I remembered something yesterday. You can listen to Big Country online. So here I am, 5:30 p.m. in Kinmen, listening to Jim Jeffries, the ol' hoot owl, who thinks it's 4:30 in the morning. Kinda surreal.

I had a great conversation with a girl named Grace today about knowing God's direction for your life. She's a new Christian but seems very firm in her faith. She said she wants to wait on God for plans, but her parents want her to have a very clear plan already made up. I told her I would pray for her.

Be praying for BJ. She has a really upset stomach and didn't go to church this morning. She's been fighting it for probalby over a week but it hadn't been this bad.

As long as you're praying, pray for the husband of one of the church members. He's not a Christian, has liver cancer, and was told last week that he only has a month to live.

I sure wish there was a way to check how much time you have left. There probably is, but it's just in Chinese. Ma bawn fah. No solution.

I'm a tellurian. Cool word, huh?

I think I'll go read all of y'all's blogs. Love y'all!

Bubba

Kuyu

Lily, Sarah, David, and I.

OK, hope is restored. I'm back!

Camp kept us real busy but it went great. I had Kuyu and Mrs. Jernigan helping me with 15 kindergartners the whole time and then half a dozen other people in and out as their patience lasted. :) Let's just say we had 2 little boys who were...difficult. The youth group was awesome and Kuyu and Ah-chung MADE the camp. Parents came to the presention at the end where the gospel was presented, we got to give Bibles to all the kids, and 9 kids came to Sunday school this morning all which were major goals for the camp. I'll post pictures soon.

It turns out that the wife of the pilot who died in the crash with Jonny is here illegally from Vietnam. She has a 5 month old and 18 month old and the government wants to send her back to Vietnam WITHOUT her kids! So the Hopes and their church are trying to work it out where all 3 of them can move to AR with them. I sure hope it works out. It would be so awful to separate them after losing their dad and husband. The Hopes' behavor is such a witness, too.

We leave for Taiwan on the 29th where we'll spend 3 days at the school where Drew and the rest of the King Car teachers are doing and then fly home (*Brave Saint Saturn voice* HOME!) on the 2nd. This leaves only 2 weeks left in Kinmen. Let's go into full bore panic now.

Andrea and Young (Pastor Samuel and Joy's kids) and Tony and Ebony (kids of a family who used to go to church here and now live in Thailand) possibly might get to come to our house next year for summer vacation. I sure hope so! I've had a ton of fun with Young and Andrea and have heard lots of good things about Tony and Ebony.

I'm going to go read all the millions of blog posts I've missed. Love y'all!

Dear Ethan and Naomi,
howdy hey! the shift button isn't working on this keyboard so i hope y'all don't mind a whole email with no capitilaztion. and sorry i didn't email yesterday. i was at the king car camp in the morning, we went to lunch with one of bj's former teachers (annie, who says to send her greetings to dad), did a lesson with andy, went to the beach/4th party, cleaned up, lesson planned, and finally went to bed at 1.
bj and samuel leave at 1:15 for the airport. they'll be spending the night in gowshong and then taking a train to hualien on friday. the service is firday afternoon, they'll spend the night in hualien, and fly back saturday. i'm teaching john and andy today, 2 of bj's cram school classes this evening, john again on friday, 2 more cram school classes on friday, and then samuel's cram school class on saturday morning. i certainly won't be bored. please pray that it will all go smoothly on both sides of the channel.
yesterday we went to the beach with jennifer and her 2 kids, andrea, theresa (bj's ta at the cram school), and her boyfriend. we swam, dug for clams, made sand castles, buried eachother's legs in the sand, ate watermelon and spat the seeds, sang the national anthem, ate pizza, and set off fireworks. how was y'all's 4th?
lunch is here and i still need to figure out a few more things with bj and samuel before they leave.
love y'all!
Anna

