Last Stateside Update

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It's hard to believe that in just a few short days Floyd and I will be in Taiwan! We have lots to do before then, but I wanted to type a quick update before we leave.

We really enjoyed our two weeks of Pre-Field Orientation with the Association of Christian Schools International in Houghton, New York. We made some great friendships in such a short time, and it was hard to say goodbye to everyone at the end. At least we know that we'll see some of the families again in Taiwan. Others are headed for international schools in places like Ethiopia, South Korea, Ivory Coast, Austria, the Philippines, Senegal, the Czech Republic, Malaysia, Niger, Nigeria, Spain, Ecuador, Thailand, Bolivia, Hungary, and Brazil. You can imagine how fun it was to spend two weeks with people heading for or returning to such a variety of countries! :-)

In the last couple of weeks Floyd and I have also enjoyed spending time with friends and family members we don't see very often (as well as some we do). We have been officially sent off in prayer by both Granada Hills Baptist (where I taught 5th grade for three years) and our adult Sunday school class at Grace Baptist (our home church). It's humbling to have so many wonderful people praying for us and wishing us well in our missionary work.  At least we will still have consistent email access in Taiwan (unlike the year I spent in Nabire, Indonesia, where it was sporadic and unreliable). Hearing from friends back home is a welcome treat in foreign lands, so I hope everyone will stay in close touch! 

Well, Floyd and I will head for the airport this Tuesday evening (July 31st), and our flight leaves from Los Angeles at 1:40 a.m. on August 1st. We'll arrive in Taiwan's capital city of Taipei at about 6:30 a.m. the same day, after a nonstop 14-hour flight (crossing the International Date Line). Someone from Morrison Academy will pick us up and drive us a couple hours to the city of Taichung, where an apartment has been provided for us. (We'll be living on the seventh floor of a twelve-storey apartment building, about ten minutes' walk from the school.) 

We'll have the rest of that week to settle in, then the next week there will be some orientation and training at the school for new staff. Floyd and I will actually be the only new staff on that particular campus (Morrison has four campuses in different cities), so I guess it will probably just be us! We'll also have the first half of our ten-session crash course in Mandarin Chinese. 

The week after that consists mostly of in-services for all the teachers, so it will be nice to meet the rest of the staff at that time. Then the next week is when school starts. That doesn't seem like a lot of time to get my classroom and lessons ready, but I'm sure I'll manage somehow!  I'm planning to post in my blog again within the first few days after we arrive, so hopefully it won't be too long before you hear from us again. 

We really feel encouraged knowing we have so many friends here in the States (and other countries too!) who are keeping us close in their hearts and supporting us in prayer. Your prayers will be an important part of our ministry, as we head for the front lines in God's service. Keep them coming!

Pre-Field Orientation in Upstate New York

 Here we are in beautiful upstate New York! Floyd and I are here for two weeks of Pre-Field Orientation, designed to prepare us for our upcoming missionary work in Taiwan. We're staying on the campus of Houghton (pronounced HO-tun) College, in a scenic small town area. The campus is full of forest, flowers, and creeks (home to turtles, noisy bullfrogs like the one below, and, I'm told, large fishing spiders). 

I'm not sure how the students can concentrate on their studies in such a beautiful environment! But they're gone for the summer, and now the college has been taken over by about a hundred twenty of us future missionaries, all headed for different missionary schools around the globe. It's been interesting meeting some of them and hearing about where they'll be going.

The Orientation has only just begun, but we've learned quite a bit already. Yesterday the sessions focused on the results of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (personality test) that we had all taken earlier. For those of you who are familiar with this, we discovered that I am an INFJ (introvert, intuitive, feeling, judging; the rarest of the 16 types), and Floyd is an ISTP (introvert, sensing, thinking, perceiving). I know some of you must have taken this test yourselves; we would be interested to know your results if you'd like to share them!

Today the main focus of the seminars was on TCKs, or Third Culture Kids (those who were raised in a culture other than the one their parents are from, and thus have blended the two to create a third culture in their own lives). We will all be teaching TCKs in the various missionary schools we'll be in, so it's important to understand them and the unique issues they face.

Since I am an adult TCK myself, I was asked to sit on a panel this evening to answer some questions about my experiences. There were seven other TCKs on the panel, all answering the same set of questions, and it was great to hear from all of them, most of whom had gone through pretty much the same types of things I have. When TCKs return to their "home" country, they often feel isolated, like nobody understands them or where they have been. Even though I have been here in America for many years and do know a number of people who (at least sort of) understand me, it was refreshing to hear from others with similar life experiences. The eight of us were able to remind each other that we are not alone in what we have been through (both the good and the bad). It was an emotional time, though, as several choked up while describing painful separations from people they were close to, and the difficulties they faced in adjusting back to American culture when they returned from living overseas. Many in the audience came up to us afterward and mentioned how much they appreciated hearing the things we shared.

