Friday, September 3, 2011
Dear Praying Friends,
I have now officially completed week one in Douliou, Taiwan!
I am at a Character English Institute (camp), here in Douliou. Basically, 4th grade classes from all over Yulin and Chiayi Counties come for a week to learn about character and English. The elementary school here has allowed CEI to use 2 floors of their building, so the kids and teachers are able to eat, sleep, and live right here on campus.
This week was an office week with orientation, get-to-know-you games, and a lot of “free” time. On Sunday night, the Taiwanese teachers threw a big welcoming party for the 7 of us coming in. They like parties here. Any excuse will do. Then after settling in on Monday and Tuesday, we played the “states game” to get everyone’s English names down. Thursday, the teachers took us to lunch and gave us Chinese names. At first, they tried to make them sound like our English names; but when we explained name meanings to them, they gave us names to describe who we are to them. My name is “Su-yi-le” which means “sharing joy and happiness from Jehovah-Jireh.” Pretty special. Every year, they ask the new teachers to write down their goals and ambitions for the next year, so on Friday, the Taiwanese teachers had a special ceremony for that. Towards the end of the meeting, one of the teachers claps her hands and says “can I have three minutes?” She gave us gifts of a kindergarten grid-line notebook and pencil, with our names written inside. This way, we could practice our names and learn other Chinese words. This was so special, as each one of us English teachers on the team wanted to learn to speak Chinese competently.
Though we are here to teach the kids, our real ministry, it seems, is with the Taiwanese teachers. We see them every day and work with them for an entire year, whereas the kids come and go. Already, they are aware that we are Christians. I’ve been asked questions about Jesus and have been able to share why I Him as so important. Two of the thirteen teachers here are Believers. We are praying that at the end of this year, every teacher will know Jesus as their personal Savior. Assuredly, with this goal, we are expecting and, indeed, have already experience spiritual warfare. Please pray for peace, power, and protection for our team. God is working!
This month, the Chiayi team is in training, so there is a lot of staff here. The first week of camp, which starts tomorrow, will be almost 2 - 1 student to teacher ratio. However, that also makes the load very light for everyone. My job this week is to run around with a notebook and pen to take notes on everything they do so that I can do it next week.
Barbara J. Sutton:
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