today, God's creation

I skipped over what we did saturday so remember the last blog was sunday.

Saturday started off with coffee shop ministry. We set up at a local coffee shop called 85 degrees. They have excellent iced coffee (according to Scott because I'm not a coffee drinker) and yummy smoothies. The shop is located in a busy area downtown Yilan so we were ready to hand out english CD's, tracts, and chat with folks. We recruited a few more highschool students for our english church camp. A few of us decided to walk down the block to extend our ministry. Soon into the walk I discovered a hair salon. We all went in and before I knew it Emily and I were getting our hair cut! It was actually a great experience and all we had to do was show them a picture. Neither of our hair stylists spoke a bit of english but I figure "it's just hair." Towards the end an interpreter came in and I got to ask her some questions about my stylist's career and tell her why we were in Taiwan. In order to become a hair stylist in Taiwan you must do an apprenticeship first that can start as early as 16 years old. They start out shampooing then after a they graduate highschool they can take an exam to get licensed to cut hair. It's not like in the states where we have to go to an actual hair school and get a certain amount of hours to graduate. After the Americans bombarded the salon and tried to communicate the best we could I ended up getting an awesome Taiwanese haircut and Emily lost about 5 inches of hair and got layers. Plus our interpreter got to talk to the highschool apprentices about our english church camp. It was a success!

After the haircuts we picked up some lunch and had some free time to explore downtown or go back to the house. Scott and I decided to shop for straw hats. We found them but we needed to get some more cash. Scott ran down the block to the 7/11 and I stayed there. While there I asked the store owner if there was a bathroom I could use. She didn't understand what I was asking her at all. It was the moment when your mind realizes there isn't a place to go to the bathroom so then your body for some reason decides it has to go even more. There was nothing I could say to this woman to make her understand I needed to use the restroom. I even drew a picture! So, I stayed there for what seemed like forever until Scott came back. Once he was back my panic subsided and I suddenly didn't have to go so bad. It was so frustrating not knowing how to say a simple thing like "restroom" in chinese. It then became my mission when we got back home to learn how to say some key words just in case that situation came up again.

Behind The Base is the community center. God has really blessed the ministry that the Linde family has in Yilan. He has shown favor to them in so many ways but The Base was provided by the community rent free and utility free and is in a great location. That evening behind The Base, the community center set up a music show of bamboo instrument players. There were several different instruments made of bamboo and the musicians that played them were defenitely talented. The community center also had beautiful landscaping that I couldn't take enough pictures of. That night God revealed himself through his creation. I was in complete awe walking around seeing plants and trees I had never seen before. One of the things I love most about my husband is his love and appreciation of nature. I can't imagine being with anyone else that didn't love nature and see God's hand in it. Thank you God for your vision and the ability to see it, hear it, and smell it.