Now to backtrack a bit. The week before Floyd and I came to NY was really busy. School got out on Thursday (so sad to say goodbye to my students), and I spent Friday cleaning and packing up my classroom. Then we had less than a week to pack up everything we own and move it out of our apartment, not to mention clean the place from top to bottom. We would never have made it in time if not for the friends and relatives who came to help!

But the job was finally done the next Friday night, and we got up early Saturday morning to catch our 7:00 a.m. flight to Cleveland and then on to Buffalo. From there it was an hour and a half drive to Houghton.

One of the things we've enjoyed here at the conference is meeting some of our future co-workers from Morrison Academy, where we'll be working in Taiwan. Most are from Morrison's other campuses (there are four, counting a tiny satellite school, in different cities), but there are a couple who will be in Taichung with us, who have been there already. 

Some of our future coworkers have been able to tell us interesting things about Taiwan, like about the large flying cockroaches we can expect to encounter. Yikes! (I don't do well with big bugs.) Thinking of possible pets, I inquired half-jokingly whether there are any animals there that eat cockroaches. Alas, apparently the cockroaches' only real predators are gigantic (eight inch long) spiders. I wish I hadn't asked.

Another challenge we'll face when we get there will be learning the language. Although the school functions in English, we will need to learn some Mandarin Chinese to be able to shop in the local markets and basically do anything outside of school and home. I like languages, but Chinese, with its four tones and thousands of written characters, is starting to sound really daunting. A word can have totally different meanings depending on the tone of voice in which you say it, and any given sound can be written with several different characters depending on what it means in the sentence. Talk about confusing!

On the bright side, Taiwan does sound like a beautiful place to live, at least in some areas. Yes, there are lots of big cities with smog and crazy traffic, but there are also gorgeous mountain ranges, forests, beaches, and idyllic farmland. The island is far from being nothing but a manufacturing/exporting center, which is how I would have thought of it not so long ago.

Taiwan is also home to the world's tallest building, Taipei 101 (which, as you might guess, is 101 stories tall). Click here to see a picture of it.  To get a true idea of its size, note that the "low" buildings around it are actually skyscrapers in their own right!

Well, it's getting late and we have to get up early for the morning session, so I'd better close and call it a night.  We're looking forward to the rest of the orientation and to some sightseeing at Niagara Falls in the next few days!  Here's one last picture: Floyd and me dressed up for PFO's International Banquet.

We're Moving to Taiwan!

Floyd and I wanted to send out a note to let you all know how our Taiwan preparations are going. As many of you know, we're going to be moving to Taiwan  this summer, to work in a missionary school (Morrison Christian Academy in Taichung). I will be teaching 5th grade, and he will work in the development office. We have signed a two-year contract, but are strongly considering staying longer. We'll see how the Lord leads.

Well, our time in California is drawing short, and it seems like we still have hundreds of things to do before we leave. I have just over two more weeks of teaching left, and of course there are lots of  things to be done at school during that time besides teaching. I have to clean and pack out my whole classroom, and decide which of my teaching materials to take with me and what to do with the rest.

At about the same time that school gets out (give or take a couple of days) Floyd and I will be moving out of our apartment and in with my grandparents. So of course we have lots of packing and cleaning to do at home as well, and tough decisions to make about what to throw away, give away, sell, store, or take with us. We have decided not to take a crate (they're more expensive than one would be worth to us), which means whatever we want to bring will have to fit in two or three suitcases each of excess baggage on the plane. It's hard to know exactly what we'll need in Taiwan, what will or won't be available cheaper locally, and what we'll miss the most if we don't bring it. We don't want to store too much here, since we don't know exactly how long we'll be gone, so we're trying to find good homes for a lot of our stuff.

A week after school gets out, we'll fly to upstate New York for three weeks of Pre-Field Orientation, where we'll be briefed and trained and prepped for overseas life and teaching along with dozens (maybe hundreds?) of other future overseas teachers. When we return to California, we'll have just three more weeks here  before we leave for Taiwan (on August 1st).

One of the things we've been working on here (actually Floyd has been working on it) is creating this blog. We've decided that will probably be the best way to keep in touch with  family and friends and to share video and photos as well as text descriptions of our adventures (or misadventures) in culture shock and life transition.  So anyway, feel free to keep an eye on our blog. (It will get a lot more interesting when we have more overseas content to put in!) For those of you who want to stay up to date with us while we're overseas, check it often, and don't forget to post your comments too!