Moon Festival

Moon Facts

The moon is actually moving away from earth at a rate of 1.5 inches per year. The surface area of the moon is 14,658,000 square miles or 9.4 billion acres. Only about 59 percent of the moon's surface is visible to us here on earth. The moon is not round, but egg shaped with the large end pointed towards earth. The earth rotates about 1000 mph. By comparison, the moon rotates about 10 mph.

So it's the mid-Autumn Festival in 4 days! Hooray! Well for most people in Taiwan because they have the day off! As for me and the rest of the staff and students at Morrison Academy Bethany it is school as usual. I guess that's the down side of having American Thanksgiving holiday in November. Ray gets the day off though. The funny thing about holidays in Taiwan though is that if you have a holiday on a Tuesday or Thursday you get the Monday or Friday off too! (Fantastic!) However, because it's really only a 1-day holiday, people have to make up for the Monday or Friday off by going to work on the Saturday (Boo!).

Well Ray decided to forego the whole working on Saturday bit so he'll work the Monday, keep his weekend and take the Tuesday off. :) Yay Ray!

The other thing is that the moon cake selection here in Taiwan is quite amazing! They have green tea moon cakes, fruity moon cakes, coffee moon cakes, ice cream moon cake. I've received a couple of gifts so far (I think it's like chocolates on Valentine's Day) and I've been amazed at the Monopoly box sized boxes that the Moon cakes come in! Take a look below!

Back to School

Welcome

September is here
And so is fall.
So welcome children
Welcome all.
I hope vacation
Was real fun.
And that you're glad
School has begun.

So I'm now on my 5th week of teaching. I really can't believe how fast time has flown by. Next week we distribute our first quarter progress reports. In 2 weeks we have our Fall Break. I think before I know it Christmas will be here!

So far school has been such a blessing. From students, to parents, to staff, to facilities and resources....I feel very full here at Bethany. This year I am still teaching Grade 4 (or as the Americans refer to it: 4th Grade), so although the curriculum is slightly different, the biggest change for me is that the school is a Christian school. Every morning I pray with my students, I sing praise songs with them, and we study the Bible (right now we are studying whether the Bible is True and how can we trust the Bible). Throughout the week we have Wednesday Chapel and I have a class meeting where I take the students' prayer requests so we can pray for them. It has been such a refreshing experience for me and I really feel I get to know the students better.

Our school has undergone many changes this year with a large turnover of staff as well as renovations and so things at are school have been quite hectic. But coming from a school in Toronto that has been equally hectic has trained me well. :) One of the most exciting thing about my current school is the technology that's available (i.e. SmartBoard, computer access, website, etc.). Come visit our school website to have a look! (Bethany Morrison Academy) If you click on the 4th grade button you'll get to my class and see my students. :)


Today we have our "typhoon day" so I actually have time to blog but I feel like I have so much to share about that I don't know where to start so I'll just list some fun tidbits about our life lately:

• My parents are coming to visit beginning of October. My mom is already packed to go! Can you believe it?
• Moon festival is coming up. I already got my first moon cake from a parent!
• When I was young and had a cough I enjoyed eating this sweet cough medicine called "peh pah goh" (Cantonese pronounciation), can you believe that they brew there own over here! I had a cough and one of my parents went and got me a homemade brew that she swears by to help me out. I don't know if it was a placebo but it worked!
• I've been having an ongoing fish situation. I bought some fish for our classroom the first day of school and within the week they all died. Apparently one of my fish was diseased. It was very distressing so I researched about owning fish and talked to the pet store and tried hard to make it work out again by buying some new fish. I made sure the water environment was right, but within a week again I've lost my fish! What is going on! I have an inkling that they die on the weekend because something in the room has changed but I can't figure it out yet. Stay tuned for the ongoing fish saga...
• We've been teaching some of the people in fellowship how to cook. One of the guys didn't even know how to fry an egg! That was quite unbelievable for me.
• I went tubing down a river with the Art teacher 2 weeks ago. I think it was great fun but so far many people think we're crazy for tubing down a polluted river. The locals swim in it...it must be okay right?
• We went to the mountains and had a lot of fun swimming in a very clean mountain river. Ray came along but chose to take pictures of us instead. It was great fun!
• This past weekend our school had a staff retreat at a beach resort! It was great! I think all schools should have staff retreats! :) Hee hee! Here are some pictures of our adventures.
  

Typhoon Holiday

Hi All,

I'm having a nice quiet day in the office during our first typhoon holiday and decided that its about time we get back to blogging! Last night the government raised a typhoon warning at a level that is so serious that all business (except malls and restaurants of course) are shut down. So far, it looks like a false alarm so I decided to come by the office and get things done before the hectic pace of work starts again. This is typhoon warning number three since we've been here and all have been uneventful. The last one was when I was in HK and the typhoon 8 signal scheduled to be raised just 30 minutes before my flight time. Between all the fussing and excitement of the people at the office, I finally decided to head to the airport late. Not being able to catch a taxi during the craze in central, I finally made it to the airport 25 minutes before flight time. After a short scolding, I found myself on the plane upgraded to business class because coach was filled up. I love typhoons and late checkins at the airport! So much for lessons learned...

Things have been well for Sandra and I. The last few weeks have been intense both for our work and personal life - in a good way. Sandra started teaching again. She's already blogged about this before, but we are more and more impressed with Morrison Christian Academy where Sandra works. The school's history, administration, teachers, parents and children are 100%+ committed to the vision of providing top educational and family life for the children in a Christ centred way. Despite Sandra's positive experience with her sabbatical, it is also clear that God has made her to be a teacher. She is in her element and is loving every moment of teaching - I'll let her share more details herself.

MCA also highly encourages the teachers and their families to be a part of the MCA community and its ministries. We've had staff retreats / outings that last two weekends. It's been wonderful getting to know some more experienced missionaries and "spiritual giants" who have devoted much of their life to teaching here in Taiwan. I've been encouraged by their passion and commitment. For those of you who are parents, it's also amazing to see not only the teachers come together, but the parents. The parents, most of them missionaries themselves, pray for the teachers and the school every week! It's a different space for Sandra, but so far, it's been a wonderful learning experience.

For myself, the past few months have been filled with intense, but rewarding change. We have put in place new leadership and the vision and direction is clear. The tough (but personally very interesting) work ahead is the implementation and leading the change. We are also in the midst of integrating the Taiwan firm with Greater China... so it creates very interesting and challenging opportunities and initiatives for me to be involved in over the next year or two. My travel schedule will stabilize by the year-end and I'll be able to take on more responsibilities in Taiwan. It's something I didn't think would happen so soon, but it's also exactly in the space that I have an interest in - people, culture and operational excellence.

So.. that's the quick update. We are both just getting deep into our calling in the workplace. We've been praying about how to represent our faith in the workplace and how to bring the Kingdom of God into everything we do or impact. The pace of change here is absolutely amazing and now we've very happy that there are other like minded people who we've been introduced to.. people starting the journey like ourselves and people who have left a legacy and are being called by God to rest.

ray