STILL Standing All Amazed

Thursday night I received a phone call from Sister Wu (yes, the same sister Wu pictured in my post about Halloween). I love her calls. She's usually calling about a tiny piece of this or that, like suggesting a place for food we haven't tried, or to tell me she has scheduled another week for us in the dance studio. But somehow we chat on to the faith promoting (how her nephew was given 2 days to live three weeks ago, received a blessing from the missionaries, and is getting better despite doctor's predictions - one example of a few) or the life inspiring (how she took her kids as teens on a 45 day tour of Japan and the USA).

She shares Chinese idioms with me, like the one about a journey of a thousand miles is better than reading a thousand books, or the one about when you leave home you rely on the kindness of friends. She is not my visiting teacher, that I know of, but her caring exceeds that of most visiting teachers I've ever encountered.

Thursday night as we chatted, I shared the hope I was letting go that we would make it to ride the Maokong Gondola this week. The unseasonably warm weather combined with the recent clear skies seemed perfect. BUT, the trip entails a two-plus hour MRT ride, PLUS an hour total on the gondola, and managing all that alone with 4 kids, AND finding the energy to DO anything once we reached the top just seemed like more adventure than I had the energy to experience.

But as we chatted, Sister Wu told me she thought I could, told me that if we went first thing in the morning, I would have fresh energy, that the MRT's wouldn't be too crowded so we could find seats for the whole time, and she confirmed that the weather was perfect and days like this were in short supply. I hung up the phone and told the kids to go to sleep because tomorrow we'd be taking on Maokong!

THAT adventure was today, and it was, once again, miraculously perfect. I don't know how Heavenly Father orchestrates such miracles in our behalf, but yet AGAIN, I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me!

The day began taking Sister Wu's advice: to leave first thing while I was fresh and before I could come up with excuses to not go. Getting the kids out the door was made easier by not having any yummy breakfast food on hand. So first we went to buy our favorite: danbing. But the danbing shop happened to be crowded, so we did something we had never done to this point: we purchased the pre-made breakfast sandwiches instead. The kids were skeptical they'd like them, but they worked fine, and we pounded them on our one-block walk to the food-and-beverage-free MRT.

We were delayed from getting on an earlier train by two common factors: we needed a bathroom break (a short 25 minutes after leaving the house) and one of our MRT cards was out of money. So one train came and went while we emptied our bladders and filled the card. When we got to the platform to take us in the right direction, we did something we never did, however. I had noted how packed the train that passed looked, so I suggested to the kids we walk all the way to the end of the line to board. This didn't make sense to them, but I really, really wanted us to at least be able to sit for the hour ride, so they went with it.

When we boarded I noted that perhaps this was the thinking of the MRT-riding moms. Here at the rear of the train there were a few moms with toddlers or babies, AND there were seats for all of us, with only one to spare though!

Immediately I noticed the mom sitting across from us. She had a double stroller kids kept popping out of to sit near her or on her lap. I only saw two at a time, but I wasn't sure because of my view if more children were in it or not. I wanted to talk to her, but talking across the train isle is bad form here. I might have crossed to chat with her, but would have left my own kids to do so and risked losing my seat, and she seemed pretty engaged with the kids I could see, and I didn't want to pull her attention from them. So I settled for smiling at her and at her kids when they happened to glance our way.

As it turned out, we rode all the way in to downtown Taipei together, and finally when we both got off the same stop to transfer, we came within an appropriate distance from one another and she asked if we were going to the zoo. I told her we had been, and today we were going to the gondola (they are roughly in the same place). Then I asked if she was going to the zoo. She told me she too was headed for the gondola and we smiled and said we should go together.

That SOUNDED great, but there was a push and pull of the crowd and we began to separate. She could only take the elevators with her stroller and meanwhile the flow of the crowd was pulling us with our smaller stroller to the escalator. I said over my shoulder that I would look for her, and we parted ways.

The transfer from one line to another was like walking a full city block horizontally and vertically. It seemed to take forever and at one point I took a wrong turn and was separated from the big three. I had told Kai to follow the signs to the brown line, and then to the Taipei Zoo, so as I walked, I just kept hoping they were ahead of me and had successfully navigated it all and would be waiting at the right platform when I got there.

They were! After reuniting with them, we looked down the platform and who should we see at the end but our new friend.

