Since we have arrived here in our new city we have been spending a lot of time walking around and getting to know our knew location. It has been interesting to observe the differences from Taipei, and we have also used the opportunity to look for a location for our future English ministry. We have not found a location yet, but we feel like we may be getting close. It has proved to be more difficult then we had originally hoped because rent here is much more expensive then we had been told. Also, some of the buildings were in such poor condition that it would have cost way too much money to get it functional.
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| If you look closely you can see his scars from getting firecrackers thrown at him |
Something interesting happened while we were walking around the city. The night before this particular day, Biggie (team member from Zambia), and Keith went to check out a local festival. They knew beforehand that it would be very loud and very crowded. This festival is considered one of three most important Chinese New Year festivals and many locals and foreigners will show up to watch the spectacle. The main event is when a man stands on a big chair-like thing with long handles and people carry him around. He is chosen to represent a god named Master Han Dan and they then throw firecrackers at him. This god is thought to be the god of wealth and is afraid of the cold, so they throw the firecrackers to keep him warm while praying for good wealth in the coming year. Well, the day after we attended this event we were walking around a different part of the city and met the man that was representing Master Han Dan. So we took advantage of this opportunity and talked to the man for a little while.
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| Picture courtesy of Google images |
Video of the bombing of Master Han Dan
We have just recently had a team from the Montana YWAM base come here and help us by building bunk beds in our outreach house. This was a huge blessing for us because now we will have a place for outreach teams to sleep. They also fixed our tile floor that was busted from a previous tenant. They worked very hard and finished so quickly that we were able to take them around to see our beautiful city.
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| Beds are Awesome! |
Family News: Elliot has recently started going to a English evening school every Wednesday night. It is only for an hour. The family who runs the school are friends of ours and Elliot is good friends with their daughter. The purpose of the school is to teach English but we thought it would be good for Elliot to be around other kids in a school environment and also get used to hearing Chinese. He is the only boy in a class of 5.
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| Elliot working his magic :-) |
