Happy 2015! Great news! I am officially joining the army on January 19th. I came back to Taiwan in May, 2014, and it's been way too long. Nevertheless, half a year wasn't wasted. I volunteered at a caring center, led my church's youth group, and worked at an after school English program.
Once a week, elders from neighborhoods around my church will come to our church's caring center. We gather them here to get their health checked, tell them stories, do some exercise, and so on. I started volunteering in September, 2014, and I was the greeter and the staff's assistant. Besides volunteering once a week, I led my church's youth group. Because it didn't have any counselor for a while, I told the church that I wanted to help out and became a counselor. Youth group has always been my favorite part of church life, so it was a dream come true. I got to lead the youths with three other staffs.
Serving the elders and leading the youths were good times, yet I was grateful for my part-time job the most. The fact that I was waiting to join the army stopped me from being employed; employers didn't want to spend time training me and then lose me because of military service. But God was gracious. One of my elementary school classmates worked at the English school, and the school needed a teacher assistant badly. I offered myself and told them that I came back from the U.S., and they hired me. Three times a week, I worked as a teacher assistance of an after school English class that teaches children from age of five to ten. I helped teachers prepare materials such as posters for the class, pick up kids from their school, get the kids ready to go home when their parents come pick them up, and clean up the classrooms after the lessons. I sometimes had the opportunity to teach the children some English for like half an hour per class. Also, because of my relatively authentic accent, the school asked me to do telephone teaching. I would make a phone call to the children and talked to them in English one by one. This was a way to encourage the kids to speak up in English and to improve their listening. The most challenging part of the job was keeping the children well-behaved. I tried to pretend that I was a foreigner who doesn't speak Chinese, but that didn't work out because I couldn't discipline them in English; the kids wouldn't listen to me when they didn't understand what I said. Still, I like these kids, and my waiting days would be very dull if I didn't have this job.
It is interesting how I served almost every age group. From taking care of elders to teaching kids English, I have seen many things. And now I am about to witness another part of the society. They say that in the army, there are all kinds of people. It's basically a smaller version of the "adult world". Some friends told me that I've better watch my back. The army could be a tough place for me. So here are my prayer requests:
1. Pray that I will have wisdom in the army. There will be injustice occur in the army, and may God teach me how to face them.
2. Pray that there will be perseverance in me. There will be times when I may get bullied. May God be with me and lead me through the situations.
3. Pray that I can discern the truth. I was told that I'm a gullible person, and I couldn't agree with that no more. There will be voices from various directions, so may His truth rules above me.
I couldn't give enough thanks to all of you for keeping me in your prayers. May I do the same to you all. Emmanuel. Thank you!
Above three were taken during Christmas Week at the English school.
Youth group practicing worship songs for Christmas
Volunteers in red and the elders
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