One Month in Taiwan!

Hi everyone!

It’s been one month already! It’s hard to believe how much I’ve done since I got here and how quickly time has passed.

Snap Shot:

• Service with missions training completed, teams sent out
• Language learning progressing slowly, but steadily
• Community of all kinds developing and being discovered
• Dance teaching and rehearsing with success, but intensifying

So....What Have I Been Doing?

Probably a better question would be, what have I not done? During the week most of my energy was focused on helping with my church’s missions training, but this week all four teams are headed out! It's been so much fun to watch people here get excited about sharing God in their home countries and overseas. 

When I’m not serving at church, language learning takes precedent. On the recommendation of several other foreigners, I’ve been meeting with a Chinese language tutor. Of course, I also get lots of practice using my Chinese with everyday tasks like putting gas in my scooter, buying food, and making friends.

Developing friendships and reaching out to the community here has also been an adventure. I’ve been gifted with several bilingual friends who have been equally gifted with a desire to push me to learn Chinese. J I’ve enjoyed getting to know them and serving with them.

Dance has also been a wonderful way to reach out to people. Every week I teach a free dance class to anyone interested in attending. Within class I get to redefine dance (within the context of loving Jesus), provide physical training, develop their ability to dance together, and teach them how to communicate clearly with dance. A few of my students are trained in ballet, modern, or hip hop, but all of them are very open to learn and grow together. I’m very excited to see what other opportunities dance will open up.

In addition to my everyday business, I’ve begun dance rehearsals for SHINE (annual youth conference, ~1,500 attendees in July). I’d love prayer for divine creativity as choreography has never been easy for me.

I'm also prayerfully considering Tainan for longer-term service. Community, out-reach, and work opportunities are all possible here, but to make a finally decision quite a few factors (most importantly a God confirmation) are necessary. 

So to sum up my prayer requests: 

• Continued physical health and peace through culture shock
• Favor with man and wisdom in how to best share Jesus stories
• Future decision-making regarding staying in Taiwan long-term
• Chinese language learning and retention 

Bless you all! 

- Kirsti 

Questions or thoughts? I'd love to hear from you! Email me at traveling.kirsten@gmail.com 

In Taiwan!

Hi Everyone!

I’m really in Taiwan! After a lengthy battle with my home stay’s wifi my computer has emerged victorious! (and able to finally update y’all!) Here’s a snapshot of my life right now.

- SHORT VERSION

·               Safe and smooth travel here

·               Keeping busy, but making friends I’m ready to help with missions training!

·               Lots of little language victories!

·               Drought weather and driving adventures

·               Meeting a gracious God and appreciating your prayers!

…and here’s a longer update!

- GETTING TO TAIWAN

God knew I was nervous to travel alone, so He miraculously provided friends from KC on my first flight!

Every step of the way was filled with peace. I had several friendly conversations with neighboring passengers, and even with six babies on my international flight I had peace. Peace was present, but not much sleep. Per my usual pattern I only slept the last two hours of my travel.

Gratefully, all my luggage arrived and I was able to immediately connect with my friend in Taipei. We enjoyed a brief time together and I left the next morning for Tainan.

 Since then sleep has been a bit haphazard, but generally successful and consistent. Please continue to pray for my physically as I transition sleep-wise, food-wise, and culture-wise.

- SCHEDULE

Sitting still isn’t my style, and it doesn't appear that’ll be a problem here in Tainan. J My many contacts are almost all through Living Waters Christian Church (http://www.lwcc.org.tw/). It’s a precious church rooted in intentional discipleship, a life-style of prayer, and evangelism. I’m going to be teaching dance, particularly over the weekend, as part of their evangelistic outreach.

During the week my schedule is still a bit flexible, but not much after that. All Nations Family has offered to help with missions training for believers here. It’s a program I attended in 2013 and thus will be able to help with their training. The training involves everything from the history of missions movements to storytelling to how to learn languages. I personally enjoyed every minute of my training and thus am really looking forward to helping here. This week the training begins, but I likely won’t be an active assistant until next week.  

- LANGUAGE

God’s been so gracious to help me with language learning! Thank you all for praying! In Taiwan a variety of languages are spoken Taiwanese and Chinese being the primary languages, though English and Japanese are also fairly commonplace. I’m currently only trying to learn Chinese, so hearing a mixture can sometimes be hard.

Regardless, I’ve been able to make many Chinese speaking friends in Chinese and communicate with the parents in my home-stay and I feel joy with even small successes.

I’ve really benefited a lot from my Chinese studies at home. Though there weren’t many opportunities to work on my spoken Chinese, I was able to study Traditional characters somewhat. This really helps me! Yesterday in worship I was able to sing a whole song in Chinese from character recognition. While this might seem insignificant, I see every step forward as a victory!

I’ve also found several friends willing to help me with language learning and potentially a skilled tutor as well. Please pray that I can continue to work through these details and not get overwhelmed. 

- WEATHER AND OTHER ADVENTURES

Coming from windy Kansas, Taiwan feels like a sauna at times. Gratefully, I have wonderful air-conditioning in my home stay, but outside is pretty muggy and verging on 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Unfortunately, Tainan is going through a drought. Our proximity to the ocean means the air has lots of moisture, but our rainy season has been missing rain for quite awhile now.

Lucky for me though, I haven’t had to drive in rain yet. In fact, I haven’t had to drive at all! Because of busy schedules and jet lag, my friends decided to drive me around until they had time to teach me (some of the rules here are quite unlike motorcycle rules in the states). This afternoon I’ll brave the road for the first time. Please pray for safety!

- HEART

Emotionally, I’m doing very well. As ever I miss my family, but I’m supremely grateful to be here. Several teachings and small group discussions have centered around faith and trust (e.g. walking on water, following God). This concurs with my personal devotions too. While it may seem melodramatic to compare my comfortable, easy trip to walking on water, some mornings (and evenings) it feels like that. God’s grace has been such an encouragement these last few days. I’m truly grateful to have Jesus with me. Thanks y’all for your prayers and love!