
15.) The Langguage - even though I don't know Chinese and it's a super difficult Langguage to learn, I hope to learn some. Plus, it sounds really cool and the Chinese characters fascinate me.

Moon Festival Weekend

 
“Wow!” I whispered to myself as I gazed upward as far as my neck would allow. I had just stepped out of the MRT station along with my family and friends from school and there it was, jut right there towering above me in all its magnificence: Taipei 101.  For those of you who don’t know, Taipei 101 is a very famous building. It is the tallest building in Taiwan, in fact, it was the tallest building in the world at one point. It has 101 stories, hence, the name Taipei 101.


My friends were dying to take me to the 101 for a while, so, we decided to go on my friend, William’s birthday. So, there we were, starting on our grand adventure and tour of the famous tower.
Stepping into the fastest elevator in the world, we zoomed up to the 91st floor, the highest floor visitors can access. I gazed out the tall widows down on Taipei. The city is HUGE! Massively tall building and skyscrapers poked up from every space on the ground. Freeways were jam-packed with buses, scooters, and other vehicles. The site was breath-taking! Best of all, they sky was really clear so you could see everything, everywhere!

“Come on, Enjoli!” my friend, Vivian beckoned me. “We’re taking a group photo!”
And boy, did we take group photos. They insisted on taking a group photo at every turn! Haha! It was fun though. We did all sorts of poses. Now I’ll have lots of pictures to remind of the good memories we shared.
After we had finished touring and taking hundreds of photos, we went back down and had some lunch. I had a rice burger and a mango bubble drink (Of course. Bubble drinks are like my favorite thing in the world!).

 The next day was Monday, BUT, I didn’t have to go to school because it was “Moon Festival.” So what did we do? We had some more fun. Along with some church friends, we went to the beach! About an hour’s drive away, we went to the beach to snorkel. We had to climb over rocks for about a half a mile until we got there. I felt bad for the men who were trying to hold the cooler. Finally we made it though. As soon as my mom gave the ‘ok’ because our sunblock had dried, we rushed down, jumped of the rock, and swam around.

It was a whole other world under the water! Tiny, bright-colored fish swarmed around me, bigger fish swam for cover in the coral, and little crabs crawled over the rocks. We forgot to bring bread, but we smashed up some leftover sushi and gave it to the fish. They went nuts! They flocked all around us as they gobbled up the tiny pieces of food. 
The water felt amazing and I felt like I could swim forever, but, my stomach soon won and I reluctantly crawled out to eat some lunch. 

As I was eating, someone asked me teasingly, “You going to jump of that big rock over there like those people?” while pointing to a huge rock cliff that people were jumping off of, into the ocean.
“Are you kidding me? No way!” I exclaimed. Soon, I finished my picnic lunch.
“Are going with me to the cliff? You can at least jump from the smaller rock!” my Dad questioned while motioning to the huge rock looming over the water.
“Well, okay.” I agreed. I plunged into the water and swam with my dad to the cliff.
I only hesitated a second as I jumped into the salty waters. When I came back up, my dad was climbing up to the highest rock again.
"Come on!" He said. "It's not too scary!"
Filled with some new-found courage (that came from where? I don't know.) I scurried up behind by dad, along with another friend, Shin. I stood on the edge and looked down.
"Uh... This looks really scary..." I said nervously. I waited for my nerves to calm ( which they never did completely) and then finally my dad started the countdown, "3, 2,1!"
"AHHHHHHHHHH!" I screamed all the way down until I hit the water.  Sputtering, I came up.
"That was fun!" I grinned as I climbed up to do it again. I did it four or five more times before we had to leave.

