RE-HIRED PROGRAM - 6.22.2020 – Exploring Many Things

The school year is winding down here (a little later than usual due to the virus) and so are most of our weekly campus activities.  Some of our regulars at game night are graduating this semester, so we were able to hold a "something less than serious" photo shoot.

The College-age / Young Adult worship service and study at Enguang Church attracted a nice crowd to its first regular weekly session.  We were pleased to see some of the students from the various campus outreaches in attendance.  This weekly service will continue beyond the school year and after we have returned home.

The weekly bible study in our apartment is continuing and we are encouraged that some of the non-believers have recently attended Sunday church services, as well as the college worship study at Enguang.  Please continue to pray for these students.

Friends from game night made us aware of some beautiful mountain hiking trails located just outside of our city, so we recently made the trip with another western couple.  Having vacationed multiple times in the Rockies, we were confident we would conquer these beasts, despite the very warm temperatures.  Turns out that these Dakeng Trails are not so much gradually ascending trails as they are mostly steep stair steps rapidly ascending a mountain.  The scenery is beautiful with rainforest-like vegetation and views of the city, but we soon realized that living at near sea-level in a Florida retirement community with virtually no stairs has dramatically degraded our stair-climbing ability.  Slowly and not so steadily, we made it to the top.  With bruised egos, we decided to return the following week by ourselves and take on a slightly more difficult hike.  Fortunately, we survived and we felt better about ourselves after the second outing.

The city of Taichung takes great effort to beautify the city with landscaped roadways and public parks.  After the cherry blossoms we enjoyed in March and April had died back, other trees lining our street blossomed with these bright yellow flowers.

As we have traveled around the city, we’ve walked through multiple parks with settings similar to these two scenes in Taichung Park.

We enjoyed an evening with students exploring this night market near one of the campuses.  The girls had several specific food vendors in mind that they wanted us to sample for a taste of Taiwanese culture.  We had a great time with them and their food choices were delicious.

After dark, the market sky lit up with a variety of decorative lanterns.

On a recent free day, we rode about an hour south of the city with this couple to visit the Tianwei Highway Garden.

Upon arrival, our transportation became this four-person electric-powered bicycle cart.  You might question our companions' wisdom in placing this rookie in the driver’s seat.  A portion of the route they had planned for us took us along the side of a very busy road that Florida would not allow golf carts to navigate.  Somehow, we survived.

As our university activities are winding down, so is our time here in Taiwan.  We plan to return to Florida in a little over two weeks.  We have met and enjoyed the company of a multitude of wonderful people while getting to experience a culture very different from our own.  Like our first Re-Hired trip, our time here has been both rewarding and thoroughly enjoyable.  Without doubt, these are adventures we will always remember fondly.  For good reason, several Re-Hired couples have returned for a second trip.  We pray that other couples will take advantage of this global opportunity for sharing their faith with others.

Spending time on a beautiful tropical island talking about Jesus…priceless!!!

Blessings,
David and Sandy