It's simple: Just add potatoes, carrots, and WORMS.

As anyone who has tried to learn a tonal language knows, "If you don't remember the tone, you don't remember the word!"  Tonight we had some of our good Taiwanese friends over for dinner.  I made a simple slow-cooker pot roast.  When they asked how to make it, I said (in Chinese), "It's super-simple.  Just put the meat on the bottom, add potatoes, carrots, and "onions"...  I knew from the smirks I hadn't gotten it quite right, so asked what I, in actual, had said.  Apparently my wrong pronunciation on "onion" sounded like, "just add carrots, potatoes, and worms".  We all had a good laugh, and I will probably forever remember the correct tone for onion from now on!  Anyhowz, next time I make a pot roast, maybe I should add a little extra flavor!  Who's on for dinner?!? :-P

Chinese Challenge!

Our local Chinese church has a very good Sunday-school program which all of our kids enjoy. This past quarter, I (Amy) agreed to try out being a Sunday-school assistant once a month.  Well, that was the original agreement, anyway.  It turned into me being the actual teacher instead of just the assistant.  I wasn't too sure about it at the beginning:

"Eee... I've never taught in Chinese before..."
"That's ok, you can teach in English -- a lot of the parents want their kids to learn English anyway."

So, my first Sunday, I started off in English... and that lasted about 5 seconds (as I knew it would) with blank stares from all the 3-4 year-olds (except the two blondies, who were actually understanding everything in Sunday School for the first time! :-P).  So, I tried to go back and forth, saying everything twice in both languages.  (i.e. scrambling in my head for super-simple English, then scrambling for how in the world to translate it all!)  It did take a bit of extra effort, but it was a good challenge, and it gave me some good Chinese practice in front of a fairly non-threatening audience. :-P

Weekly Workout

So, I've been getting a good workout every Tues morning for the past couple of months!  Not a physical workout so much (except that the action songs should probably count for something!), but rather a Chinese workout.  A lady in our church started up a 'learn-an-English-song-and-do-an-activity' play group to reach out to non-believing moms & their kids in our local community.  She asked if I could come help for two hours each Tues as she is expecting and found the action songs to be getting a bit more difficult.

Every Tues morning, 15 moms and their kids show up (there are more who want to come, but we have to cap it at 15) and we sing a song, learn some actions, and do a craft/activity all together.  Afterward, the ladies divide into two groups and we read through and discuss an article (Christian, with a Bible verse) that speaks practically into daily family life.

It's been good.  I've enjoyed meeting more moms from the community and it has helped my Chinese a lot (since we're not taking classes anymore).  I find that I can hardly go down the street anymore without running into someone I know.

This past Christmas season, we practiced, "If You're Happy and You Know It" and "Jesus Loves Me" for several weeks and then sang them in front of the whole church.  For many/most of them it was their first time ever to church -- and of course, since they were performing, we had each of them invite the rest of their family & extended family to come see. :-)  Several have ventured to Sunday school with their kids in the past couple of months -- we can all pray that God works in their hearts and draws them to Him!

Reading Practice

Diving back in...

This week we have officially jumped back into language study!

Elise has long passed us up, and last week we were told by Taiwanese friends that Kenna's Chinese has also surpassed ours... so it is high time for Michael & I to get back at it!

The past couple of years we have focused on running Titus and working with SBS, which has been great and which we will continue to do, but we are going to take a break and work on our language for awhile, so that we can be more effective in what we feel called to here.

We are excited to finally be able to make some progress in our speaking, reading and comprehension -- though we know we have lots of long hours and work ahead of us!!