Old Covenant, New Adventures

Hi All! As some of you might have guessed, we have started the Old Testament in SBS. Two weeks ago we did Genesis, which is one of my new favorites. I love how it is all about God pursuing his people, loving them, protecting them, providing for them, giving them a million chances, even though they're COMPLETE IDIOTS! Just like us. We have completed Genesis and Exodus and are ontoLeviticus, which I'm not too excited to chart... but I'm sure there's some great borderline-inappropriate jokes to be made, so I'm looking forward to that at least.

This will be a short update because, having come out of Revelation back to back with Genesis, back to back with Exodus... I probably don't need to tell you that I haven't done much besides work the last few weeks. Some highlights amidst the craziness of my studies would be hanging out at the coffeeshop with Pei Yu, my Taiwanese little sister, an all base pool-party, seeing

Eclipse in the Theater AND finding Burger King in the SAME DAY, meeting up with one of Lori (my roommate from Canada)'s friend from Czech Republic/Seattle downtown, and the various family nights we've had.

Pei Yu gets cuter every day. Lately she's taken to sitting on my lap while I'm talking on Skype and trying to talk over me in her precious broken 2-year-old-Chinese (sometimes we have the best talks since we're about the same level!!). She also loves to color on my charts. I've handed in a couple charts now that have her signature scribbles all over them because I wasn't

paying quite enough attention... but those are some of my favorite ones now. Today she had a pinwheel fan and was trying to blow on it, but her little lungs couldn't quite make it, so she eventually got bored and gave it to me. The cuteness continues. Actually in relation to the Pei Yu and the coffeeshop, I had a funny moment the other day when I was browsing the web and found the website for the coffeeshop, and it is covered with pictures of me! I was laughing so hard... mostly because

I didn't really remember ever getting my picture taken, but since I'm there every day for untold hours doing homework, I guess it makes sense.

The Taiwan YWAM base has a mandatory fun day every couple of months. (You may remember the GLOWING sunburn I got). This time, we had a pool party, complete with water olympics. For some reason (ask me privately (why) 4 of the 5 pools were out of commission, so about 100 people enjoyed hours of fun in 2 feet of water... Pictured above you can see my awesome Taiwanese-approved swim outfit and our team during the water Olympics.

Last week Lori and I went to downtown Taipei to study at Starbucks for the day with plans to later meet her friend Martin, who was from the Czech Republic but lived in Seattle for most of his adult life. He was quite the character, and we had a blast together. The evening ended on a bit of a ridiculous note, however, because he had left his backpacking gear in a locker (the reason he was in Taiwan was because he is traveling through Asia indefinitely, tired of corporate America) somewhere in the MRT station, but couldn't quite remember where. We walked through the entire Main Station, which is several miles of corridors, to finally realize that we'd made a wrong turn at the very beginning of our trek. But he found it and we ended up eating

Coldstone Ice Cream, so all ended well.

(Pictured to the Left: Mark and I at Burger King, a little too excited for our Whoppers)

Probably the most exciting thing that happened during the last few weeks (don't mock me... ok fine you can) is that I got to see the new Twilight movie, Eclipse, in the Theatre. Twice. That is the first time I've ever seen a movie in the theatre twice. It was a little excessive. But the first time I went it was with a big group of girls from SBS, and the second time it was with my Taiwanese friend Violet, my American friend Mark, and our Korean friend Andy, who, amusingly, is OBSESSED with Twilight. The capper for that being the best day in like, forever, was that on our way back to the MRT, we happened upon a Burger King, and I got a Whopper and fries, which was the most delicious thing I've had in... like, forever. Probably because Burger King is extremely nostalgic for me... but that's another story for another day. Violet had never had Burger King before, and did not quite understand my extreme excitement, but few people would, so it's ok. Needless to say, I got to treat her to a tiny taste of heaven, which she had the AUDACITY to compare to KFC. But, not being western, I suppose I will let her lack of taste distinguishing slide this time.

Lately family nights have been much smaller scale, likely because people are finally getting settled in, finding their way around, and developing friendships with Taiwanese. Two weeks ago we had a bonfire that never actually ended up burning on the beach, but turned into an awesome time for a chat. This beach in particular is always interesting to go to because it's a famous hangout for aging gay men, who often lounge around in the nude... so we're never quite sure what we're going to get, and often choose to come after dark just in case. Then last week, in honor of Exodus, we watched Prince of Egypt, but, of course, being huge Bible nerds now, we had to spend the whole time running a total of liberties Hollywood took. I fell asleep during the movie and never got a final tally, so I will have to pass on the challenge to YOU!

The number one mistake I found though was that Joseph did NOT knock the nose of the Sphinx off while playing in his chariot, Napoleon shot it off during target practice. So that's a freebee for you. Tomorrow we're having a Spaghetti feed at our house and playing Rock Band for the first time in ages, so I'll have to update more about that later.

