I got into graduate school.

According to my older post about blawgging (double "g" is the correct spelling, trust me) priorities, prayer requests are first.

I'm admitted to grad school, but keep on praying for me to faithful to the Lord. It's certain that I'll be living at home now, so pray for my time at home (I haven't lived there for 5 years!) to be God-honoring in terms of my relationship with my parents and sister and also my stewardship of the word in both learning and proclaiming. I know the prayer request is general, but the closer I get to leaving this job as an English teacher, the more I realize, I need to take the basics seriously. My primary responsibility is to share the gospel as clearly as possible, to as many as possible remembering the foolishness of preaching. I practically live at church, so there is a constant reminder of these things right now. This big transition needs big prayers.


More news. My accountability partner and friend Jack is now in the military. For those that arent' that familiar with the EBCTers, he's the really tall guy. In fact, he was 0.8cm away from being relieved from military duty. The point: he's been gone for 3 days and I'm already forgetting to pray for him. Pray for my awful trust in the Lord and awful care about my brothers. Being away from the body must be spiritually tough.

I used to visit him at the library near his home where he was studying for his college entrance exam. Students typically study like crazy for this. Leo, for example, doesn't call anything below 6 or 7 hours a day of studying, real studying, for this exam. We usually went out to lunch. Some really good and simple food we had one time:


On one of my visits, we visited Dino, a sister from EBCT, at her workplace. She works at a convenience store and lives close to where Jack lived and studied. It's about an hour away from EBCT:


Please continue to pray for the relative/friend visiting rampage that is going to begin after I finish work, because I can't save people.

Explanation of the first picture in this post:
Check if your video card supports this: rotate desktop 90 degrees. It's a way to increase blog (or anything skinny, resolution-wise) reading efficiency. More context. Less white space. Use Ctrl +/- to control text size. Firefox 3 supports concurrent image resizing too.

There is a new format for Blawg.
Features:

• Simplified header
• News graphic on top
• Cluttered sidebar

My workplace is having a farewell party

…but not exclusively for me. Two teachers won’t be teaching starting next semester (my co-worker Steve and I). A few of the foreign teachers will be going to a KTV place (karaoke-ish place) along with all of the Chinese teachers on July 2nd (the last day of the semester).

Looking back, I wish I could have gotten to know more of my co-workers on a deeper level. Even so, I’m glad for all the learning experiences I’ve had in building relationships with a few of them. Since the 3 months of apologetic sessions with “Gary” last year, things have been awkward with him. I still see him when I walk through his classroom with my kids twice a week, but since he doesn't want to have any discussion about God, I’ve had a hard time coming up with things to talk about with him. I should work on my social skills for the glory of God! He – and most of the other foreign teachers – are employed at other schools as well, and have much less time to hang out and chat than I do. I still pray for him every now and then, but I forget most of the time. That tells you about my heart. In any case, I really want to at least commit to praying for him these next few weeks before I finish.

One of the other foreign teachers I’ve got to chat a bit with is a really funny guy, Jason, from New Zealand who has a family and is apparently leading some youth ministry at a nearby church. The school I work at owns/rents two separate spaces: one designed for kindergarten kids in the morning/afternoon and one for the elementary school kids in the afternoon/night. I’ve only chatted with Jason (he teaches kindergarten and elementary school kids) personally the few times I substituted for some of the kindergarten teachers at the other building space. If he ends up going to the summer camp for our school, I might have more personal time to chat with him. Pray for me/him!

Also, I’ve been meeting up with a few Chinese teachers that wanted to learn English on a weekly basis. We started off really well. We did self-introductions and I was able to explain why I was in Taiwan and share the gospel. Most of them were bewildered at my motivations. As the weeks wore on, I was able to explain to them my views on several topics and tie it back to the gospel, but recently I’ve nearly completely stopped praying for them and it’s just been a time of teaching them English. That was foolish. Please pray for me to be focused on their real needs and for the last meeting or two to be God-centered and God glorifying.

Since I started thinking about how effectively I’ve used my time with my co-workers to talk about eternal things, I begin to understand how I must be learning as much as I can about how to actively build friendships with the people around me however different they might be and be praying and preparing myself for being a good witness at any future places that I might be placed in. I must know that these places are sovereignly chosen before time, by my God for me to be a salt and light in.

And last and definitely of least importance, Coke floats on Sprite.


