The Moon Festival

The morning of September 22nd, I woke up and prayed like I have never prayed before. Having felt so much angst over what is surely the craziest thing I have ever done in my life, I still somehow felt at peace. While I am still yet to see how God will work through me, I have no doubts that He will.

Wednesday was the moon festival in Taiwan. It celebrates the full moon, or the coming of autumn, or something. All I know is, everyone got a day off work, which means I got to meet a bunch of my new friends. 

Brandon invited me to go hiking with a bunch of the other teachers and, in my quest to be social, I obliged. I did NOT, however, anticipate hiking one of the most calf-straining, toe-scraping, sweat-inducing hikes of my life. I decided that I wanted to make a good first impression, so I wore jeans and a polo shirt. I will never wear either of those things again! After the first few minutes of walking around outside I looked like I was slapped in the face by a typhoon, and was dripping with sweat.

I'm standing just to the left of this picture.

Brandon and I walked over to the MRT station (or as I now like to call it, "Mr. T's"), where I met some of my new coworkers.

Naomi is a super nice, super thoughtful girl. Originally from Canada, she's been in Taiwan for five years, working for ORTV the whole time. Being a conversationalist, she spent a lot of time asking me about my life, and in turn, I got the chance to get to know her a little as well.

Next there's Gabe. Gabe is very tall, very thoughtful, and he has subtle sarcasm, but a caring heart. One word I would use to describe him would be "chill". I recognized him from some of the ORTV material where he played a nerdy bow tie-wearing  character named "Tom". Luckily, in real life, he is extremely down to earth. Gabe is also an APU alumn, so we had the chance to talk a little about our favorite professors and hot spots. He was also born in Taiwan and has lived most of his life here, so he is very in-touch with both cultures.

Kayla is one of the newer ORTV teachers. She has been here for about seven weeks, and it's possible that I may be co-hosting with her on Studio Classroom. She is very outspoken and friendly, and she has a good sense of humor. She is very much a conversationalist, and she has already played an important part in making me feel right at home.

Rachel, if I'm correct, only volunteers at ORTV on the side, and is actually an English teacher at a nearby school. She is friends with most of the ORTV teachers, and like everyone else, is a very devout Christian. She has also been in Taiwan for a couple years, though the story of how she got here is an interesting one. Rachel is absolutely a servant at heart, and I look forward to getting to know her more as well.

Once we all met and everyone took the opportunity to mock my attire, we set off for the endless stairs (self-named) over by the grand hotel. One minute we were walking down the busy streets of Taipei, and the next, we were in a thick lush jungle, split only by stairs that seemed to never stop going up. The hike was grueling and miserable, due mostly to the fact that it was 93 degrees and humid beyond belief. The trail was absolutely beautiful though. Up ahead you could see the randomly placed stones of the stairs climbing up through the overgrown jungle bush. 

Turning around revealed a different picture.

Along the trail you could see beautiful vegetation and interesting people doing yoga on specially built platforms designed for that purpose. There were also spiders the size of your face, which are pictured below. If you can't see it, try looking on the right side of the picture. If you don't think that thing looks big, just know that my hand is much closer to the camera than the spider is, and it's web was about 10 feet tall. Let's just say that falling in this things web would most certainly make me cry harder than anything else ever could!

I call it "facespider"!

Anyway, along the trail we met an old man named Andy. Andy approached us because he recognized the teachers from the show. Little did we know that Andy would become our tour guide, and self-proclaimed best friend. After leading us up and along the trail, he helped walk us to the main road, where he started singing worship songs. Turns out, Andy is a devout Christian.

After we said our goodbyes to Andy, we walked past a temple of some sort where they were doing the changing of the guard, and then I made my way over to see Doris Brougham (the woman in charge of ORTV) in person. She is a beautiful woman of God. Exceptionally welcoming and very giving, it is easy to see why ORTV has turned into such an amazing ministry.

For lunch, we had breakfast. We went to a place called New York Bagel, which served much more than just bagels. It was extremely nice, and classy, and we were all abled to get to know each other a lot better over some french toast.

Later in the afternoon Brandon again invited me to go with him and Rachel to a moon festival at an orphanage nearby. the kids are among the most sweet, and loving kids you could ever meet. Many, if not all of them, suffered from a parent that had an addiction of some kind. We had a barbecue on the roof for the moon festive, and several people from a nearby church came and attended with us. The experience was extremely rewarding, and I look forward to spending more time with them in the future!

That's it! My first full day in Taiwan. It's not all written down, mostly because I've been suffering from jet lag and I'm extremely tired, but the major points were hit. 

Since then I have started my job at ORTV, so stay posted for a taste of life in ORTV