Today is Chinese Valentines day.
We get the added privilege of having two days marked out for those in love. As well as the one in the western calender we also get this one, which goes according to the Chinese calender so changes it’s date every year.
Well once again the big rains have hit.
As the edge of a big typhoon passing through the region it is coming down in buckets. It really is just pouring down with about 500mm in 24 hours in some places in the North of the island (hey, I’m in the North).
Anyways that means that we get a long weekend.
On Friday Ava and I are off to PingDong which should be an uneventful trip.
My friend Clint sent me this today, and I wanted to share it with you all (a conversation from 2000 years ago)…
“Are you kidding? That group of nobodies?”…”I’m telling you these people are insignificant. The only thing I ever hear of their leaders is that they’re always winding up in jail. Trust me, in 2000 years, nobody will give them a thought.”…So here we are 2000 years later. And isn’t it interesting that we name our children Peter and Paul, John and James, Mary and Martha? And we name our dogs Caesar and Nero.
The leaders of that time could not have known how much Christ coming to earth would affect us all.
God is Lord, always, over everything!
More photos have been added to my gallery. Click on the links to go and see the pictures.
July 9th and 10th: Ava’s friend Banana came to Taipei for the weekend
http://www.peterandava.com/photos/thumbnails.php?album=80
July 16th and 17th: Ava and I went to Pingdong again
http://www.peterandava.com/photos/thumbnails.php?album=79
July 22nd: Last day of semester for me and the kids so we had a little party
http://www.peterandava.com/photos/thumbnails.php?album=78
July 23rd and 24th: We went with Ava’s friend Michelle and her boyfriend to Ava’s parents place
http://www.peterandava.com/photos/thumbnails.php?album=77
Enjoy, more pictures will be added later if possible. Bye
Last night the typhoon made landfall, bringing with it lots of rain and heavy winds.
The areas that are prone to flooding have become flooded, which thankfully doesn’t include anywhere around where I live.
The upside is that I get the day off work, the downside is that yesterday evening after coming back from PingDong and going snorkelling in Kenting my hard drive has decided that it doesn’t want to cooperate, so the day will be spent using knoppix Linux to boot the computer and then trying to get as much of the data off that drive as I can.
Thank goodness I keep my data on a secondary drive which is still working fine, but I cannot figure out how to access it in Knoppix.
By the way, Knoppix is a great way to check out how cool the Linux operating system is. You just download it, burn it to CD and than just put it in your CD drive and it will boot from there. Check it out at…
Maybe tomorrow will be another day off, that would be a treat.
June 12th, 1979, that’s when I first popped into this world.
Well, it’s been a long time since then.
School went by in a meer 12 years. University dragged by in another 3 and half, and now, here I am in Taiwan, married, with a wonderful wife, teaching Taiwan’s little future leaders.
It’s funny how you cannot imagine where you will be in the future. No matter how much we plan, or how much we think we have everything figured out, they usually don’t go quite according to plan.
That’s God’s plan.
I realise that I have tried to make things go my own way and focused on myself too much. Being in a marriage has shown me a lot of my weak points, being so close to someone else brings out the best and worst in oneself. It’s a valuable learning experience, and only selfless giving and love can make a marriage work.
Living for oneself really leads to nothing. If my aim was for the 70 or 80 odd years I have here, maybe that would be OK. But in the light of an eternity serving God, it just won’t cut it.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” — MATTHEW 22:37-38
Just like a marriage, I need to give my whole heart to God. I need to love him with all my mind, heart and soul. He knows everything, I need to trust Him and join in what He’s doing.
It’s not easy, nothing worthwhile ever is, but we are assured of His love for us. He guides and leads and will never let you down if you put your faith and trust in Him.
So with that I now go into my 26th year on this planet, trusting Him. It will be a good one.
Love to you all, I should write more often…
Today is my Mommy’s birthday.
My mom has had quite an impact on me as a person.
I remember when I was still in South Africa having quite long conversations with my mom. She would always listen when I had something to say and I would do the same when she had something to say. I think she was definitely and influence on my temprement. I tend to just listen when others talk and don’t like to butt in too much.
