New Vistas:
Wednesday was our day off for Tomb Sweeping Day, so the team went to Sun Link Sea, a beautiful place to hike in the mountains and see breathtaking waterfalls. Delicate bamboo forests, towering cypress trees, cliff-climbing orchids and giant pink peonies were the flora that captured my admiration. I think our first hike to Dulishan was good practice, because I wasn't sore at all! I made some new Taiwanese friends who came with us on the trip. The exhausting but lovely day trip ended with very traditional Chinese food including bamboo soup, deer meat, and deep-fried tea leaves! Good views, good conversation, and good food makes for a great day. Some pictures that I found online of Sun Link Sea:
New Experiences:
I got to experience the Chiayi Christian hospital on Tuesday. My friends told me that I should have my swollen foot looked at, and because we have a friend with connections at the hospital, we just went there right away. Formalities and regulations aren't as tight here, as I found out, and we were able to skip lines of people so that I could walk right into the "Infectious Diseases Unit" to be told that they're just infected mosquito bites (which is better than fleas like we thought it might have been). The doctor gave me medicine to take for the swelling and infection. It's getting better, but perhaps mosquitos are a lot nastier here or maybe I'm allergic to something, because everything just itches like crazy and I get rashes often. Ahhh, such is the price of traveling! I am just grateful that I haven't been sick yet.
New Lessons:
Unnatural Selection: that's what they call the population problem in Taiwan. Couples want to have small families with few children to stay wealthy, and they often abort female babies to try for male ones. I also learned that there are good and bad years to be born. This is the year of the dragon; a very lucky year to be born, and I suspect there will be a lot of babies born in 2012. The year of the tiger, on the other hand, is considered very unlucky, and hundreds of thousands of babies are aborted in these years, because families don't want unlucky babies. One of our friends here (a Christian) was born in the year of the tiger. Because of this, she is not allowed to attend any weddings or funerals in the family, and if anything bad happens in the family, it is blamed on her bad fortune. No wonder she threw off those superstitions and became a Christian! I was really shocked to hear how far these superstitions affect people's lives and cause people to be treated appallingly.
I was also moved by some of the stories I've heard of what some converts go through. There are all different kinds of persecution and sacrifices that people experience to call themselves Christian, even though Taiwan boasts "freedom of religion". One friend of ours is Christian, but her husband threatens to leave her if she embarrasses him by getting baptized. Another girl my age was disowned by her parents for a while after being baptized, but later her parents warmed up to the change. Also, women are more likely to convert than men, so women realize that by being baptized they run a high chance of being single for the rest of their lives.
New prayer request! I got to talk with a coworker in my office who is my age.... she was very open to answering my questions about her traditional religion, and we talked about the reason why Easter is so special to us Christians. It was a very encouraging conversation, and I would love if she came to church with us sometime. Please pray for Tina!
I just want to build relationships right now, and take whatever opportunities come.
Praying for you all! Thanks so much for following my adventures here in Taiwan, and it's so great to know that my trip is being lifted up in prayer by brothers and sisters back in the states.
Anna
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