Farewells

The Taiwanese people seem like such a gracious bunch. We had a harder time getting acquainted with these students than the younger ones of last year, but, in the end, they turned out to be mostly friendly.

The girls did a sketch of the house, which they gave to me as a thank you. They also presented me with cookies and a wall hanging. They are well-behaved and generally very pleasant people. Gerald says that their time in Taiwan is pretty well taken up with school and various lessons and classes and they are not used to "spare" time. It is fun to watch them adjust to western culture and ideas. I admire many of their traditions; others seem to me to be a disservice to them.

Gerald and his gang left on Friday for the airport and a flight to Salt Lake City. It took 3 cars to get them and their stuff properly delivered to SFO. One was a rental; the other two were ours. Since every driver in the local family was gone except Chase and me, we drove the two cars home. Chase was very nervous to drive home from the airport as he wasn't acquainted with the route. But he agreed to follow me with faith that we'd both make it home! It took us about an hour to get everyone to the airport but almost TWO HOURS to get home! The traffic was terrible. I'm grateful not to have to make my way in it very often. Chase and I made it home without incident and felt greatly relieved to be out of the masses of humanity that must make their way home under these difficult circumstances every day.

There were blessings in it however. I used the crawling traffic time to make some family calls and had some great visits. It is now illegal in California to use a cell phone with hands, so I used my handless ear plugs. They worked very well. Which goes to show that there can be blessings in all circumstances. Well, almost all.




Seth is in the left picture, laughing with Chase; Angelica is on the right, posing just for me.