My mom definitely had little shits as children (pardon my language). When I was young I was incredibly grumpy in the morning when I got up for school. I could always find something to complain about. I would either go to the kitchen to eat breakfast and complain that she hadn’t made my sandwiches yet, or I’d complain about the fact that all my school clothes were not in my cupboard. Then I’d randomly hit my brother for simply talking to me at the breakfast table.
Ahh, the memories.
At this point I would have to mention, that even though I was such a pain she still made me sandwiches in the morning until I finished University. Only a mother’s love I guess.
Sometimes my mom would not just take it from us, but we managed to “test her boundaries”. James learnt the hard way how much force it takes to break a spoon on someones bum. My mom broke it, not James.
And on my last trip back to South Africa, for my wedding, my mother got her team of ladies together and basically prepared a whole wedding without the bride and groom there. The team of ladies is another joke with my mom, as she’s keen on “process” when she does things, so often all of her friends are involved in the stuff she does.
So, I’d like to say thanks to my Mom for all the wonderful years.
A wonderful influence on me and my siblings, as well as a wonderful mother-in-law for my wife, who still phones her occassionally, and calls her Mom.
Thanks for everything mom.
Love you Mom, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY
It’s my brother James’ birthday today.
He was born on the 16th of March, 1982, which makes him 23 years old.
He moved to England a little while back and is doing something there.
You can see some of his pics here:
http://www.peterandava.com/photos/thumbnails.php?album=28
So, don’t forget to send your regards.
Happy Birthday James! 🙂
I’ve been up to a little more this week than usual.
The weather From Monday to Thursday was fantastic, it was warm and sunny, and I got to wear baggies to school for the first time in quite a while, it was great.
Tuesday, my class and I went to the Taipei Zoo. I wore long pants on that day, but regretted it as the weather was hot. The Zoo is quite a cool place for the kids to go as there really is not too much nature to speak of in the big city, except for bugs. That said, when I look at the animals it must be extremely boring. I saw on the news recently that in order to get pandas in a Chinese Zoo to mate, they showed them TV shows of pandas mating. And it worked!
I had quite a lot of work to do, which I managed to get finished, which is a relief. It’s amazing how much work you can get done without the internet at work. No wonder companies try to keep their imployees off the computers quite often, or at least off the internet.
Friday, I went over to Clint and Sue’s house. I know Clint from when he worked at the JOY YongHe preschool for a while. He left, but we have had a little contact. One interesting thing was that Clint has an interest for internet related business stuff, which I am very much into, so even though I haven’t seen him for a while, that common interest stays on my mind.
Anyways, they are hosting an Alpha course – http://www.alphacourse.org at thier home. They invited Ava and I along, but just I ended up going. It was nice spending some time with some newer friends as I haven’t actually been out too much as of late.
Other good news, or small good news for me is that my website http://www.computer-buying-guide.com is nearly complete. I have to add some more content to it’s pages, but for the most part it’s complete. I will give it another two weeks or so before being completely OK.
Well, tomorrow brings in another week. Should be another relaxed one.
Hope you all have a wonderful one too. Love to you all.
This past weekend was the most cold I have felt for an extremely long time. The temperatures got down to the single digits (whick is low for here, where it should almost be Spring). I was freezing.
There was an earthquake at about 3 o’clock on Sunday morning which shook things up a little and got Ava and I out of our very warm bed for a while.
The Taiwan Central Weather Bureau can be found at
http://www.cwb.gov.tw/V4e/index.htm
It gives all the details as earthquakes happen and is almost unaccessable when there is actually a quake.
This website has had an upgrade.
The weather has thankfully taken a change for the warmer, which means I will try and wear shorts tomorrow.
Reminder to check out the blog at www.peterandava.com and check out all of our photos at www.peterandava.com/photos
There are always quite a few sad things that happen in our life.
It’s hard to admit and walk through it but we’re lucky we have each other.
There are always quite a few troubles that affect and change our lives.
They really irritate and bother us but lucky we can always plan it again together.
Love Ava