(Pictured to the left: Violet and I at the Rock Cafe)

Before I sign off, I have one mildly entertaining story and I've read a couple really awesome books lately (aside from the Bible) that I would love to recommend: Captivating, the partner book of Wild at Heart by John and Stasi Eldredege, both of which I'd highly recommend despite excessive movie references, a few liberties taken in Bible interpretation, and cheesiness at time, it's been an awesome book in challenging me as a woman to view myself the way God created women to be viewed; and Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne, which challenges it's reader to be a Christian radical in ordinary life... and how to have a "life" and still follow God. It's great. This week for guitar class, I learned a Chinese song called "I like you, no, Love." It's one of my favorites and it was really great to teach it! Anyway, I had recommended a few songs to some of the girls, including one called "Hey Soul Sister" by Train, a few weeks ago, and last night, one of my friends, Violet (the same one from the Twilight excursion), asks me what a "Soul Sister" was, so I explained. A few minutes later, I heard her go up to my friend and say "hey Soul Sister, how's it going?" Just imagine those words coming from that face in your head and it gets a lot funnier.

Blessings to you all,

Anne Joy Briggs

Finishing the semester, break at the beach, giant spiders and John

好久不见(Long time no see)!! I am so sorry it's been SO long since I've written, time just seems to escape me here (have no idea how THAT is happening). But life is nice on my side of the world. SBS has been going great, and I've been seeing God do amazing things here in Taiwan. I finished the first trimester of SBS... which at first was a huge struggle, and something I DEFINITELY could not have done on my own, but God has seriously done something miraculous in changing me so much in the last year. Anyone who knows me knows the idea of me sitting in a chair for twenty minutes- much less ten hours a day was plain ridiculous. But after a major attitude readjustment and some help from our AWESOME SBS staff, I was able to pull through, with an incredible excitement for the semester to come.

After our test, we had a weeklong break, and I went to Kenting and Kaohsiung (Taiwan's got to figure out how to use Pinyin better!!!) with my friend Paris and her mom Christine, who I've been spending quite a bit of time with, leading them in bible study and praying with Paris about doing DTS in the fall. I wish I had some pictures of her to share with you all, but she refuses to let me take any of her... so I will keep trying to sneak a good shot. We spent the week cliffdiving, snorkeling, skidooing, extreme inner tubing (at about 60 mph with helmets and

bodysuits), surfing, and sleeping on the white sandy beaches... it was a tough life! It was so great to spend a little bit of time back in the "real world" for a while. I so often take it for granted that I live in an amazing Christian community full of people who support me, hold me accountable, and are just... generally awesome in every way. My trip, short as it was, was an amazing reminder just to love every moment that I get to be here, because I know my time in YWAM is probably coming to an end after SBS (and possibly Titus... please partner with me in prayer about whether or not/where to do it). Being in a totally Chinese-speaking environment for six days gave me a lot of practice in language as well as a LOT of time to learn to be quiet and just listen... and when I got sick of just listening I would pray. While I was there, I had a minor crisis of faith, being out of the "YWAM environment" really for the first time since before I did my DTS, which ended up just strengthening my faith and making me really excited for the next part of my life, growing in my faith without needing to be fed from the outside on a daily basis- just Jesus and I. I took the fast train back on Friday being ready to come home and get some rest and play soccer, but unfortunately I missed the soccer game by just a few minutes (in an effort to avoid the physical changes SBS is bound to bring, I've been playing Soccer up at the university above the base). However, I got in a few games of pool and had a relaxing evening reading "The Irresistible Revolution," a book I would HIGHLY recommend... a book about living as an ordinary radical, about reforming the church, and about pursuing a non-hypocritical faith in God.

Last week we finished John, by far my favorite book this far, but also one of the biggest challenges, as fitting about 100 observations onto 22 charts in four days is not an easy task... During our lectures, I just about got scared to death by a spider the size of my face with visible fur climbing out of the wall about a foot away from my head. Thankfully, my friend Mark caught a picture of it for your enjoyment. One reason, text aside, that I loved John so much is the amount of work led to many long hours at my favorite coffee shop (see last blog entry). My friendship with Pei Yu, the owner's daughter, has grown much stronger the last few weeks, and the other day, she just came up and climbed up on my lap, where she sat for about an hour and a half while I worked on my homework. She shares her Cheerios with me, tells me ridiculous stories, and throws me invisible gifts and plays peekaboo with me from across the room. While I'm here (I'm actually writing from that very coffeeshop), I feel like I'm part of a family, and the things that we are studying in SBS come alive outside the text.

We will be finishing up the New Testament and jumping into Genesis within the next two weeks, a showing of God's faithfulness and also his continued challenges. I look forward to sharing and hearing more in the coming days and weeks, thank you all so much for caring enough to keep reading!

PS Please keep our family friend Karen, my DTS classmate Lindsey, and my elementary school friend Starla in your prayers this week... as they are all on long roads to recovery. Big blessings to you all!

Love,

Anne