well.... I am now in Taiwan, my 4th day here, and loving it. The weather is wonderful!! It's about 15 - 20
celsius during the day and down to about 5 at dark. Sooooo awesome, it finally feels like Christmas! We
have little construction paper stockings up, mini ones, and a vase with flowers and Christmas presents
underneath it. Only 3 gifts so far... we are poor. The apartment is awesome!! It is on the 5th floor and
overlooks the hei shwei county of Taipei. Across the street is McDonalds, 7/11, starbucks and a huge brick
skytrain station with a river and mountains and bridges and tall buildings all around! It looks soooo much
like North Vancouver here. It's quite strange. It is the Asian equivalent.

There are no bugs here and Josh says it's so much like China except a little less crowded. They drive on
the right side of the road and have carols playing in all the stores on the main shopping street, just a 2
minute walk from our building. Everything we need is sooo convenenient, we live right smack downtown.
We practice our DRIMEs on the roof of our building, with the wind blowing our scarves and tall buildings all
around and the sounds of the busy city below. I will send you pictures because you won't believe how
spoiled I am on my own outreach!!!

The apartment is huge. It has a large living room (all white big tile floor) with couches, coffee table, and
a nice big wooden bookshelf/tv holder with speakers, dvd, tv, audio system, etc etc...you get the idea.
Spoiled! Then there is a dining area and a small kitchen with the balcony attached. There are 2 rooms.
One for the boys, one for the girls. We have 4 girls of our DTS and 2 Chinese Americans with us from Michigan here for 3 weeks sharing the house with us for a quick missions trip. They are helping renovate
the coffee bar, which is kind of sad because that is a ministry which we thought we were going to have
a large part in. The guys have 3 Americans too. All have mac laptops with wireless internet, so I have internet on my outreach in my own living room!! I feel so blessed. Our team is soooo grateful for everything
we have right now, we don't know how to respond except in praise and thankfulness!!!

We have started ministry already. DRIME is a huge part of our outreach. It is really awesome to see what
God brought to the team through me. I just can't believe the practical use of this. You have no idea how
good DRIME is when there is a language barrier. Everyone speaks mandarin here, I only know the SMALL
basics it is so hard!!! I can say it, it's the memorizing all the tones and words that gets tough. Soooo 2
days ago we went caroling in the nursing home and that was fun, but interesting....we massaged the old
people.

Then we had some time off, and yesterday we went to a HUMONGO high school which was bigger campus
than TWU!! It was soo nice. There is amazing opportunity to witness here, tons of freedom. We did the
DRIME "in the light" 6 times to 6 classes throughout the day and shared our testimonies with it, we had a
translater. We also sang them Christmas carols and taught them away in a manger:) soooo cute. The
Taiwanese are adorable. Then after we had "discussions " to practice english and sometimes I got even
more chance to talk about Jesus. The girls are so cute. They always ask if I have a boyfriend and laugh
and laugh and laugh. They are sooo embarrassed to speak in english so I do most of the talking and ask if they understand. Some are funny hehe. We also took TONS of pictures - they love us!! They love Nate
and Josh especially and now we call them the THT Taiwanese heart throbs hahaha. They got all the poses
down with the peace signs etc. Oh so cute.

Today is Christmas Eve and we have been discussing in a laid-back meeting all day about our ministry,
some prayer time, worship and practicing DRIMEsall day. Now we have 1 hour off to eat and get ready to
go to the hospital (we get to take the MRT *sky train* !!) downtown and then tonight we are going to a
youth center to teach them games, Christmas carols and do more DRIMEs. This is a longer chunk of time
with one big group, whereas the school was many groups, so we are doing 2 DRIMEs, lots of testimonies
and discussion....get ready cameras and feeling like a celebrity!! It is AWESOME here. Hmmm can I stay
here forever??

I'm really busy today, Christmas and Boxing day with ministry and working at the youth center and hospital.
We aren't celebrating our Christmas till the 27th. But at the same time it's really fulfilling. I miss home and
all the baking, but I am having a blast.

If you want to pray for me, pray that I'll continue pursuing intimacy with God because it's easy to be
comfortable with where I am right now!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
xox Jo