Today started well, with wonderful intentions. I slept in until noon, then started the
long process of uploading pictures for this very tardy update. Then a lot of other things happened, and now it's almost 1 AM, and I haven't even started writing. Never fear, I have a bottle of coke at my side and a decent supply of snacks, so I should be able to keep my promise to update. Edited to add: At current, only updated through March 24. If you LIKE in-depth Jarita-is-just-mumbling-because-she-can please tell me. If you just want pictures please tell me. If you DO NOT LIKE any of this, tell me. I guess you can still be my friend.
I'm going to divide this into nice little sections, so if you don't want to read "Another Day At School," or if you want to read "Passports Are Precious," you can scroll right on by.
Moving on.
Three months of life cannot be accurately retold. It's like they're gone, and I have no idea what I've done for the past three months, besides go to school, have a spiritual revelation (renovation? renewal?) and think too much.
A DAY AT SCHOOL, TAKE ONE
March 7, 2008 (my camera is awesome...otherwise I would have no idea what day this was!)
My third graders took me out to a hidden little deck for water wars. Fun times at Zhong Zheng!
CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN, version the first
March 9, 2008
Our church climbs the mountain together every week. About halfway up, there's this big rock that all real men have to climb, or I guess that's how it works. Here's our friend, A-Qiang, proving his manness.
Just for a little background: A-Qiang is a 19-year-old first generation Christian. He's the only believer in his family. ..and he's a pretty cool and funny person. Wow, I'm just full of these exciting adjectives.
So he proved he was a man, and then he couldn't make it up the rest of the mountain...typical A-Qiang.
SPRING FLOWERS, upon first arrival
March 11, 2008
There's a place in Jincheng I love to go, it's quiet, there's no one else there. In springtime, it's overshaded by this beautiful flowering kapok tree. When they're fully blossomed, they're just about as wonderful as lilacs. Anyway, this was my first visit there this spring, as the buds were barely beginning to blossom.
O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all.
A DAY AT {another} SCHOOL, TAKE TWO
March 13, 2008
One of my fifth grade students, who started out the year as Bibi, switched to Clover, and is now Kiraria, lent me a pair of leopard ears to teach with. I just feel so in control of the classroom, if I channel my inner jungle cat...um, yeah. Ignore me.
Boys and their water wars...Brook and Lion prepare to ambush their unsuspecting classmate.
A WALK THROUGH JINCHENG
Later that same day
This is the biggest temple of probably ten or fifteen temples in our immediate neighborhood. The piles in the foreground are "ghost" money, which is pretty much burned all the time, for almost every reason imaginable. It's easy to become numbed to stuff like this...if you think of it, pray that I will never "get used to it" ~ and that the Lord will give me a huge burden for the lost!
For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the LORD made the heavens.
~Oh that I would declare His glory among the nations, and His wonders among all peoples!~
RANDOM SIDENOTE:
March 15, 2008
I went with the pastor and his wife to Kinmen county's forest recreation area today. That's where all the plants that beautify our little island originate from the greenhouse there. Our wonderful Kinmen government gives out flowers for free to anyone who asks. So.. We got to pick out a few cute little snapdragons, pansies, and even a dusty miller. The cockles of my flower loving soul were warmed...Here they are on my windowsill.
CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN, v2: Foreigners
March 16, 2008
A bunch of people came to Kinmen over spring break. We all went mountain climbing together.
Since we're foreigners, we like to keep the Weird American Stereotype intact...
The guy in this picture is Ben, an exchange student from the University of West Florida. He's a Christian, and has been living in Kinmen for a year. The girl on the left is his fiancee, Stephanie. She was here in Kinmen all of last semester. They're getting married this summer, and then coming back to Kinmen! It's wonderful to see how God is bringing so many people to Kinmen. Behind them are two girls, my sisters really, on my team here: from the left, Lauren, and then Rachel.