This morning we went with Jennifer to the cultural village. The Wong family that made it rich in SE Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, someplace in there) and came back built 18 very fancy traditional houses. Only members of that family live there. It's a great place for pictures and I took a ton. We also got a Wilbur Register shot.
Afterwards we had pizza at Jennifer's house and she taught us a game that's like a complicated version of spoons with Chinese dominoes. I don't think I quite understood it. Jennifer's niece was there and had a friend over who is the most gregarious 5 year old I've met over here. Her name was Bing-Wan and she has a sister in jr. high and a sister in elementary and she doesn't know what grade they are. "How am I supposed to know? They've never told me." She had had pizza once before in Taipei when she was a baby and she likes it. She was amused by us pretending her pig tails were moped handles and then ran around the house making moped noises.
We had the most luscious fish tonight. Way-Ling fryed it in a skillet and then squeezed lemon over it. I'm not sure what kind of fish it was but I sure liked it.
Did anybody read today's Breakpoint about the Episcapolian priest who considers herself Christian and Muslim? You should and then please tell me what you think.
Today the inspector came to look at the new parsonage. I haven't heard how it went. Pray, pray, pray!
I'm drawing up a list of good English names to have on hand for the church's camp. They don't start English in school until the 3rd grade so probably 2/3 of the kids won't have English names. Please be praying for us and Kuyu as we're planning and for God to prepare the hearts of the kids.
It rained just a tad today but it sure looks like it will storm soon. There's a storm front that we can see with magnificent thunderheads, it's been really still, and there's been an abundance of a certain kind of bug that always shows up before a rain. I really hope it does storm but not tomorrow evening because we're having team meeting on the beach with pizza delivered. I'm really looking forward to it.
I'd better see about my laundry, take a benadryl so I don't scratch myself raw tonight, and get to bed.
Love y'all!

Yesterday I was attacked by little fish that look like skipping stones.

Yep. I'm not making that up.

I was swimming in Little Kinmen and right when a wave hit me so did something hard. So I assumed that there was something getting washed ashore. Then something else hit me on the side of the head. I looked around to see if one of my party (BonnieJean, Jennifer, and Samuel) were throwing things at me. While I'm looking at the shore 3 more hit me in the back of the head and one missed and landed right in front of me. It looked exactly like a rock. Just then something else hit me in the head so I decided to swim out of there as fast as my little arms and legs would take me.

Samuel told me that they're little fish and he has no idea why they leap out of the water at people. BJ has never seen them so she wanted to find them again. I just pretended to look.

Dear Dad,
This will be a really short email as it's late and I'm sure you want me to go to bed.
The weather has really heated up this past week. Karen, owner of California Pizza, told us that the local tradition is that after Dragon Boat Festival (which was Tuesday) it's officially summer and it will start heating up. I think that's a lot more accurate than the American groundhog day.
We went to the youth group meeting this evening. Ben, an exchange student at the college from Florida, spoke on idolatry. It was really, really good. He ended on a note of encouragement for the folks with non-Christian families: God is in control, the situation of your non-Christian family did not sneak up on Him, and the best way to honor your parents is to be a good Christian so that they will be saved by your witness.
God really has His hand on the Chens, the family we're staying with and Gene the boy living with them. Gene is tutored in English by Adrian, a really awesome Christian girl from Hualien attending the Kinmen college. John is tutored in math by David, a fellow from church. I didn't know Adrian tutored Gene until Thursday night. I was showing Gene's mom, Lee-shan (she's from Taiwan but is visiting until the end of the semester), my brag book. When she came to the picture of Caleb being baptized she asked if we were Baptists. I explained that we're attending a Baptist church but we've gone to several different denominations. Way-ling asked about Jehovah's Witness. As I'm trying to explain work-based salvation and occult who should suddenly appear but Adrian! And of course she was able to explain it all in Chinese to them. It was absolutely God's timing!
Jia-yo on the desert training! I'll stop CC my emails home to you because Mama said you have a limited amount of time to download them. Be careful and learn lots!
I'm going to bed now.
Love you!
Anna

