Recap Week

Sunday, March 16th: Tian asked Mirjam if we could stay in Taipei one more day to go wedding dress shopping. We went to 4 shops that were in the most obscure locations; I have no idea how she found them. They aren’t your typical Western wedding dress shops that you can see a mile away. These shops were in apartment buildings, which you had to go up these dingy, skinny steps to enter, and then you entered this place with many beautiful dresses. There were two that Tian really liked, and she had a really hard time choosing which one she liked better; after calling her best friend, she made a decision. Both were nice, and she made a wise choice! We went to a yummy Vietnamese place for dinner and made the long journey back to Hualien.

The place where we found “the one!”

One of Mirjams favourite cuisines.

A successful day.

Monday: Happy St. Paddy’s Day. Normally at home I go to my sister’s house, and we do a small celebration. This includes lucky charms, caramelized popcorn twists (which are amazing, btw), and festive green outfits! This year, I didn’t do much except buy myself bubble tea, and it happened to be in a green cup, so that was my celebration, haha. In the afternoon, I stayed on the 3rd floor a lot longer than normal—until 8:30. We didn’t have our regular workouts with Esther in the evening, so I spent some more time playing memory and UNO with the residents. :) I love hanging out with them, and my time here is quickly drawing to an end, so I enjoyed that extra time.

Someone donated cake so we got to have dessert.

Playing a version of trouble with the teacher and residents.

Thursday: It was one of the residents birthdays on the 3rd floor, so we had a small celebration for her. It was super sweet because she bought us all gifts, yogurt, and drinks. We sang the birthday song to her in both Mandarin and English and had some Chinese snacks.

Getting ready to receive the gifts she bought us and sing happy birthday.

The birthday girl and me :)

Friday: All the teachers at Bethesda had to attend 2 classes, from 9 am to 12 pm & 1 pm to 3 pm. Tian, Esther, and I were asked to help look after the 3rd & 4th floors, which were combined, so that both teachers could go. Esther and I took a few of the residents out for a walk since the weather was so nice. Tian stayed back with residents who wanted to watch a show instead. During my short break in between, I walked and got bubble tea. From 1 pm to 2 pm, the residents take their usual daily nap, so I read during that time. I felt bad for the 4th floor residents who had to sleep sitting and with their heads on the table since we were on the 3rd floor. Afterwards we had all the residents go outside to the courtyard to get some exercise. I could have had the rest of the afternoon off, but I chose to stay on the 3rd floor and work my 3 pm to 7 pm shift because I love them so much and my favourite part of the day is hanging out with them. Both teachers were there as well, so that was fun. After devotions, the residents were practising their dance for the 70th anniversary, so I stayed and watched.

A beautiful day for a walk.

Watching “The Bee Movie” brings back childhood memories.

Another dance practice to watch :)

Saturday: In the morning, we were invited to celebrate a man’s 80th birthday. We had to drive to this more remote place, which showcased the poorer village side of Taiwan. There we sang worship songs, a pastor preached a short sermon, and we had food, lots of food! On this special occasion they even roasted a pig. I’d never seen that before; it was quite amusing.

“…[pig] roasting on an open fire…”

Looks like a wedding cake!

“Say cheese.”

The Bethesda group.

One of the things I most wanted to do here was get my hair cut and dyed. I remember fondly the times I did it in China, the feeling when they massaged my head as they washed my hair. Here it is super affordable, and they do an especially good job since they know how to deal with Asian hair. We had nothing for the rest of the day, so Mirjam offered to drop me off at a hair place. I had wanted to do a dark burgundy, as I feel many Asians do that colour and it looks good. The weather has been super hot of late, and so I planned to get a significant amount chopped off as well. The process was a long one, 4 hours to be exact. They cut, bleached, washed, blow-dried, dyed, washed, and blow-dried again. The colour turned out much redder than I imagined, and because I got money pieces, it was quite noticeable. I was scared at first… my mom didn’t like the fact that I wanted to colour my hair, and the colour wasn’t exactly how we expected. Thankfully she told me she’d still love me anyways, so that was nice. It was pretty late when I was done, and Mirjam was watching a movie with the other girls, so I didn’t want to bug her, so I walked home by myself in the dark; thankfully, it wasn’t too far.

Before.

After!

Sunday: I decided several weeks ago that I wasn’t going to attend a church service here as all of them are in Mandarin, and I don’t really get anything out of them. Although Mirjam does translate for me, it’s still hard. I believe that in most cases you shouldn’t skip the fellowship of the body especially for a long period of time; however, in my instance I don’t get that fellowship anyways because I can’t communicate with the other people well. Instead, I just watch last week’s online church service. Last week wasn’t up yet, so I re-watched a really good one on Jonah by Pastor Brad.