Our pastor's wife, Joy, and some random guy who I have never seen before or since...keeping it weird~
Speaking of strange, here's A-Qiang...The Keem of Otherwhere and weirdest of them all.
A DAY AT {yet another} SCHOOL, take three
March 18, 2008
This school is my furthest away, a frightfully long SEVEN minute drive from Jincheng.
This school has about as many flowers as Grandma's backyard. I love it, there are always flowers blooming, even in winter. In March though, it's petunias...which aren't my favorite, but they definitely make me think of summertime at home!
These are a few of my third graders. Chris, Tina, Paul and Emma.
Gotta get a few pictures of the reason I do what I do in here somewhere...
A DAY AT {XianAn} SCHOOL, take four
March 20, 2008
I was just thinking...why do I have SO many pictures of school?? And then I remembered, oh yeah, that's what I do pretty much every SINGLE day. I'm not too bright.
I do not understand my fifth grade girls. Especially not this one. I know it was weird of me to bring a squishy toy mouse to class, but is it not weirder still for the student to do THIS? Anyway, it entertains me, so here it is for posterity.
SPRING FLOWERS, second time through
later that same day
Bless, the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits...
TRIP TO TAIPEI #1
Day One
We had a team retreat in Taipei in March. It was the beginning of this awesome change of perspective that the Lord showed me, but I think I'll share all of that at another time...
First of all, we backwoods Kinmen girls had to hit Coldstone...it was a little overwhelming choosing between so many absolutely divine flavors...but...whatever. It was delicious. Here are the girls, enjoying their Bowls of Yumminess.
From left to right, my super-great teammates [read: sisters]
Rachel, Bek, Megan, Lauren
TRIP TO TAIPEI #1
Day TwoWe went to some kind of Something Something Banquet by King Car, and got to hang out with some good OLD friends! These awesome TA's were the first ones I worked with in Nantou in 2006. Now I feel really elderly.
Amanda & I. Amanda spent last semester at UW-River Falls, she's awesome and loves Wisconsin and cheese!
Now the whole "W" thing was my not-terribly-bright-idea...but we're cool Wisconsin people, so we can even pull that cheesiness off. bahahaha. I crack myself up.
Back, from left: Rachel, Tao, Yang, then me & Lauren
Hanging out with Tao & Yang is awesome... I can never forget my honey, Billy, Bob, exhausting hikes all over XiTou and FUN times at NeiHu...how I miss thee...
And John, another TA from NeiHu. We had some really amazing TA's my first months here...I miss them!
After the Something Something Banquet, a group of us went to Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. It was the night of Taiwan's presidential election, and the place was absolutely deserted. We stood at the top of the stairs of the memorial hall and sang "Holy Father, grant us peace." And that IS my prayer for Taiwan, although not every day is quite as tense as election day!
TRIP TO TAIPEI #1
Day Three 
The next day, we went to Danshui...and ate what is now my favoritest food...Indian wraps.
Yum, YUM!
For those in America who have never had the great and delicious pleasure of eating this: first, they roll out the wrap and throw it in the air, which I think is cool, so I took pictures. Then they put this yummy curried meat mixture inside...with some other things that I know not. And it is just to-die-for. Not American, but so good you don't even think about that.
PASSPORTS ARE PRECIOUS, aka Pathetic Predicaments with Jarita
March 24, 2008
12 AM: Aliya arrives in Taiwan. We took a bus to Taipei and the Chens, who generously allowed us to use their beds. Probably when I was taking this horrible self-portrait, the passports
walked out of my bag. Because in case you didn't know, passports turn
into little gremlins at certain points in everyone's life, and they
just DISAPPEAR. You can do your part to keep them at bay, always check
to see if your passport is with you! The one time you don't check, the
gremlins will come.
