Past the Tracks

I have been reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle this past week. Apparently this book has become quite the sensation, particularly in Colorado since the author is from Colorado. Anyway, the book is about a boy and his dogs. Supposedly it is a reworking of Hamlet. Which makes the book a little disappointing, I mean, we all know how that one ends. Talk about a downer.

The story has all of the predictable elements, a boy and his special bond with his dog Almondine, conflict between his Dad and Uncle, coming of age pains, running away from home, etc. I guess this is just a way of saying that if an extremely popular book can fall into cliches, then it isn't a surprise that this blog post is going to fall into cliches. . . just to give you fair warning.

Since we arrived, I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be on the outside of things. The most tangible manifestation of this is where we live in Taipei. We don't actually live in the city. We live south of the city in the great mass of suburbia called Taipei County. The most common reaction when we tell people we live about a 15 minute bus ride past Nanshijiao station is "where??" They haven't heard of Nanshijiao, much less the An he Borough, which is our neighborhood.

I kind of wish I could say that everything changes past the end of the tracks. I mean, if this was the land of cliches, I could easily tell you stories of backwater people, how the law doesn't reach us out here in the wilds, etc. But really, the only differences seem to be the lack of foreigners and the disturbingly common green flourescent-lit cigarette stores. These stores are everywhere. Women in short skirts sit at them all day selling cigarettes and betel nuts to the men passing by.

Our neighborhood also has a lot of car repair garages. Literally, the entire main street outside of our apartment is lined with them. If you go farther down the street you will reach a night market. In a universe I hope to never understand, Taiwan is famous for its fabulous night markets! Imagine a crowded flea market. Neon lights, discount clothing shops, little food stands, everything for a price. Every night of the week. People travel half way around the world for this experience.

Let me just say, I might have been doing a bit too much thinking this past week. . . I don't really have a whole lot else to do. So thinking about the end of the tracks has led me to thinking about anomie. Anomie is a fancy sociology word for what happens when people get overwhelmed by their insignificance. They are sucked up into the masses and lose a sense of lawfulness, membership in society, basically the swirl of activity makes them lose their moral compass and desire to make anything good out of the situation. I imagine anomie to be a little like getting on an amusement park ride, one that spins, and never really being able to regain focus. The individual maintains its composure, but everything else loses resolution.

Now, before you go thinking that I have entered into this state, I would like to point out a couple pinpoints of light. Or really, big red neon lights that appear at night in Taiwan. All of the churches in Taiwan have decorated their crosses with red neon lights that turn on after dark. So in the midst of the swirling, consumerist jumble of night market lights and cigarette shops, these red neon crosses stand out as something to focus on.

Another pinpoint of light - our prayer room. We have committed ourselves to praying each night for a myriad of things, in silence, through song, through words, through reading. All of our prayers are written on our floor in neon sticky notes. Another bright thing to focus our eyes on.

I'm not ready to make any big conclusions. Maybe the people in An he Borough don't feel anything close to anomie. But I just pray that when being beyond the tracks becomes a burden rather than an adventure, that I may be comforted by the red neon lights and the sticky notes and the gift of having a focus.

In Christ,

Seth

The Context

This week we would like to develop a little context for our mission. As many of you know, the way the Episcopal Church arranges missionary work is through invitation. The Bishop of a diocese (Taiwan) calls The Episcopal Church Center in New York and says something like "I would love to have two recent college graduates from the University of Colorado come to Taipei to begin a campus ministry." The Episcopal Church then finds the absolute best candidates and sends us on our way.

What happens when the best candidates arrive is they adapt to the "actual context," the reality of the situation on the ground. The reality of our situation is that we are working closely with the Dean of St. John's Cathedral, Rev. Samuel Y.C. Lin. He is the friendly smiling man in picture #1. The cathedral (picture #2) is responsible for hosting us and providing a home base for our new campus ministry. In support of this new venture, they provided a large office (picture #3) and a whole lot of freedom in planning.


Rev. Samuel has about 12 years of campus ministry experience as the chaplain at St. John's University, an Episcopal college in Northern Taiwan. He is acting as our mentor and guide for when we have important questions like "where can I find tape to post a sign on the wall?"

