Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Farewell Taiwan--for now



Homeward Bound

Well, I guess at this point even if I did want to stay longer (which I do) the Taiwanese government wouldn't be too happy about it. So to home I head. I couldn't have asked for anything more from this trip. I had a lot of fun, made a lot of new friends, and served even beyond what I set out intending to.
When I left the staff and councilors all gathered and gave me a giant card that they signed and put pictures all over as a going away present. They even surprised me with my favorite drink, a mango ice. It was really a nice send off, very bittersweet, and I will definitely miss everyone from camp.
Of course like most of my travels, my first flight out of Taipei is delayed, so hopefully I won't miss my connection in LA. If I'm going to be traveling home I would just assume get there, and surprising enough I haven't been craving any food from home, but now that I'm heading that way, I could really go for a Whataburger.
Well I guess that's all from Taiwan, I'll definitely be posting a bunch of pictures and put together some videos once I get home, but I'm done from the road.
Thank you anyone that has followed along for following and thank you for all the prayers along the way not only for me, but the rest of the group when they were here and the entire adventure as a whole. Thank You.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Some New Pictures

Well, camp started today and we've got another great group of kids. I'm really pretty sad that I have to come home before the end of the camp, because the kids are great, but they just get better and better as camp goes on and they get more comfortable.
It pretty much rained all day today, but it didn't hamper all the first day activities since most of them happen inside. Rain tomorrow won't matter much either since it's water war day and we'll all end up soaking wet anyway.
Alright, I made another small set of pictures on my flickr account. You can see them by clicking the following link.

Flickr Set #2

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Vision's Pet in Action

Back at Camp For the Last Time

Sorry about not getting any posts, pictures or videos up this weekend, but I was very busy living the Taiwanese lifestyle.
On Friday, Vision and I went to the orphanage that his parents run and met some of the girls and I got a quick tour. It was a really neat place. They house teens, and up until this point it has been mostly girls, they are currently preparing some housing for boys as well. After this we rode his scooter to the beach and took in the scenery to finish out the morning. After grabbing a quick lunch back at the orphanage, we met some of his friends at another beach for some swimming, diving and snorkeling. It was a lot of fun and really nice to get wet after all the hot and sweaty days I've had here. After swimming away most of the afternoon, we met his mom and went to a spa type place were we had an entire bowling alley to ourselves, and played pool.
Saturday, we slept in late, and that's the first time I've done that in a long time. Once we were up, we headed to Vision's church were we played games and watched a movie with the teen/college fellowship. Luckily it was in English so I had a better viewing experience than anyone there. After the get together, Vision, Ruby(another councilor at the camp) and I headed out to the Keelung night market for dinner and people watching. It was really nice going with some locals so they introduced me to all kinds of popular local cuisine.
Today we went back to the church for the sunday service and the traditional after church lunch. We didn't do a whole lot else today, because after church and lunch we rested a little bit before we picked up Ruby and headed back here to camp.
We learned out new songs and dances and got our parts for the drama this week. I must have done ok last week because this week they gave me more parts, and would have made me Jesus if I wasn't going to miss the last part. Well off to bed for me, I have to get rested for the last week of camp where I'm sure I won't sleep much as I get homework done for when I get back and try to take in everything possible before I have to head home.