There are 2 things I always seem to learn when I’m in other countries:

1. I seem to relearn the meaning and value of a Sabbath… A day of rest is so absolutely necessary. A break from life. A break from work. From frustration and disorganization. A breath of fresh air. Quiet. Peace. Laughter. Light-heartedness.

2. The other thing I always seem to relearn when I’m living in other countries is simply richness and beauty and refreshment of the body of Christ in action… I always feel like I learn so much from Christians in other countries… And probably the number one thing I’ve been encouraged by is seeing how much they give of themselves and serve others selflessly. Maybe it’s because I’m always the most in need of refreshment in other countries, or maybe it’s because they seriously grasp things differently than american christianity does…

Let me explain how I ended up at these deep conclusions… Aka, I’ll tell you about my Sunday – Which was incredible!

So this last (a week ago) Sunday, a student from the older class at our camp, Lydia, who’s 16, invited us (the 3 girl teachers) to her christian church here. I was excited to go… I love seeing churches in other countries and seeing how other christians worship there. And it’s always a cool thing to see other people worshipping the same God in another language.

Her parents picked us up at our hotel. Which was awesome to begin with.

Church was… interesting… a little weird because it looked just like a contemporary american church. But it was obviously in Chinese. One thing that was really cool and different, was that they had pretty much a full orchestra. I mean, not FULL, but an orchestra in front of the stage and choir. With violins and such. It was cool! And it sounded beautiful. To me, the sound of music is much more powerful than words themselves.

We were the only non-Asians. That was cool. A Taiwanese guy who grew up in Chicago who spoke perfect english offered to translate the service for us. So nice. Every one was so kind.

After church, we ran into another family that has a daughter in my class at the English camp. Another girl named Lydia. And the Lydias’ families are friends. So, Little Lydia’s family and Older Lydia’s family decided that they wanted to take us to lunch and then spend the afternoon showing us the city of Tainan.

It was a huge blessing.

First, we went to an old and famous noodle restaurant. It’s been around for over 100 years. They make the noodles right there in front of you. Rice noodles and egg noddles. You can choose which you’d prefer. It was really tasty.

After lunch, we want to a famous place called Chihkan Tower. It used to be an old fort. Or maybe a castle/palace… I forgot. But it was really cool. It’s been around since the 1600s. It’s always neat to see places that have been in existence longer than even your own country. And the architecture was awesome. I really love asian architecture and gardens.

This is little Lydia, who was in my class, messing around with my camera. So cute. Her mom, Jessica, actually lived in the states for 10 years. So that’s nice.

So, after a hot afternoon at Chihkan Tower, they took us to get dessert. It’s really popular to have shaved ice here, topped with fruit, or sweet beans, or bean curd… This one was AMAZING. Shaved ice, with mango and milk. One of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Delicious. Oh, and you also squirt lime juice on top. Yum. And it’s really refreshing on a nice hot day.

This is Samuel, little Lydia’s older brother. I can’t remember how old he is. But they speak great english, because they all go to a dual language english/chinese school. Really cool.

So, after the mango, they took us to Anping Fort. It was built by the Dutch, and named Fort Zeelandia, when they took control of Taiwan in 1624, but was later taken over by Koxinga in 1661, when they got rid of the Dutch, and was renamed Anping Fort.

Here’s a picture of one of the old remaining fort walls… There’s a huge banyan tree kind of twisted into and over the wall. Really cool! And the weird shape with swirly things towards the left was some kind of dutch architectural feature that helped support the walls. It was called Wall Scissors. And I don’t remember anything else. But I thought it was cool.

There is also a tower (it MIGHT be a lighthouse, but I’m not sure), that you can climb up in. Here’s a view of Tainan from the top. Really cool.

So, after the old fort, we headed out to the market on Old Anping Street. And as we were walking… there was a huge snake in a cake. I went to take a picture, and they told us you can hold it for the equivalent of like a dollar. Whitney asked if I wanted to do it with her. Of course. 😛 So… that’s what we did. Help a ginormous snake. It was really heavy. And it kept putting its head close to my face, and then it started wrapping it’s tail around my leg. Not ok. But totally worth it.

Samuel and Lydia weren’t quite ready for the big snake… They figured they would work up slowly… starting with a fake snake at the market. Haha.

As we went further into the market, the walkway became more and more crammed with people selling stuff. It was really cool. Lydia and Samuel’s mom, Jessica, bought us a Taiwanese sausage… I was nervous, because I’m kind of picky about meats. And pork freaks me out. But it was really good!

Later, we tried rice sticks soaked in coagulated pig blood. Woah. Something I swore I’d never eat. But I tried it. The taste wasn’t bad. It was just the thought of eating pig blood. That’s a little too much for me.

This is the 16 year old Lydia. It was her first time to try pig blood also.

Anyway, it was a GREAT Sunday, and it was quite amazing to have the Lydias go out of their way to show us Taiwan.