Howdy, pardner! Glad to see you could make it. Once again, I must apologize for my tardiness in providing updates. Not having an internet connection at home has become some what of a bother but I hope that situation will soon be remedied and my activity on this weblog will become much more pronounced.
So what’s new? There’s a few things to report on this end. First of all, as of Tuesday, I am the proud new owner of scooter. Say it with me now… Saaaaa-weet! Yeah, it is pretty sweet. I can’t tell you how much I despise bicycles so not having to bike or walk everywhere I want to go has been really nice. The thing that I’m really excited about is that now that I have a scooter, I can finally check out Victory English Fellowship, an English speaking church that I’ve been wanting to go to for some time now. It’s much too far to bike or walk so the scooter will be an extremely useful tool for getting me all the way over to where the church is located.
I’m sure you’re dying to see pictures of said scooter so without further ado, take a gander at my sweet ride. I know you’ll be impressed.
Pretty nice, eh? What you’re looking at is 125 cubic centimeters of unadulterated power. I’ll give you a second to go ahead and wipe the drool from your chin… As you can see, it’s red, which isn’t my first choice of colors but I’m certainly not complaining. I’ve tentatively dubbed my new set of wheels “The Red Dragon”. I think it’s got a nice ring to it but if anyone has any better suggestions, I’m all ears.
Let me preface this by saying I absolutely hate shopping for things, be it clothes, food, computers, electronics, etc. The one that tops that list is vehicles. Shopping for vehicles is, in my humble opinion, one of the worst experiences a person could ever subject themselves to. That being said, shopping for my scooter wasn’t that bad of an adventure at all. Justin, a fellow American I met at one of the churches I’ve attended, turned me on to the shop where I bought the Dragon. The great thing about it was the shop owner, Adidas (yeah, you read that right… Adidas) is Taiwanese but speaks excellent English. The other great thing about it is that Adidas is one hell of a nice guy.
I swung by his shop last Monday to see if he could help me out. He really doesn’t deal in used scooters that much so when I initially paid him a visit, he was fresh out. However, he was very willing to locate a used scooter that would fit my needs. On Friday of that week, he called to tell me that he had found something that I might like… .. a 125 cc, 8 year old Kymco. So on Saturday at about noon, I went down to have a look at it and take it for a spin. When I got to his shop, he had the whole front end completely dismantled. He told me that he was giving the thing a complete tune up to make sure that it ran well and said that he would be done in a few hours and to come back then.
Three hours later, I came back to see the fruits of all his hard work and let me tell you, I was astounded. Not only had he reassembled the front end, he had put on new body panels as well. If you look at the pictures above, you’ll see what I mean. Notice how the front of the scooter is shiny and new looking while the back is a little bit faded and worse for the wear. He also put on new brakes and tires and changed the transmission fluid and the oil. Now, I’m sure you’re thinking, “Dang… all that work must have cost you a pretty penny.” Well, my friend, you’d be wrong. For the scooter, parts, and labor, I paid a grand total of NT$16850, which in US dollars is about $510. Not too shabby, especially considering that the Canadian girls who live upstairs paid about NT$14000 each for their 50cc scooters earlier this week. Granted, they are newer and look better but as long as mine runs well, I really couldn’t care less what it looks like. All in all, I think I got a pretty darned good deal.
The point of all this is that it’s amazing what God can do in your life when you just stop worrying about it and let him handle it. A couple of weeks ago, I was hell bent on getting myself some wheels and was willing to do just about anything to realize that goal. But because of the language barrier, it’s not like I could just go out and start shopping for one on my own. It didn’t take long for me to get frustrated with the whole prospect and I finally just said screw it, I’m not going to worry about it. If God wants me to have a scooter, then he’ll make find a way to get me one. And that’s exactly what happened. All the pieces fell conveniently into place and everything worked out exactly the way I had hoped. So I think I learned something very valuable from this whole experience.
I’m not a person who easily relinquishes control, especially with things that concern my own life. Anyone who knows me is also aware that I’m not the type of person who likes to bother others with my problems. I find that I do not feel comfortable in those situations. If someone wants to offer help, I’m more than happy to accept it but I’d rather not ask for it. I like to think of myself as someone who is capable of figuring things out for myself and thus far, that has worked out well for me. I’m blessed that God has given me that particular talent and I’m blessed that my parents chose to raise me in that fashion.
Things are completely different for me here in Taiwan. The fact that I can’t speak, read, or communicate well with the people of this country really makes me rely more on God. While it’s still hard for me to give up that control to Him, I think that’s the exact reason why he led me here. So little by little, day by day, I am learning that I don’t have to do everything by myself and there are times when I need to swallow my pride and just ask for help, be it from God or a friend. Like I said, it’s still not the easiest thing for me to do but I think I’ve really turned a corner in the last couple of weeks.
