Rainy Day

the nineteenth of november, two thousand and twelve

  So after arriving back in Kending town on Friday night we had to find a place to eat that would let us bring little Beako in with us.  We found this hipster French place called Chez Papa! The music was from some French web radio and it was super eclectic and had good food.  The water was even served in vodka bottles. 

  We hung out there for quite a few hours and went to the girls' hotel room where we all played some games.

  Around early o'clock, it started raining.  Not just raining, pouring! And not just there but all over Taiwan.  It was super rare for this time of year since winter is the dry season.  We had a short break from the rain to pack up the tents and get the girls and get into town.  The original plan was to spend the rest of the day on the beach and half the people had to head up north that night.  Well we decided there was no point in trying to force a good beach time in miserable weather so we decided to head to Kaohsiung that night where the girls could easily catch the gaotie to the airport Sunday morning.  

  Meanwhile, we wanted to make the best of our time in Kending so we returned to Chez Papa and hung out the rest of the day there playing games!

Nick making Sung Ah uncomfortable!

  All in all, it was an awesome, spiritually uplifting time because of the people we were with and their encouragement and experiences.  Brian and Michelle are special pioneers who were assigned the English congregation in Taoyuan. They have lived here eight years and are both from Pennsylvania, being Charlie's family and all.  Nick Kiminski is from Youngstown, Ohio and knew John Norwood and Alex Fredrickson! Small world I tell ya.  He is in Taipei's English congregation.  Most weekends he travels alone to Su'ao to witness and conduct his studies at the ports with Filipinos, Indonesians, and whoever else is interested that works on the boats or docks.  He takes his tent and sleeps wherever he can find.  He says it is a hard life which is why he goes alone most of the time but it is incredibly rewarding.  Once when he was preaching in bad weather and was feeling a little depressed, he prayed that he could just have some chicken noodle soup, kinda like a comfort food.  The next ship invited him on board and he conducted a group study while they brought him chicken soup! It was just the chicken in the broth without the noodles but it was enough to remind him that Jehovah was with him.  I think he left out the noodle part in his prayer although he might have been thinking about it with noodles ;)

  Many of these ship workers are treated very poorly.  They may work for a year, year and a half or more without being paid! Then when they are paid they may only receive half of what they are owed.  They only make about a thousand USD per year and half of what they make goes to their families.  On top of that they nearly never get a day off work.  Still they appreciate the truth and are yearning to learn.  One man had only ever had three days off of work in many years.  He spent the latest day going to the meeting!  It made me think whether I take spiritual occasions for granted.

  So Charlie and Nick called their friends in Kaohsiung, since we were to arrive a day earlier than planned, and we headed back up the coast to start our next adventure.