Taiwan: Spirits and a Mallet

I'm getting better at this... we are almost done here. :)

Fresh and ready for another day, we had morning devotions again. This time one of the Taiwanese kids spoke, which was unusual, since they are usually really quiet. Ming Ha, Mr. “I got a 2700NT haircut” said that he was very sensitive to evil spirits and at 1:30am last night, while him and Emily were talking (already breaking one of the rules about the missions trip) he felt a spirit come near and try to get into the church. He could hear a rattling, like keys rattling. Emily heard it as well, and they were very fearful. They spent time praying and singing and the rattling after a while stopped, leaving them scared and shaken. I had slept through the night without a problem, and it was a wake up call to realize that Satan wouldn’t take this lying down. Later on we found out that there was a priest that was outside the church praying against it. Serious stuff. We spent the next 2 hours in the sanctuary, praying and worshipping the Lord, as this was pretty heavy on our hearts. We prayed for Ming Ha and Emily and ended the session on a somber note. Aunt Rose, the pastor of the church we were staying at got up and spoke about spiritual warfare. It's striking to see how much more comfortable they are with spirits than we as Americans are.. Being ever vigilent, Aunt Rose started talking about what we were going to do next, which was family visitations to people's houses.

One of the things about this trip that I can say is what the trip wasn't, and it wasn't structured at all. For any of you who know me, I'm a fairly structured guy and thrive with that. Give me no structure and I typically flounder until structure is established. So when Aunt Rose started to talk about us going out to different families and visiting with them, my mind immediately starts to think about the logistics...”is a chinese speaker going to be paired with a english speaker?” “Do we have directions?” “does everyone know how to get back here?” “What should we expect and what are they expecting?”, etc, etc...I asked of course, and by now you should know their reply...which was a blank stare for a second and then a “don't worry, it's all under control.”.

2 hours later, we are still in the sanctuary trying to figure out who is with who, what we all need to bring, where are we going, does everyone know when to get back, and what to do if we get lost. At this point, I'm at my wits end and I try to establish some structure to it alll, but to no avail. It's too late. The train has left the station and I am left standing on the platform. We FINALLY get going and now I'm feeling pretty good and just going along with the flow, till we get to our first house. You see, by the time we got out of the church to go to people's houses, it was near the end of lunch time. Unlike the overworked american, most other countries usually sleep in the afternoon. Imagine that. Sleeping when your body says to sleep according to the circadian rhythm? That's just plain un-american. Needless to say, we only got to really visit 2 of the houses that we wanted to see. I did notice a playground near one of the houses, but no children playing on it. It could be because someone decided to use the playground to dry their laundry. ALL their laundry...yup, that's right...the unmentionables were out for everyone who drove by the street. There is no shame here in taiwan, and I think they are better for it. (No, I will not dry my undies out in the open, simply because I'm sure the rabid furry rodents they call squirrels would try to devour them for some sustenance.)

At this point, the mission trip part is pretty much done. There was one more praise night that we had to do at the U chang church, which is the 2nd biggest church in taiwan, but that wasn't until saturday, which was a couple of days away. This was good, because I had been playing guitar so much over the last couple of days that I had blisters on the ends of all my fingers. We spent time going to the various malls and such, I think simply because we didn't know what else to do. To be honest, those days passed by with frustrating slowness. After seeing what God did, I wanted to go out and do more! But instead we went to the “dream” mall, which is 10 floors of consumer madness. It was supposed to have a ski slope built inside, in addition to having a ferris wheel on the ROOF of the mall. Nevermind the novelty of having a ferris wheel on a roof of a tall buildilng, but it was a ginormous wheel...as big as navy pier in chicago. I couldn't help but wonder if everything was properly bolted down. It wasn't just the ferris wheel that was up there, there were games and activities for the kids to play...it was a great idea. (the games and stuff) We ended up playing that game where you hit a spot on the floor with a mallet and see how hard you hit it? Well, given that i was 10 years older than everyone on the trip, no good could come from me playing. But that has never stopped me before, so I tried. And failed. I tried again harder and this time I hit the spot so hard, the mallet ricocheted and smashed me in the face, knocking my glasses off, cutting my nose and causing me to bleed. Screaming, I fell to my knees clutching my face. At least that is what I wanted to do. In one of my more suave moments, I didn't even react at all. For a second I was stunned. “did I really just bash my own face in with this mallet? Yep, I sure did. Oh man, that hurts. Crap. Everyone is watching me... play it cool josh.” I calmly picked up my glasses 10 feet away put them on and walked off the platform, head held high. I had to walk quickly before people could see me tear up from the pain, and I couldn’t see anything through my glasses. I've got a nice little mark now on my nose.