Tonight's Adventure...

Tonight Lauren and I decided to take the bus into Chiayi City to attend an evening English service at the International Christian Church there. Little did we know the adventures that awaited us!! The bus ride in was uneventful and we managed to hail a taxi (actually, the taxi drivers are very keen on having our business and we have to work to avoid them) to take us to the church. We had the address (in Chinese) written down on a business card for the church and so we thought it should be pretty straightforward to get there. Well, lo and behold, the taxi driver got lost and had to ask someone where the church was. They directed him to a Catholic Church. Ooops, not where we wanted to go. Eventually we found the church and after paying the 200 NT for the ride, we got out. We figured that someone from the church could help us call a taxi to get back to the bus station. The service was supposed to start at 6:30 and as it was only about 6:05 we had plenty of time. We decided to walk around a little bit. Back at the church by 6:20, we noticed that everything was shut up and dark. Was anyone there? Apparently not. At about 6:25 a Taiwanese couple drove up; not regulars at the church but just wanting to pop in for an evening service. 6:35 rolls around; still dark in the church. In the meantime, we got to know this delightful couple who lived many years in New Jersey. They managed to get a hold of someone who informed them that the church leaders were all on a retreat so there was no service. Ah well! We were so glad to have met this couple who graciously drove us back to the bus station so we didn't have to find a taxi. At the bus station, we found out that we still had quite a bit of time till the bus back home left so we wandered around looking in shops. I was just mentioning how funny it would be if we came across our first taxi driver when he came by saying "Hello, hello!" like we were old friends. I was quite amused. We popped into a doughnut shop and bought a couple of DELICIOUS chocolate cream puffs. Some of the best stuff I've eaten in a long time. Back at the bus station, we saw our bus pull up and tried to get on, but the driver wouldn't let us on without a ticket. That was kind of strange, because we've never had to buy a ticket before. Oh well. We got off, looked at each other and thought "What to do?" At this point, a young Taiwanese lady came up to us and asked if we needed help. Her name was Salina and her English was really good. She directed us to the little place where we could buy the tickets we needed. We managed to bargain the price of our ticket down to close to where it should be (not quite sure why they were trying to get us to pay so much more... naive foreigners???) and then waited for another 20 minutes till the next bus came by. This time we were let on and we were able to take the very old and bumpy bus safely back home.

What's amazing is that in a place where very few people speak English enough to understand us and help us that there were people at every point where we needed help! First, the Taiwanese couple and then Salina. Lauren and I rejoiced in the Lord's provision for us in that way this evening, and although our evening didn't go as we had planned, we had a chance to meet some people and spend time sharing together.

God is good.

Love,
Christy