Communication barriers can be dangerous. What I thought was going to be a quick excursion before coming back to the house turned into a 6 hour bike around the inner circuit of Kinmen. I didn't bring bug spray, sunscreen, tissue, or water. I'm about the color of Amarillo dirt now and am feeling the effects of vitamin D overdose. But it was a very fun ride and I'm tickled that I was able to bike so far. I don't know how long it would take at a more strenous pace. They stopped a lot to rest and show us stuff, which was fine with me. I think I'll be adament about Samuel translating for me. Usually I just zone out when they're discussing plans in Chinese and wait for BonnieJean or Samuel to translate the final decision. I'm not sure if Samuel thought he had told me what we were doing or if he himself was confused. But we can see that communication barriers between foreigners or your brother can be dangerous.

Today we visited three different ninth grades at the junior high here. Samuel taught one of them and BJ taught the other two when they were all seventh graders. BonnieJean and Samuel are still worshiped even though it's been two years since they taught junior high.

This afternoon we went to watch an English singing competition. There were 19 different schools competing. We had to leave before they were finished so we don't know who won. My favorites were the Goldilocks, Farmer Brown (cows and hens demanding blankets from Farmer Brown and refusing to give milk or lay eggs until their demands are met.), Shrek, and one other that I don't know the name of their song. I sat with Lauren's after school class (same one that I taught karate to on Friday) and had a lot of fun with them. I also played with a little kid around four or five years old who was a lot of fun. And I got to name one of Drew's students from On Who who didn't have an English name. I named her Naomi because I knew I could translate it as quw-eye-la and there was no one else around to translate for me. And because it's a beautiful name. She seemed happy with it.

It poured rain all of yesterday afternoon and has been drizzling all afternoon today. They're predicting two more days of rain. The mosquitoes are really fierce in any place that's covered enough to protect them from the rain.

The high school conversation class on Tuesday was awesome. We played Psychiatrist and +Est and Samuel told them the story of his name. Not as many students are coming as before but that's good actually. We're getting to know them better and it's only the kids who actually like it.

I met the famous Karen of California Pizza yesterday. We'll be getting together with her Thursday at her new coffee shop at the college. She's also opened a second California Pizza on Pungwho (another little island between here and Taiwan) also. Quite the businesswoman.

I'm going to read blogs, practice violin, go running, and take a shower. Or I might forget it all and watch Night at the Museum with Lauren and Rachel. Hmmmm...

"I can't take it in" from Narnia is becoming my theme song for this summer. Kinmen is so new and different and the emotions are so deep that I feel that I can't take it all in but it is very beautiful.

Can't close my eyes
They're wide awake
Every hair on my body
has got a thing for this place
Oh empty my heart
I've got to make room for this feeling
so much bigger than me

It couldn't be any more beautiful - I can't take it in.

I need to start doing regularly...

Running
Karate
Algebra (Chemistry is fun so I'm having no trouble getting it done)
Updating for all my poor fans out there.

I need to buy...
Flip-flops
Umbrella
Laundry detergent
Pens
Possibly renting or buying a bike?

We need to pray about...
The town's god's birthday that's either Thursday, Saturday, or Monday depending on your interpration of our conversation at lunch with sundry people. In the past this has been a hard time of spiritual attack for the team.
Me getting a job.
Us staying healthy, which we have so far thankfully.

Love y'all!

Two thoughts that have been going round in my head and heart about Taiwan.

1, I can't have a vacation mindset. True it will be fun and quite an experience but I'm there on God's payroll and need to give him a good day's work.

2, God has a distinct purpose for me going. This isn't me tagging along with BJ and Uel. It's not a summer off so let's go someplace exotic. God ruled out a lot of other things in favor of Kinmen. I could work the summer to pay for school, I could be going on ABKA mission trips (like the one to Israel! *Drool*), helping with ATI regional confenrences, doing CLEPs, visiting Chera, or just bumming around the house. But God very purposeful planned Kinmen for me. So it must be really important that I'm going and it's going to be awesome.

Below is a verse for my summer.

If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth. That God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. I Peter 4:11