It was a fun weekend. I really feel bad for all of you back in the States who don't get a Moon Festival weekend. :p

The School with Seven Floors, Glass Walls, and All ipads

I was nervous; very nervous as I hopped of the moped and walked through the automatic glass doors, into my new school. On my right was a security guard (!), straight in front of me was an elevator that goes to all eight floors of the school, and all around me were Chinese students milling around and talking to each other. I noted that I was the only white American student there. Everywhere around me they were openly staring at me and whispering to their friends. Talk about awkward! I pulled out my schedule. "Looks like I have History first on the 3rd floor,"I thought. So, I hopped into the elevator and made my way to room 304.
I picked a seat in the second row waited for class to start. My heart was pounding but I wasn’t exactly sure why. Maybe I felt alone. I could feel all the classmates’ eyes on me. Soon, class started. First, we did a little activity so the teacher could learn our names. Of course they all had a hard time pronouncing mine, Enjoli. In the middle of class, the principal came and said he’d like to say a prayer for our class and for anyone that was new. I thought that was neat and I really appreciated it. Very slowly, but surely my nervousness started to melt away. Our teacher then had us play 20 questions on a history object or place. None of them had played it before so I gave a lot of answers.

By my next class, I was feeling a lot more comfortable. After math class I thought, “No homework yet. Yay!”

Next was lunch, so I hiked up to the seventh floor, grabbed my lunch and sat at a table. Soon, a girl came over, introduced herself, and invited me to sit with her and her friends and their table. I agreed and was happy that I didn’t have to eat alone.

At the end of school (It ends at 4:30…) they had some chips and soda upstairs for everyone like a welcome back party or something. By then, I wasn’t so nervous and they weren’t so afraid of me anymore! They approached me, asked me my name, commented on my long hair, ask if I was from America, and the usual questions. A bunch of people wanted to be friends with me on facebook.

I decided that the first day of school had been good, besides a bunch of butterflies in my first class.

I am making new friends and slowly get used to everyone and everything in my new school. I am actually enjoying it. WHAT?! Did Enjoli just say she’s enjoying school?! Yes I did. Surprising, huh? I’ve never hated it, but I’ve never necessarily liked it either. The Taiwanese are all very friendly and I’m liking it here so far. :) 

 

Next Adventure: Taipei, Taiwan

           My emotions toppled and tumbled over each other as I took my first look at Taipei, the capitol of Taiwan. This city was soon to be my ‘home’ for the next two years. I gazed up at the towering sky-scrapers and the unique buildings with their cool Chinese-style roofs, I looked at the Chinese characters pasted over everything in sight, and I stared at all the traffic and the hundreds of mopeds stopped at the stop light.  I admired the beautiful, rolling hills of jungle right outside the city. “What an amazing place!” I thought. 

            “We are here!” someone from our ‘welcoming party’ announced. We walked over to the second van that was packed to the roof with our luggage. The heavy, dense humidity made it hard to breathe for a second. It reminded me a lot of the Philippines. Now, we had to somehow lug 20, 50-pound suitcases our carry-on and backpacks out of the van and down the 97 steps that led to our house. Phew! Was that a job! Thankfully, we had a team of 11 people to help us (counting our family).

            Inside our house we were encountered with a pleasant surprise. Some of the church members had bought us all sorts of important stuff; towels, silverware, dishes, pots and pans, food, and lots of other necessities. We were touched by their kindness. 

            After they left we went right to work. I walked in my room and started unpacking … and thinking. The house was really nice, the people were really nice, and the city and all that I had seen of Taipei was beautiful. “I think I’m going to like it here” I thought. At the same time though, I was very homesick for my family in Wenatchee. I had had mixed feeling over the whole trip. I knew this was God’s will, and Taipei was wonderful but … Wenatchee was my home and I missed it and all my friends.

            That night as I lay in bed under my fan, I told God, “You know what? Taipei is a wonderful place filled with wonderful people. Even though I didn’t necessarily want to move, thank-you for telling us to. There must be a reason why I am here. Even though I miss Wenatchee terribly, I know it is Your will that I be here and I’m going to make the best of these two years. Thank-you for being a great God that cares!”