Karaoke for Jesus

Yes, believe it or not, singing karaoke is a part of my job. ok, well it's not actually in my job description but it definitely falls under the category of relationship building, which is a vital part of any church planter's job.
This past friday I had a chance to do a little relationship building while singing some of the greatest hits of the '80's.
Since it's the end of the semester I invited my students from National Taipei University of Technology over to my house to play games and have a chance to visit before they start summer vacation. But they already had plans to go sing karaoke in the afternoon so we arranged for me to go sing with them and then they would come to my house afterwards.
As an introvert sitting in a small room with a group of people and trying to be entertaining for a long period of time--in this case 4 hours-- can get pretty tiring. But thankfully I actually like singing karaoke and if you go with others who really get into it it's pretty fun and makes the time go fast. Most of the students in this class are boys so you would think they wouldn't be that into it but these guys picked all the saddest songs and just sang them at the top of their lungs. It was great. And this karaoke place has BonJovi in their English song selection so I was able to impress them a little with my knowledge of old American rock songs. And just FYI, "I hate myself for lovin' you" by Joan Jett is a big hit, even if people have never heard it before and barely speak English!:-)
Here are some pictures of the day--



















Darren (above in the lower right pic with the white shirt), one of the students whose English is pretty sad, yet is super funny, even when I can't understand what he is saying, is the "karaoke professional" as the students put it. He came to karaoke on Friday with some pretty sweet rock star sunglasses which every one passed around.


















And since it is the end of the school year everyone got their picture taken with their favorite teacher!:-)

















And of course I had to try on the glasses! As you can see, if you wear the glasses you have to make the rock star face!:-) I'm not quite as good at it as Darren.














After karaoke we went back to my house where I taught them how to play golf. When I play this game against Americans I always come in dead last but against the Taiwanese students I managed third!! And I promise I taught them all the right rules!



















It was a pretty fun day. Once again I'm thankful that I'm a missionary in Taiwan and not the jungles of Africa!!:-)