All of us went to this amazing brunch place afterwards. It was very western and had some of the best food I have had so far. In the afternoon, Tian, Esther, and I took some of the Joy House girls, 4 in wheelchairs and 3 who could walk, on an outing. We went to go get drinks and afterwards went to a nearby park to just relax. I think they enjoyed it, especially being cooped up in Bethesda for most of the weekend. In the evening Mirjam and I took some Joy House boys out to a park to play, and Mirjam bought them drinks beforehand to enjoy. They had so much fun, and it was special to take them out too because, like, the girls had also been cooped up all day. It was a fun day, and I really enjoyed hanging out with the residents, especially ones I normally don’t hang out with.

Very western food and oh so yummy.

Joy House 6th and 7th floor girls.

Joy House 4th floor boys.

Monday: Good friends of Mirjam (and friends of my parents) came to visit Mirjam at Bethesda. In typical fashion we took them to the Night Market. Thankfully all of the good places were open so we had all sorts of good food: sweet potato balls, caramelized sweet potatoes, a cilantro peanut ice cream wrap, a banana milk smoothie, and a banana chocolate crepe.

A picture perfect sign.

Tuesday: Since I knew these guests, Mirjam let me have the day off and do all the fun things she was planning to do with them. We went to one of Miriam’s favourite breakfast places, “Blue Plate.” I had a chicken burger and a milk tea. Not very breakfast-like, but it was delicious nonetheless! An exciting thing happened while we were there. All of a sudden in the middle of our meal the ground began to shake; I was experiencing my second earthquake. It was a pretty good one too and was ranked as a 5.1 on the earthquake scale. As it was happening, everyone’s phones began to blare a warning alarm, alerting us to the earthquake, a bit late if I do say so myself. We then took a tour of the workshops around Bethesda. It was fun since now that I know the residents, I recognize them in each of the workshops.

Blue plate breakfast.

In the afternoon we went to Liyu Lake. We got bikes and rode around the whole lake—a 20 min bike ride. The weather was perfect, and the sky was blue, and the lake was sparkling in the sunlight. Mirjam also treated us to two rounds in a fast boat around the lake. That was really fun, but I felt a bit motion sick afterwards.

Fun in the sun.

Ready for the ride.

For the evening, we went out for hot pot, which was funny, especially since it was +25 outside. Tian and Esther joined us for this. It was so good, and I ate till I was beyond full. This hot pot place was nice because you could choose your vegetables and what you wanted to eat and what you didn’t.

Choices, choices.

We had our regular drama practice, but this time we were able to perform the whole thing in front of the guests. It was a lot of fun, almost like the real thing, although it still needs a lot of work to get the timing right with the music and all, making sure we are not making noise, laughing, and smiling while performing since it’s a mime. But mainly making sure we’re not happy at the sad parts and sad at the happy parts, which happens a lot, haha.

Thursday: I got to swim in the ocean! And no, I didn’t get bitten by a shark. The weather had been beautiful the past few days, so Esther said that she would be willing to take me swimming on our lunch break. It was very refreshing to be out of the heat and in the coolness of the water. I didn’t go too far in, as I wanted to be able to touch the bottom, and it got deep really quickly. I would say I’m a pretty good swimmer, but I get tired easily, and the waves were pretty high farther out. Better be safe than sorry, especially in this case. All in all it was fun, although it faded my hair… I now have light pink highlights haha. I like to say, “two colours for the price of one.”

A speck in the vast ocean.

Friday: In the morning Mirjam asked me to share my story with the staff during team devotions. I think it went well, Mirjam said; a few were teary. Thankfully, I got to do it in English, and Tian translated, so that was nice. My bakery teachers were unable to come to the meeting, although they wanted to hear my story, because they were making bread, so when I went down to work, I translated the slides I used into Mandarin so they could read it. She was very touched by my story, as her daughter also was very ill when she was young, and gave me a long hug. One of the residents pointed out that she was crying, and she was like, “no, I’m just very happy.” She asked me to share the slides with her so she could share them with her family.

We were invited to attend a school performance, all of us short-termers: Mirjam, 16 students, and one teacher. It was interesting; I didn’t understand any of the talking, but I just got the gist of it by watching the acting. The residents really enjoyed going out and said they loved the performance.

Waiting for the performance to begin.

Saturday, March 29th: I haven’t been feeling so good lately, so I had a restful morning by Face Timing my parents, listening to podcasts, and having a nap. I’ve been wanting to do something fun with the 3rd floor, outside of Bethesda. Originally I wanted to take a few out to the night market, but because the weather drastically changed, I took 4 of them out for dinner to their favourite restaurant… McDonald’s. I must just say McDonald’s here is much better than at home, as there are so many more food options to choose from and it’s way cheaper. We had a good time.

Off to McDonald’s we go!

A happy group.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Hosanna