7/2 - 7/3 At the Beginning

I am behind on blogging……don’t know when I’ll catch up now…

Welcome to Taiwan! As we walked through the airport terminals, we were greeted by various signs and banners with this message. Our flight had gone relatively smoothly with only an hour or so of turbulence During the course of these 13 hours, I managed to watch Monsters vs. Aliens and Dragonball Evolution, and play multiple games of “Connect 4 w/ powerups,” Pong, Sudoku, and various other entertaining games. Oh yeah, and you can’t forget sleep either. I slept a lot. At the same time though, as I looked around every so often, everyone around me was also either asleep, watching a movie or TV show, or playing a game. Occasionally, a mom or dad would be talking or playing with a kid, but overall, human-technology interactions definitely ruled the flight more than human-human interactions did. Unfortunately, even as I walked around the aisles a few times, no opportunities to talk with anyone presented themselves (at least to my discernment). Somewhat discouraging, but hopefully, we’ll get more opportunities to share as we continue on this trip.

Back to the airport. As we got off the plane and made our way past the quarantine place, Josh and I got pulled aside to have our temperatures taken. Apparently our heads or something turned up semi-red-ish on their heat sensors. We got past though, but that was interesting…oh yeah, I got the pat down at SFO also. I wonder what other random security check’s I’ll get when we return…. Anyways, a few hours later, we got on a van and head south to Yuanlin. Josh was on a train to Kaohsiung by then, so we were + 1 (sheen) and – 1 (josh). Whee. After a good sleep on the van, we arrived in Yuanlin at our hotel, a few hours before our rooms would be ready…

Walking around Yuanlin, it’s hard to not notice the busyness of everything here. Street-side vendors selling their wares and produces, cars honking, mopeds speeding by, the noise of the city make clear how hectic life here is. Just walking through the streets involves care, as cars and moped pass by with maybe a few inches between you and them, and you wonder where they are going. Large signs are everywhere, advertising stores, food, and other consumer products. We encountered many teen couples as we walked around in places ranging from McDonalds to the bookstore (that literally had almost anything…), browsed the incredible selections at the outdoor street-side markets, in 7-Eleven, and at the bookstore, and found just how similarly yet differently people here live. Teens look to their companions, especially dating relationships, to fill certain voids within them. Materialism is almost as rampant, if not more rampant, as it is in the United States. Sex, drugs, and alcohol is also pretty visible as well (well not sex, but the availability and accessibility of condoms is a bit frightening). Traditional idols here are less visible, but still show up from place to place. Yet idols, especially non-traditional idols, are definitely prevalent here. Will we be able to reach out to these teens? I pray that God would prepare us to face this culture head on, to show that the things that the people here, as well as the people back home, value really do not fulfill, and that only God can fill those voids.

--JY