Strengthening My Feeble Knees

It so happens that taking the kids into the complete unknown on a regular basis is not the easiest thing to do. Even getting us out the door - getting everyone fed, clothed, shod, and with emptied bladders is a labor all unto itself. Then, regardless of where we ultimately want to go, it means a 10 minute hike to the train, generally a long ride, and after that, still only a hope we find where we are going after a lot of asking strangers and stopping to orient ourselves to the maps, bus schedules, or landmarks that help us make our way around.

We almost can't go anywhere without stopping several times to find and use more bathrooms. It's almost like the girls think of this trip as the toilet tour of Taiwan. I've begun to joke with them, "Oooh. There's another bathroom. Should we go use it just to see what that one is like?" AND our trips are also not brief enough to make it home without needing to eat.

Managing all of these unknowns with four kids in tow in a country where I don't read the language, and where speaking and understanding still take mental exertion can be enough to make me feel I should just stay home. Of course, staying home isn't really an option because I still have to grocery shop and find and provide for the other family necessities, but with all of that, why torture myself with expectations that we will ALSO go see and do anything beyond what is necessitated for survival!?!

That is exactly how I was feeling the other afternoon. We'd been cooped up in the house due to rain for a few days, and after things dried out, I used all my "going" energy to restock our cupboards and fridge, and to get the kids to and from a few ballet classes. I hardly had energy for more going. But we didn't travel all this way to sit in our apartment. So Thursday afternoon I suddenly declared to the kids that we were leaving and to get their shoes on. No one had eaten lunch, but I told them we would grab something on the way. I was afraid if I didn't leave the house at that very moment, I wouldn't have the energy or guts to go after taking the time to feed the crew.

We hiked down to the train station, but I was tired of all the offerings we'd enjoyed there recently, so, hoping I could find a fast plate of friend rice, we walked into a restaurant that had never seemed very promising for all the beer advertisements wrapping it's walls and the tipsy, red-faced businessmen at the tables inside when we'd passed before.

This time perhaps we'd just missed the lunch rush. There were 3 older men at one table, and at another a husband, wife, and small daughter whose faces lit up when we entered so much so that I thought we must know them. We were the only other group in the restaurant and as we sat down, I began to kid-manage and try to order. "Sit down. I have to order before they can bring the food. Do you have fried rice? I don't know what flavors I want. No, I don't need a menu, I can't read Chinese. Take your sister to the bathroom in the back. A shrimp and a pork fried rice please. What veggies do you have? I'm sorry, I don't understand those words. Do you have kongxincai? Yes, that will be all. Yes, the kids can eat with chopsticks. No, I am not ordering you ice cream. We're all sitting right here so please stop yelling. Yes, they are all my children. Don't stand on the chair." Etc, etc, etc.

Taking the kids to eat anywhere at home can be crazy enough. Here, with a whole foreign world swirling around us, trying a new place alone with just the kids and myself can seem like the straw that, while it may not break any backs, perhaps pokes one too many holes through a mother's stream of conscious.

But on this occasion (and truly on so many others) I am saved by the kindness of strangers a long the way. The family at the table nearby WERE strangers. I confirmed with the husband, who came over to our table, first to treat us to two bottles of Apple Cidre (a carbonated beverage the kids like which I never buy for them). No, he was not the same stranger who gave us a ride home Sunday. No, he didn't go to our church. He looked familiar because his family had been eating in another restaurant Sister Wu had pointed out after a ballet class one afternoon. But we'd never spoken before.

After our food came, he stopped by the table again to ask if we always ate so simply or was it that we just didn't know what to order? I tried to explain to him my craving for fried rice that afternoon, but he insisted on treating us to a plate of tomato and egg as well. The kids now luck out twice in a row! This is one of their favorite dishes!

Finally, he came back to the table to inform me that at this particular restaurant, the white rice was free, and if you order two-three dishes or more, the ice cream was free too! Now the kids were in HEAVEN! (I almost never buy them ice cream either.) When we had eaten our delighted fill, I went to pay, and this gentleman had already confirmed with the waitress that he was covering the soda and extra plate of food.

His actions may not seem like any great and important act of service, but to me on that day, it meant the world. I walked into the restaurant very uncertain I would be able to face all of the unknowns that are a part of any adventure we go on. I am used to being alone with the kids, but sometimes being here, I feel especially alone. I have felt, and on this day was feeling almost too overwhelmed and had thought to myself, "If we only make it to eat, at least we will have gotten out of the house."

After being the recipient of such thoughtfulness, my spirit was renewed! Leaving the restaurant, I thought, "I STILL don't know exactly where we are going, how we will get there, what we will find once we arrive, or if any of it will feel worth it, BUT there will be help along the way! If and when I have a need, there will be an answering of that need. I CAN do this!"

So off we went to the Botanical Gardens of Taipei, and those pictures I'll include below. But I just want to add for the record how moved I am by the kindness and generosity of the people here. How often we are helped and even saved by strangers, who, on the way to somewhere else and living their very busy lives, find the time and resources to make the big and little differences in MY life. This attribute of the Chinese people here reminds me of my Savior, Jesus Christ. And I am filled with a desire to be more like Him, and more like the people here and all around me!

Okay! Enough story-telling! On to the pics already!

Another lovely pagoda. Taiwan is rich with these, but I never tire of them.

The kids in front of a Japanese zen garden. Do they look SO "zen"?

If I got the sign right, and if it WAS a sign for this tree, this may be what agave comes from...?

Wow! Cactus too, in all the moisture of Taiwan...?

Giant yucca. Seriously.

Oh, and it was a great adventure, enjoyed by all. And we made it home safely. And the garden was magical. And we wished so many of our loved ones could have been there to see different bits and pieces of what we saw. Loved ones, we love you!