July 21-July 25
I spent this week going down the island on the west coast. It was my first time traveling on the west coast yet I didn’t have a lot of time to enjoy the sites.
A team consisting of Dennis, Lauren, Grace, our leader Gabe, and myself led English activities at 10 different high schools and middle schools. We started out by taking the high speed rail down to the city of Tainan. We were very busy in Tainan working at 6 schools in 3 days. Then we traveled to the second biggest city in Taiwan, Kaohsiung. We were there for only 2 days and visited 4 schools.
Our presentation would follow along a Powerpoint presentation that was created for us. We originally followed it word for word but soon found that we could change things to cater more to what we wanted to say. Specifically, we had the idea of teaching the students The Wave. I would teach the students the wave and then tie the idea back into the overall theme of our program, friendship.
Then later in the program I finish with a motivational talk about spreading friendship like a wave. It was a great experience for me and I really felt that my strengths were being utilized. Another example of our creativity was when we had Dennis dance for everyone. Dennis is a very good step dancer so we would tell everyone that we were going to teach them dance moves to go along with the song “Give Me 10!” but then Dennis would do some difficult steps moves.
Everyone would cheer after he would perform. Then we would scare them the idea that they too would have to do those moves. Of course they couldn’t do them right away! They were difficult step moves! But then we would say…. “Just joking! HAHA.” After that we would show them the “simple” moves that involved some minor hand motions. It was things like this that really made the trip fun. We were given a lot of responsibility and creative freedom.
After the activities were all finished, the students would flock to the front of the room/gym/auditorium to get autographs. I signed hundreds of autographs throughout the week. Many people also wanted my autograph as well. Sometimes I was even signing a magazine that I was on the cover of.
We were on a tight schedule during the daytime. We would wake up and be ready before 8 AM. Then we would eat breakfast and go to the first school. When we finished at the first school, we would have lunch and then head to the second school. Sometimes the schools were very spread out.
Finally after we had finished at around 5 PM, we would have the night to ourselves.
We were often very tired from intense activity but that this time in Tainan and Kaohsiung was blessing for us. We often went to the local night markets to get the full experience of these cities. 
I would say that the highlight of my after work time was eating the mango shaved ice in Kaohsiung. We went to a place that was famous for it. It was so good. I loved it and always finished my helping first. This was the best shaved ice I had ever had, and that’s saying something!
Overall it was just a great week to look back on. I am emailing a student that was fun to talk to. I really felt led to reach out to him. His name is Edgar. I hope that we can be friends for a long time.
Well, it’s off to more Taiwan adventures for me.
In Him,
Raeder