Over the coming weeks we will be planning our strategy for meeting other chaplains, students, and parishioners at St. John's who will be our support team for the start-up of this ministry. The second major part of the context is National Taiwan University (NTU). NTU is actually very similar to CU Boulder. There are about 35,000 students spread across undergraduate colleges, graduate schools, and a medical campus. NTU is Taiwan's largest public university and is reserved for the best and brightest. All university admissions in Taiwan are done by standardized college entrance exams. There is no need for involvement in service work, sports, extracurriculars. What matter is you study hard and long.

NTU is located in an upscale neighborhood of Taipei city. There is a large park nearby that is surrounded by the largest churches in Taipei. This area also features tons of restaurants and nightlife for the college crowd (picture #4).

There are a few other universities in the area, most notably National Taiwan Normal University and National Taipei School of Education. So once school starts in September, the area around the cathedral will be swarming with college students. It sounds like a great atmosphere in which to begin a campus ministry.

The bonus picture is of Royal Palm Boulevard, the main drag at NTU. The building at the end of the road is the main library. As you can see, we basically live in Southern California. Plus humidity. Lots and lots of humidity.

We must leave you here and continue entering into our context. Our next step is registering for Chinese classes at the Normal University. Yikes! Please keep us in your prayers.


Until next week,

Elizabeth and Seth

Taipei 101: An Introduction

Hello Partners in Mission:

And as of about 2 hours ago, we have an internet connection in our apartment. So now we can blog excessively and post pictures with abandon.

We left Colorado with a few lovely send offs from our friends and family (Wednesday morning, St. Aidan's, Atonement, Canterbury, the Raymond and McCormick/Glover gang) on the morning of August 3rd and arrived in Taipei at 8pm on August 4th. We were just a little bit nervous about this arrival since the very last sentence in our final communication with the dean of the cathedral before leaving Colorado contained this message: "do not worry, you will get lost." Perhaps lost in Mandarin to English translation, but we met our welcoming party with no problems.

For those of you who pledged your support for us in our first few days in Taiwan, thank you. You were vital to supporting us as we saw the sights of Taipei. While to the casual observer we might have looked like tourists (maybe it was the camera and Lonely Planet Taiwan guidebook), but we were given the first few days "off" to explore the city and become acquainted with the metro system. We also took some great pictures of our neighborhood and Taipei. The pictures of the city are taken from the top of Taipei 101, which is currently the world's tallest building. If you look very closely in the pictures of Taipei, you can see some buildings and mountains. We live somewhere in that mass of humanity. I'm pretty sure our apartment is south of Taipei 101.

The first two pictures here are a great example of the city of Taipei. Although on a map it looks like an oceanfront city, in reality it is surrounded by mountains. There are a few major rivers which flow through the city, the largest of which is the Dan shui ("fresh water"). The last picture is the view from our apartment building. It is looking down into the street on our first morning in Taiwan.

Today we got down to work. We met with the dean of the cathedral, the Bishop of Taiwan, and a veteran missionary to discuss our place in Taiwan and the future of our ministry together. I have a feeling from this point on, our sightseeing will be limited to weekends (minus Sundays, which will be spent at the cathedral).

Anyway, instead of giving a minute by minute blow of our lives, we would like to share with you a thought about being patient and faithful. In our apartment we have set up an extra room as a special prayer space. We are following a modified Taize style prayer and using readings from the Bible and other books.

This particular thought comes from Henri Nouwen's "Bread for the Journey:"

"We belong to a generation that wants to see the results of our work. We want to be productive and see with our own eyes what we have made. But that is not the way of God's Kingdom. . . What is important is how well we love. God will make our love fruitful, whether we see that fruitfulness or not."

Please pray for us this week as we approach our work with patience and love, trusting in God to produce good fruit.


Many blessings,

Seth and Elizabeth

In Country

Dear family and friends,

We are in Taipei! More specifically, we are in the National Central Library at a public access computer. We are still waiting for an internet connection at our apartment that will enable regular updates, emails, and phone calls.

Until then, we hope you continue your prayers for us as we find our footing. We start "activities" on Monday, so until then we are on our own to find food, avoid stinky tofu, and get acquainted with the MRT (subway).

More coming soon!

Seth and Elizabeth