Monday, July 27, 2009

Thy Word ...



One of the wonderful things about the Word of God is that you will love it more, the more you read it. And .. you will forever continue to learn new things from a passage that you have read before, maybe even though you have read it many times. The Bible is living! And it speaks to us according to our current circumstances, which is one reason that a verse can take on new meaning as life moves along! What a Magnificent and Holy Book! It is precious!

Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Ps 119:11

Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. Ps 119: 105

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy Word. Ps 119:9

But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Jude 1:20-21

(Thank you, 曉霜, for sharing these two passages with me last night.)

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Where take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and you feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God: praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. Ephesians 6:10-20

For God hath not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
2 Tim 1:7

Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world. 1 John 4:4

What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. Ps 56:3

I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.
Ps 4:8

The last one ...

Well, I just finished the last rice crispy treat from home ... the very last one ... they went entirely too fast! ... and I am wishing that I had tons more to eat! But my waist is thankful that there are no more. lol :) Thank you, for sending them! ;) xoxo I approve! Oh! And I learned a new way to eat Mother's Taffy cookies ... :) In a bowl, pour milk over them and eat them with a spoon! It is so good! :) And an added bonus is your don't get your hands all milky! :) Let's hear it for clean fingers!!!

Presently, I have been chatting online with my buddy, Nathaniel. :) Speaking of chatting, my mom called me after Napa's Sunday pm service and I got to talk to some of the young people back home.

Right now, I am realizing that I have a ton of things to do ... and I just want to sleep! lol

Does anyone have an mp3 version of Bro. Matt Tuttle's message from a few years ago on the mustard seed? I was just thinking about it today and wanted to hear it again. If by chance, you have it, would you mind forwarding it on to my mom or dad? Thanks so much!

So, this week, I want to do something fun with English class and have been tossing around the idea of traveling ... Sis. B said that it would be fine if I wanted to do a game ... I'm just not sure yet what game. I bought a couple of magazines on Sunday that are for teaching English. They are full of lesson topics so I'm really excited! I think I'm going to look online for game ideas ...

Yesterday, we had awesome services! Both the morning service in Tainan and the evening service in KH. There such such a spirit of worship! Bro. Chris B. preaches so fast! Alisha was helping me with translation and there would be times when she would look at me and say, "I don't know man." lol We would both giggle and then turn our attention on what was being said next. Besides the awesome power of the Word, the next best part was being able to understand some on the preaching before she would translate it for me. It was such an awesome feeling that I would get distracted! I would be thinking, "Yeeeeessssss!!!! I just understood some more Chinese without an interpretor!!!! Thank you, Jesus!!! I can't believe I'm learning Chinese!!" And I would have to refocus on what was being said, rather than the fact that I was understanding it. lol ... It is a phase that I will grow out of the more I begin to understand the language. Then it will become more common place. However, at the stage I am in right now, it is a little hard to imagine that one day, in Jesus' name, I will understand all of it and it will be a common thing. For now, I'm just rejoicing for this step.

Okay, well I just finished adding pictures to my previous post about last Thursday and I spent a few flustering moments trying add to a gadget to my blog. lol I'll try again next time ...

Hope all is well on the home front! I've been hearing reports of wonderful services!! :)

Until next time ...

love,
kate

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Amazing Taiwan! :) Thursday, July 23, 2009



Today was an amazing day! Well, the first part of the day during class, I was having an extreeemely hard time not falling asleep in class ... but I'm talking about the part of my day AFTER that! :)

After class got out @ noon, I met up with Alisha and we grabbed some lunch at Lucky 7. (Which is delicious, I might add. We both got fried rice ... She the rice with curry and me rice with .. not sure what flavoring ... it's a Taiwan thing .. but it was good for sure! Usually at this place, I get the spicy fried rice but this time I tried something diff.

So anyhow, after lunch, A went to buy some fruit drinks while I rode my bicycle home. We hung out at my apt until it was time for her to go to tutoring. She asked me if I wanted to go with her and see her school, so I went. Her campus is beautiful! Lord willing, I'll go back with her next week so I can get a better look. We were a little rushed today.

The Library




The card that allowed me to temporarily use the library



Please read the small print before signing your life away ... lol
just kidding ;)



I thought this elevator was pretty cool!







This is the front of the campus where we went it.
What a beautiful building!



This is leaving the university, driving away from the
building in the previous picture.



This is one of the buildings for
the elementary school that belongs to Tainan
University. It's just gorgeous! Alisha has done
a lot of student teaching there.

From the school, we drove back to my apt to change bags, etc and then headed off for an adventure! First, we met up with the other girls at the train station. We met Sherry, Joyce, a classmate of Joyce, Joyce's niece, and the niece's friend. So there were 7 of us all
together. Then it was on to An Ping 安平! I had never been there and it was quite fun and interesting.



Can you see the English on these signs? The sign on
the left says, "Big Egg" in the red shape and the right
sign says, "Yummy to go."




The entrance to the Guang Fu Campus of NCKU



This is a view of the arch from farther back. Right before
it on the right side is a stand where I frequently buy
fruit juice and ice drinks. :) It is very convenient on my
way home. Sometimes, I don't even have to get off
my bike. That's what I call convenient!!! haha



I ride my bike under this arch at least twice every day.
The gold lettering is the name of my school. (Well part
of it ... the other half of the arch is not shown in this pic)



Da Xue Lu ... 大學路 。。。it means, "University Road."





I thought this guys shirt was funny ... it said, "Never Mind"








Anyone up for some stinky tofu??



A blue bridge which I found most captivating.



Another view of it ...