Goodnight!

Small posts or big and comprehensive multi-part posts?

Which one do you like and why? Please comment for your own good! Thanks!

Solutions or partial solutions to random problems.

1. I have too much stuff to do and I don't know what to do.
If there is one concept to learn, it is time arbitrage: same amounts of time are valued differently (in terms of productivity). In simple terms, do tasks that require thinking when you're awake (morning?) and do mindless tasks later, when you are tired. In detail, visit study hacks.

2. I need some headphones, John. What do I get?
Goodcans is a website written by some solid can loving people. Nothing but real good advice here. I'd also tack on the JVC HA-FX33 (~$15) for best earbuds under $50. Enjoy.

3. I need a camera, John. What do I get?
DPReview is the king of camera reviews. Learn from them.

4. How do I take better photos?
combridgeincolour is a seriously good website for beginning and advanced users alike.

5. I'm procrastinating John, what do I do?
Get MeeTimer. It will rock you. Expect an upcoming post that includes the best Mozilla plug ins I've found and why.

Goodnight.

My aunt and uncle from 2 blog-posts ago.

(picture is dated. 1/19)

I had lunch with them last Friday and we talked about my future plans. It might have been a polite gesture, but they expressed their concern about my job hunt in the states. My aunt talked about how many kids just sit around home after they graduate from college - her message was not to be lazy. I shared that I consider stewardship of time to be important and, as a result, I strive to work hard but also that, as a Christian, I trust in a sovereign Lord to provide.

I realize that I haven't talked much about these two dear relatives of mine. I've met up with them (mostly their initiative!!) nearly a dozen times this past year. Both are very hospitable and like to talk - my aunt especially. At one point, she even asked if I could hang out just to share the gospel with her. She also asked me if it was too weird for her to check out EBCT since the congregation is young. After sharing with both her and my uncle about sin and its consequences one night, they refused to believe that God would punish people who have never heard of Jesus. Though they are hardened against the gospel and choose to trust in their own made-up God, they are far more willing to listen compared with how they were two years ago when I came to Taiwan with the Winter Team.

My uncle, who I think is a theist now, is becoming more attracted to the practical outworking of the Christian worldview. I know that in sharing the gospel, it would help to be able to communicate what grace, justice, joy, faith, a transformed life etc. looks like, so I hope to be able to show them and explain to them the gospel through as many contexts as possible. Please pray for their hearts to be softened and that I would be a good steward of my time and the gospel as I find more opportunities to talk to these folks.

I also hope to hang out and talk with one of my cousins, though he is slightly older than me. He is a graduate student at a university in Hsinchu (~1.5 hours away from Taipei). My aunt and uncle have been urging both of us to meet up and it really is about time I made it a priority. He has a girlfriend who professes to be Christian, but she might have some misunderstandings. He is also full of questions and doubts about the gospel, so pray for both of them and me as I get to meet up with my cousin!

Ah, the importance of paying much closer attention to what we have heard.

Blog refocus.

I have a feeling that my blog posts are really random. I was thinking, that its primary goal should be to give you a better idea of what my life here in Taiwan is like for the purpose of giving context to the prayer requests I ask for. I don't even know if that has been achieved so in light of my lack of direction, I want to at least start with priorities:

Blawg Order of Priorities:

1. Updating you on stuff to pray for
2. Updating you on what I’m learning
3. Updating you on useful gadgets/widgets/information

Ideally, I would also update you about certain things continually so you can see progression and temporal context as well, but let's not get our hopes too high. You can pray that I would at least be reflective and self-examining continually, even if it isn't displayed through this blog. I am truly thankful for your labor through prayers.

Wisdom comes from scriptures, my friend.

I’m a really foolish and young Christian, but in the course of praying for wisdom because of passages like Proverbs 2:2-5

Make your ear attentive to wisdom,
Incline your heart to understanding;
For if you cry for discernment,
Lift your voice for understanding;
If you seek her as silver
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will discern the fear of the LORD
And discover the knowledge of God.

I’ve at least found – clearly – where it comes from. I just needed to read on. Prov 2:6.

For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

Pray for my times in the word: that my mind and heart would be devoted to God, that I would be humbly learning and that God would grant me knowledge and understanding and for faith to trust His promises.

One more thing. This is way overdue as well, but go watch Ironman. You probably won't regret it.