another crazy week

I usually feel pretty safe in Taipei. Even though I live in a back alley in Jung Ho there are several hundred people who live in that same alley or close enough that if I need help I could get it. Even when I come home at 10:30 or 11:00 there are still lots of people around. But Monday I was reminded that even though I live in a city of 6 million the weird ones can still find you. I had been on a Bible study book buying excursion to two different book stores and had about 45 minutes before my class started on Monday afternoon. I decided to go to my favorite Starbucks in Taipei city and get some coffee and take some time to get my mind prepared for my class. I walked in and ordered my coffee (Iced Vanilla Latte!) and as I was waiting for it I realized there was a 50ish year old Chinese man standing next to me talking very softly. I realized that he was talking to me asking me in English if I liked coffee, which seems pretty obvious since I'm in Starbucks... unfortunately I answered him in Chinese (which apparently was an invitation to keep talking to me) that I did indeed like coffee. So then he asked if I was going upstairs to sit and when I said yes, after I get my coffee, he went upstairs too. Now, looking back I realize that this is the time I should have just grabbed my coffee and run out the door but at the time I wasn't thinking that the reason he walked upstairs was because I also was going to go upstairs. I just thought he was a customer going up to have some coffee.
So when I got my coffee and went upstairs to sit down he saw me and came and sat down beside me. He starts asking me all sorts of questions in Chinese very softly. At this point I'm starting to get a little weirded out because he keeps trying to shake my hand but I'm trying to be polite and listen to his questions without leaning in too closely to hear what he's saying. He asked me where I was from and when I told him Missouri he said it must be cold there and that's why my skin is so white (ick...). He asked me if I came to this Starbucks everyday at lunchtime (to which I was thinking "I'm never coming to this Starbucks again!"). When I asked him why he was at Starbucks and not drinking coffee he said "I already drank it and was leaving but when I saw you I turned around and came back in." This is the point when I started thinking about how to get out of the restaurant as soon as possible. When he asked me whether or not I like to eat noodles and chinese dumplings, because if I did I could give him my phone number and we could go eat them the next day I said, "do you know what time it is? I have a class (which thankfully was true) and I forgot my watch." He didn't have a watch either, so when he got up to ask the Starbucks girl what time it was I grabbed all my bags and my coffee and said, "I have to go, bye!" Probably not the most graceful exit in history but certainly the fastest! Then I booked it around the corner to the bus stop and spent the next 10 minutes waiting for the bus praying that he didn't follow me and that the bus would come quickly.
Now, I'm not the type of girl that just assumes that since a man comes up and talks to her in a restaurant that he is hitting on her, or whatever (although I do have a bit of a princess complex, being the youngest child) but I also got the feeling from this guy that his intentions weren't just to make a new foreign friend. I'm pretty sure that if I had been a foreign guy he wouldn't have felt the need to make conversation. And it really annoys me that just because I'm a foreign woman alone that it's ok to invade my space, which I realize makes me sound like a huge snob (it's the princess complex coming out). I guess I just don't know how to balance "What would Jesus do" and my natural "You're freaking me out and I need to protect myself" tendencies. Plus this type of thing really doesn't happen that often to me so when it does it kind of throws me for a loop. And it certainly reminds me to be thankful for all the times that God protects me even when I don't realize it.
The rest of the week got better from there. Thursday I went with my student/friend Dana, her co-worker Bruce, and my friend Sheley to see an exhibit on art and religion from the 14th to the 17th centuries. I went thinking that it would be good to spend some time with Dana and get some culture. When I got there and started looking at the pictures I realized that I had better be prepared to answer questions about the stories behind the paintings.
When we walked into the exhibit the first 3 pictures were of Abraham and Isaac, Moses, and David. When Dana was a student at National Taiwan Ocean University she studied the Old Testament with my co-worker Craig so she began explaining the stories in the pictures to Bruce who didn't know anything about the Bible. I was pretty impressed at how much she remembered from her time studying that over a year ago. Although I'm pretty sure that her knowledge of the story of Moses mostly comes from watching "Prince of Egypt". Since that's a fairly accurate telling of the story I'm ok with that. When we entered the part of the exhibit about the life of Christ I saw that like most European religious art Jesus in the pictures was blond with a big halo over his head, which to me is kind of annoying since that's most likely not what he really looked like. Dana and Bruce weren't really saying much about these pictures, I kind of got the feeling that they felt it was disrespectful to say what they really thought of the paintings, so I brought up the point that Jesus probably didn't look in real life like he did in those paintings. That seemed to free them up to talk about the pictures and from then on it was non stop discussion! Apparently Dana hasn't studied as much of the NT as I thought she had so she had a lot of questions about the stories behind the pictures. Of course I was happy to answer her questions! The pictures were of everything from the Samaritan woman, Jesus with Mary and Martha, to the Transfiguration and the last week of Christ's life—which Dana knows about since she saw “The Passion of Christ”. I really had to be on my toes because with some of the pictures it wasn’t immediately obvious what they were. I would have to try and read enough of the Chinese description next to the picture to at least figure out who the story was about. Then I would listen to Dana’s question and try and answer it in Chinese. Of course her Chinese level is much deeper than mine so after I would explain it to her she would explain what I had just said to Bruce. I took that as an opportunity to take a breath and start looking at the next picture. I told Sheley that I felt like I was back in Bible College taking an oral exam except instead of English I had to use Chinese. The second half of the exhibit was on the life of the church, which was mostly Catholic Church history. But it provided us a good chance to talk about Peter and Paul and their true role in the church and that the Bible says that all Christians are called saints. At the end of the tour Bruce asked if prophets were “shen” or god. We talked about how even though the prophets were good men and they were God’s messengers that only Jesus is God. It was great to see someone who has probably never studied the Bible ask questions like that. All in all it was one of those days that reminded me why I wanted to become a missionary in the first place. It’s challenging because there’s always the fear that you won’t say something right. But it’s also just an amazing experience because you can totally just feel the Holy Spirit working in your mind reminding you of the details and of Chinese words that you haven’t used in forever, but that is just what you need to say at that moment. And you’re telling the story to people who have never heard it before instead of to a bunch of bored Americans--no disrespect intended to my fellow countrymen but having been one of those bored Americans I feel like I can say this. People talk about experiences that make you feel fully alive and for me as a teacher, a Christian and a missionary this is just about as good as it gets. I guess if they would have said something like “What must I do to be saved?” or “There’s some water outside in the fountain what prevents me from being baptized??” then it would have been even better but I don’t know if I could have handled that much of God’s goodness in one day. I was about to spontaneously combust from the excitement of it all as it was. But someday it will happen—Dana becoming a Christian I mean, not me spontaneously combusting (hopefully!). Dana is one of three main people that I’m specifically praying for this year. I’m praying that this will be the year of salvation for her. She has so much Bible knowledge in that head of hers; it just needs to make its way to her heart.
Well, I’ve enthralled you all long enough with stories of my exciting life in exotic Taipei. It’s late and I need to go to sleep.
By the way if you’re hard up for some new blog reading visit my friend SQJ’s site (that’s Scott Pagel to those of you not in the know). He has a funny post about a scandal I was recently involved in. Well, at least I thought it was funny.

http://pagels.teamexpansion.org/sqjtaipei/2007/03/19/clicking-scandal-uncovered/