We discovered the naughty actions of the little nasty imps the next morning at 7 when we attempted to leave for Kinmen. What a terrible hour to discover anything of world importance like Passport Loss. In an unusual turn of events, I was very confident that God would take care of us and that He had it under control. Therefore, I was feeling almost peaceful when I called the Chens and told them what had happened. Faith was a Dear Soul, and called the taxi company, the bus company, and I'm not sure who or what else and got all of Taiwan on alert for the
passports. There was nothing we could do then except pray, which we did, so there was only one other thing for it, to retrace our steps back to the international airport and see if we could find them ourselves. When we re-arrived in Taoyuan, no one had seen or heard of any American passports. Which was kind of depressing, since I really wanted to go home. We got back on the bus, and I noticed that my phone's battery was dying, due to the unusually heavy use that morning. That was not exactly what I wanted to see, you know, at that exact moment. You know, you just think you can like catch a break sometimes. But, you know, in real life, that doesn't always, you know, happen. Just then, Faith called me and told me they were found, but they were in Taoyuan. We were already on the bus back to Taipei though, and I really did not want to have traveled between Taoyuan and Taipei SIX times in twelve hours. No, no, no. So we arranged to pick them up in a very distant part of Taipei later that afternoon, and had fun times sightseeing in the mean time. Somewhere in all this, Aliya ate her first Mister Donut.
Aliya at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall...
While we were waiting for our passports to arrive back in civilization, we went to one of my favorite restaurants in Taipei, The Diner. It has super-delicious American food, Dr. Pepper and root beer, bottomless coffee, all day breakfast, and it's cheaper than Fridays. What's not to love?
As usual, there was a 20-minute wait, so Aliya and I sat in the park and ate waxapples and bemoaned our fate while we rode the teeter totter.
At last, the time came to go pick up our passports. We took the MRT's blue line to it's most distant point, Kunyang. From there, we took a taxi another 10 minutes to this huge deserted parking lot. I'm just a small-island girl, so these distances seemed pretty HUGE to me. Notice the building in the comparative foreground? A nice-enough looking bus office, as bus offices go. I'm not a big fan of freaky unknown big empty places, like this parking lot, but I decided that we were Probably Safe. So we went into that building, and they told us that Our bus company was Not there. I was very discouraged, as all I could see were the empty hulks of old buses on blocks and newer buses also on blocks and an old shipping container.
But then, Eureka! Mine eyes did light upon something. A door. In...the shipping container.
I wondered to myself what kind of a redneck operation this was, and
just how likely it was that the mafia had somehow gotten involved at
such short notice. Thoughts like: "I bet they actually HAVE the
passports, they're just going to ask me for my firstborn child as
payment!" etc. etc. went through my very sleep-deprived mind....
But then I went inside, said "hu zhao," and the guy who was on the phone looked at me and handed them over... and never said a word.
And I wanted to kiss the ground, proverbially speaking. The Lord was good to us, and we made it back to Kinmen on the last flight from Taipei that day. Thanks to the help of Faith and Grace...
And you know what? It's 3 AM here in Kinmen. Michael and Emily are getting married as I speak, and I have to go to church tomorrow. I'll finish the next two months of my life some other time....all the pictures are uploaded, I just have to think of something to say. Which is so difficult for me to do...
Thank you for your listening.
them...
is only one heartbeat away from heaven. 
O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all.One of my fifth grade students, who started out the year as Bibi, switched to Clover, and is now Kiraria, lent me a pair of leopard ears to teach with. I just feel so in control of the classroom, if I channel my inner jungle cat...um, yeah. Ignore me.A DAY AT {another} SCHOOL, TAKE TWO
The guy in this picture is Ben, an exchange student from the University of West Florida. He's a Christian, and has been living in Kinmen for a year. The girl on the left is his fiancee, Stephanie. She was here in Kinmen all of last semester. They're getting married this summer, and then coming back to Kinmen! It's wonderful to see how God is bringing so many people to Kinmen. Behind them are two girls, my sisters really, on my team here: from the left, Lauren, and then Rachel.