A statue of something colorful and a scary-like monster
face ... but I'm not sure exactly what it is as we were
driving by and I barely had time to take the picture.
One of the girls might know ...



Does anybody know what these are? All of those
circles in the backround? More than likely, it's displays
of flowers letting people know that there is a new place
business open! Having this type of a display is common
and expected, in order to tell passers-by that there
is something new there that they might want to stop for.



This is a pretty regular sight ... it is a Daoist temple.
They have very elaborate designs that usually include
dragons (at least the one's I've seen so far all seem to
have dragons on them) and they are very colorful.



Almost all of us got in this shot! lol
You can see Alisha's shoulder, my face in
the mirror, Yan Yu and Sherry, Joyce and her
classmate up in front. The only one you can't
see in Yan Yu's friend who is in the front of
Joyce's bike. I like the sign on the street that
is a graphic of a scooter, signifying that this
little area is designated for scooters at the
stop light.



This wall was right by where we parked. I thought it was
so pretty! There is actually more brick here than I
expected to see. I love it!

We spent some time looking in the little shops up and down
the street ... looking ... buying stuff to eat lol ... looking some more. :)
Finally, we made a couple of purchases and left.
Then it was on to the beach!



This man does personalized leather work. It's really neat!
There are at least three of these leather shops down this
street. One shop had the cutest purses ... but they were so
expensive! We're talking like over $100 US dollars!





Getting something refreshing to drink ... it was pretty warm outside!



Can you guess what this is? ... Marshmallows!






This was delicious by the way. :)



Sorry this picture isn't very clear ... I prob didn't have the
camera on the correct setting and I was walking while I snapped it.
Anyhow, this is a common thing here .. people will take their
small dogs with them on the scooters. :) It's hilarious! I told you
that these people can put practically anything on a scooter!



I got to catch the last few minutes of the sun setting and the colors were magnificent! So beautiful and awe-inspiring! What an amazing God who created our world! :) I wanted the
colors to last for a long time so I could just sit there and enjoy the moment. It was peaceful ...
indescribable ... wonderful ... the waves going in and out ... the clouds and colorful sky ... the wind ...



Cubby, this picture is for you. :) See the killer whale
statue in the backround?






Sherry, Joyce's classmate, Joyce, Yan Yu (making the monkey
faces in the front lol), Alisha, Yan Yu's friend.



This is my cool shirt from NCKU seen in a blog a while
back :)






I believe I can fly ;)

We left the beach after about 30 minutes. Then we stopped to get some really good tofu. It's soft and sweet.



Sherry and Yan Yu





Joyce's niece and the niece's classmate



After that, we headed off to see Lexus. He was very happy to see us! :) Then it was off to the night market! The biggest one in the city of Tainan! It was rather large. ;D



You can't really tell from this pic just how big the market is ... but it is huge!

This was my second night market experience and it was similar to my first ... there are things to buy EVERYWHERE! ... clothes ... food ... drinks ... accessories ... pets ... helmets ... games to play (things to win) ... there are so many things begging for your attention, not to mention all the people!







This is my yummy hot dog! It is surrounded by potato chunks,
with mustard and ketchup on the outside ... can you say, "yummy!?"




This large, corner booth was mostly seafood ...



I was pretty confident that this is as fresh as it gets ...
there are live shrimp in the tank ... one man takes them
out, cuts the head and other stuff off, skewers them and
hands them to the man next to him, who puts it on a grill ...
that's pretty fresh folks ...



This is ... interesting ... I'm not for sure on what it is ...
some kind of little octopus I think ...



Well, my bad .. I was wrong ... apparently it DOES get
fresher than the last pic ... yeah .. I don't think you can
get ANY MORE FRESH than taking live shrimp,
putting them on skewers, handing them to kids and
pointing them in the direction of the little bbq ...



This little boy is holding a "bouquet" of shrimp
in his hand ... yes, their antennae were still
moving ... was the little boy at all bothered by
this fact? Not in the slightest!



This is a delicious fried something with cheese and
curry inside. :)



So true :)



Okay, I'm not sure if this is supposed to be, "My sister"
or saying that the person is a sister themselves ...
anyways, it just made me think of Jane and Lissa ...
Miss you two!



Us leaving the night market (you can see some of the
lighting from it in the backround.) I am wearing the
new helmet that I bought in the market! :)



A better look at my new helmet! Yes, it is pink! lol
I was trying to choose between this one and another
helmet that was the same, except for it was a creme
color. They girls were both like, "That color suits you,
man!" lol ... But, I still wasn't sold on it ... and then
the guy running the booth showed us that he had a
pink visor to go with it ... and so I finally decided to
go with this one. :)

e


Anyone who is not from Taiwan or has previously
visited Taiwan want to guess what these are?
They are face masks. The two masks on the right
go over your mouth and nose. The mask on the
left also covers your mouth and nose, but also your
neck area.



This is the front of a very cute lounging shirt that I bought.

Oaky doaky, it's way past time for all good little boys and girls to
be in bed so I must be going. ttyl

~K.

P.S. There are two things that I forgot to tell you about in the last post ...

1) I saw my first, BIG cockroaches! Yuck! Last night, when I was coming
back to my apt, there were a couple of them outside, close to the sidewalk.
I would like to clarify here and let you know that I've never seen one inside
of my apt building. :)

2) Alisha started teaching me how to ride a scooter last night! lol She asked
me if I wanted to learn how to drive one ... I said that I would .. and she
said, "Okay, put you hand here." She showed me the gas and break and let me
"steer" while we were on a straightaway. It was fun! :) It wasn't really driving
a scooter as I was on the back seat and she was controlling the other side,
but it was a start haha. ;)