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Overloaded from a full day Today (Saturday) was potentially the longest day for us on this trip. We arrived at our hotel about 9 p.m. on Friday after 25 hours of travel. We stayed up till about 11 or 12 so we would talk to our families and unpack. We had to be ready to leave the next morning at eight. I woke up at six because I wasn’t sleeping well and I also wanted to exercise.

Yiping, our friend, guide and potential director of Young Life in Taiwan, came and picked us up at eight. We went to a sports complex for our first session of the trip. This session was about leading a camp because this summer there are going to be four camps for the aboriginal tribes throughout Taiwan. We were under the impression we would be in front of about 50 people. But about 15 showed up. Come to find out it was the weekend before mid-terms for a couple of the colleges. Most of the leaders for the camp are those college students and they decided to study instead of attend.

After the training we went to lunch with CiCi and Sam. Both are Taiwanese nationals who lived in America for at least 20 years. They returned to Taiwan after being sent by their church in San Francisco to help the aboriginal tribes of the country. They have a heart for those kids. They said that a majority of their parents abuse them and have drinking addictions. The lunch lasted about two hours. The restaurant we were at kept bringing us food.

We went back to our hotel around 2:30 and at 4 p.m. Yiping arrived with some friends. I was hoping to get some napping in but spent most of that time uploading videos. Yiping, the ever-gracious hostess brought us more food. We enjoyed it with JoAnn and her husband John and LingAnn. JoAnn was my interpreter last time. She didn’t remember me. Guess I didn’t leave a lasting impression. She was the one who taught us how to say, “white idiot” last time. We asked her that because we figured that’s what people were saying about us. LingAnn attended a YL style camp when she was in middle school and made a commitment to Christ at the camp.

We hung out in our hotel talking about American and Taiwanese culture, as well as how we connect with kids in those cultures until about 7 p.m. Then we went to a night market. It is the busiest on Saturday evening. We were pretty crowded, but not as crowded as our stomachs. They continued to buy us food. I really think I was still hungry from lunch. We had ox tongue, which is a sweet dough that is shaped like its name, a dough ball full of meat and vegetables, fried chicken breast and stinky tofu. I really thought I’d was going to lose my food with the stinky tofu. It was too hot to swallow so I had to chew it. The pungent taste of the tofu hung around way too long. Now it is definitely bed time. Sorry for the boring summary. I will give better details and better thoughts once things slow down tomorrow…if they do.

If you have facebook you can follow my video and photo parts of the trip. Just send a friend request. I accept anybody as long as they didn't become a University of Northern Iowa fan during the month of March. I'm also posting most of our video footage on You Tube. Type in Bear River Young Life Taiwan and you'll find it.