The YL is going well

Hi, it’s Linda writing for the group. We’re presently in Nan Ao (the last part pronounced “ow” such as when you stub your toe). But let me start from the beginning so that you have a somewhat clearer idea of what has transpired to this point. We were met in Taoyuan Airport by our hospitable hosts, Hsu Cheng-Hsin and his family. Funny to think that when he and his wife first came to Virginia Tech as grad students in aerospace engineering in the mid-80’s, we were their host family. We stayed overnight in their very modern, upscale, huge apartment located on the 10^th floor of a new, prestigious building where the only incident that occurred was when one of our team touched the orange button in the bathroom, alerting security to come upstairs from the lobby.

The next day they put us on a train headed for Taipei, where we would meet the Young Life leaders and youth whom we would be joining at camp at Nan Ao. Jetlag was big at this point, but as most of the team are young and energetic, they didn’t project much wear and tear. Our Taipei hosts had trouble finding us at first because Chuck’s cell phone wasn’t working well, and the station just had too many forks in every direction. They then packed us (and all our luggage) into 4 taxis, and except for the fact that the second taxi got lost, everything else went smoothly. Our Taipei hosts tried to anticipate our every need, and they exhibited the spirit of Christ above all to accommodate us, knowing our tiredness and lack of experience in their culture and language.

On Sunday we went to church and later joined the high schoolers in ice-breaker games. Some of these youths would be ones who would be joining us at the Nan Ao camp.

On Monday we practiced skits, went over strategy, and half the team (Lee, Carlie, Dorcas, Frances, and Cody) left for Nan Ao. The rest of us joined them Tuesday late morning. And here we are in the beautiful mountains of Nan Ao, enjoying the scenery, the co-workers, and engaging the high schoolers. Young Life from Taipei is very different from Young Life in the States, and the youth are very different too because they spend most of their lives pursuing academics. The camp here is beautiful but primitive, and when they’d mentioned small tents, I assumed they meant cabins. But no, it’s really tents. Today we went jumping from waterfalls. Tomorrow we’re doing something equally exciting, but there’s no translation for it in English (although they called it “bungie jumping”). Pray that we reach the young people in the short time we have left. It’s been fun, but our hope is that in the skits, songs, and times together, they will be able to experience Christ as their savior.

Everyone is doing well. We do not have Internet access unless we drive to the closest city. It is not likely that we will be able to send out another update until sometime this coming weekend. Thank you for praying for us!