Construction everywhere!!!!

Everywhere you turn here in Taipei, you see construction going on. In fact, right outside our apartment a new apartment building is going up. It is not unusual for our road to be blocked for an entire day because of this construction. This picture was taken from our balcony. I don't know if you can tell but a forklift is holding a car up in the air as they do work because apparently it was in the way!!! (You can click on the picture to enlarge.) We are looking forward to the day that this apartment building is finished.

Levi going to preschool

This is Levi in his preschool outfit. The preschools here are called "kindergartens." Levi's preschool is called "Precious Blood Kindergarten," so the Chinese characters on his shirt say "precious blood." Today he had a field trip, so he had to wear his uniform. The backpack is part of the uniform. Every day, I follow him down the narrow alley beside our apartment to take him to school. He looks so cute, I had to take a picture from behind to show you what I see! He really likes his school now. He even has a Chinese friend named Jien-Yu. He is growing up!!

Go Pack!!!

Those of you who know me (Keith) well know that I am a huge NC State fan. I was really concerned about keeping up with the Pack 10,000 miles away but have found that it is really better to keep up with them this way. Most of the time I know the results before I listen to the radio broadcast or video over the internet. Wade and I both told Page we like it better this way. The losses don't hurt as much and we don't have to watch or listen to them if we don't want to. Also, I was very calm last night as I watched a replay of the State-BC game. What a come back!!! The weekend turned out even better when I found out that McCurry's Clemson Tigers whipped up on the Tar Heels.

Saturday night dinner

We had one of our Chinese friends over for pizza on Saturday night. She is a real neat lady who speaks very good English but is not a Christian. We have had a couple of opportunities to share with her in the past. As we were eating, Hunter spoke up and said, "Mom and Dad, when are you going to share Jesus?" Nothing like a child reminding you of your purpose in life. Well, we eventually had the opportunity to practice some of our spiritual language on our friend and she helped us with our tones and pronunciation. She also seemed very interested in the content so we shared the gospel with her -- of course a lot of this had to be done in English. She did not accept yet, but asked some great questions. Please join us in prayer that God will continue to reveal Himself to her. Thank you.

Mice in the House!

We are proud to announce four new members to the Curlee family. We now have four rodents of some kind. We are pretty sure they are either gerbils or mice. Each is a different color so we can tell them apart. Their names are as follows: Milly's is a light grey one called Divida. Wade's is the smallest, a brown colored girl named Theresa. Hunter's is a different shade of brown named Max. Levi's has a black stripe and is named Jack. Max and Jack share a cage since Hunter and Levi share a room. The pet store owner told us we can bring them back if they fight each other too much. So far they have had a few squirmishes but are not too much trouble. The kids used their own allowance money to buy them and have to change the shaving in the cages every Saturday. We'll let you know how this new adventure unfolds!!! Stay tuned!

Learning Chinese!!

We have reached the 6 month mark in our language learning. We continue to have some good days as well as some frustrating days. Thanks for your continued prayers. This week we finally started learning some spiritual lanugage. We have "graduated" to Lu Laushr, a wonderful teacher who demands correct tones and pronunciation. We have enjoyed learning everyday language, and will continue to do so, but learning some spiritual language excites us!! It seems to give us a purpose. After all, we are here to share the good news about Jesus to those who do not know Him. This week we learned that when a Chinese person hears that someone is a sinner they think of a criminal. They do not view "good" people as sinners. Therefore, we have been working on ways that we can explain that all people are sinners. For our homework this week we both had to think of 4 different examples of sin in our own lives that we can share in Chinese! This way we can explain that although we are not criminals, in God's eyes we have committed sins. We will eventually follow this up with sharing that Jesus died for those sins and the only way a person can have a right relationship with God is through Jesus Christ, who was crucified and was raised from the dead to conquer that sin. It is pretty cool to be able to learn how to say that in Chinese!!

CARS

We went to a movie last night! We have the normal, expensive movie theatres here, but we always go to the "cheap" theatre so we have to wait a while for the movies to get there. We have been waiting for the Disney movie, CARS, to come there - it finally did! It was a great movie especially for us North Carolinians where Nascar racing is so big. And especially for this gal from a small southern town called Dillon, SC! We would recommend it for all of you to see if you haven't yet! All of the Curlee kids loved it, too!

I thought I'd tell you how this theatre works. They have one big screen and they usually show three movies. They rotate the movie times. For example, they may have one at 11:00, 1:00, 3:00, 5:00, 7:00 and 9:00. They alternate the movies - so one would show at 11 and 5, one at 1 and 7 and one at 3 and 9. The great thing is that you can buy one ticket and sit there in the theatre all day and watch all of the movies one right after the other if you want to! People just walk in and out. The other cool thing is that they don't sell any refreshments. That way you can bring whatever you want to snack on into the theatre. It is really a great deal.

By the way, most all the movies in the theatres here are in English with Chinese subtitles. Don't ask me why.