"Let's go ride with her!" I told the kids, and being the outgoing, friend-starved cuties they are, we walked to the end of the line again and met our new "friend." We'd all just missed a train and this gave us time to talk. We met her twin boys - yes there were just two, and the little one I thought was a girl just had longer, naturally curly hair. She told me her boys loved the gondola and they came about once a week to ride it, but rode straight up and straight down and then went to the zoo.

She also told me some of the cars had glass bottoms. I don't know if I knew this and had forgotten, or perhaps hadn't known. She then asked if I had a reservation. I didn't know one could make a reservation, so I asked her opinion on how long the line might be and how best to maneuver. She didn't have any suggestions for what to do at the top since she spent so little time there. I thanked her for all her help. But once the train came, there was only one spot her double-wide would fit, and I didn't fit near that spot so we weren't able to talk further. And she had to go a different way off the train to get elevators.

I didn't see our friend at all as we walked toward the gondola. When we got there it seemed the line was as long as was planned for - the weaving back and forth filled up all the guide ribbons and we dutifully got in line at the end. I told the kids I would wait and I sent Kai to scout out a trash for our recently consumed bribe of Halloween candy for good MRT behavior. I told Eloise that they could go find the bathrooms together when he got back.

Then suddenly our friend was there with two blue slips of paper in her hand. "I have two reservations," she said. "Can you come right now with me?"

SKIP the crowd in line?!? Of course, except Kai had not rejoined us! I yodeled for him, he came into view, and we all hurried off past the pile-up to the actual entrance for the gondola. Thankfully, while there, we had a bit of time. Eloise got the bathroom break she needed. Our friend also told us the cars could get hot, so I was able to dash down to the gift shop to replace the water we'd left at home in the hurry to just get our the door.

While we waited, I asked her how she came to have two reservations. She said she made two because, traveling with kids, she wasn't sure when exactly she would arrive and so she had an early one and a second one in case the early one had passed.

She seemed amazing like that in general! Here she was, navigating the crowds, the hustle and bustle with two barely-3-year-olds in a double wide stroller all by herself! She is my hero!

Anyway, the glass bottom cars only sat 5 people so we were off again in solitude for a breathtaking journey. The journey is documented below, but the miraculous nature of meeting this woman doesn't end there.

(Left: cuties on the gondola. Yes, we brought our own fans, purely for function. I realize it is NOVEMBER in Utah, but here, today, it approached 90 degrees. If I could imagine finding anything to complain about, it was on the warm side, but I wouldn't trade the clear skies for ANYTHING!)

Taipei in all it's glory.

These videos I took accidentally thinking they were photos, but they are brief and give you a tiny taste of the RIDE.

When we got to the top, she was waiting. She said her boys said it would be alright if we ate together (she spoke to them entirely in Taiwanese, so I didn't understand a word the boys said, or that she said to them), but because she had brought food, we just grabbed cold noodles from the convenient convenience store and followed her lead.

We picnicked in the shade of a wooden platform overlooking a small pond. She'd brought a very healthy looking container of left-overs that she shared with the boys while we snacked on our noodles and more Halloween junk food. First, we offered the boys some of our cracker rings that tasted like Pringels. They seemed to like those. Then when the kids wanted more candy for dessert, we shared that too. Later, this mom told me it was the first candy the boys had had in their lives.

Our picnic with our angel for the day and her boys

"You ARE an amazing mom," I said. "But how do you refuse all the candy they are probably offered?"

She laughed and said, "I'm just bossy like that."

As we ate and visited, I learned she had lived in Portland, Maine for one year. Her English was awesome. And her husband is Japanese so the boys, at 3, are practically tri-lingual. The final miracle came when she asked where we had been and where we wanted to go. After I rattled off some of the places, she offered, "Let me know, and I could go with you." THEN, the very next place she suggested was one that, again, was on my list but was another major endeavor!

I don't know if this is reading like quite the miracle it is, and to be sure, we may have handled THIS day just fine by ourselves. BUT we had a friend who made it pleasant, and more incredibly, we have someone who CAN share future adventures with, and here in Taiwan, that is MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD! When I think on all the moments that led to us getting on the train at the place and moment we did, I truly stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me! By His grace we found a friend for THIS day, AND for days to come! Truly, it was just what we needed!

The ending of the story is: she left us after lunch and we wandered on the mountain top for a while.

Kids in the tea fields.

"Wander" might be a tad understated for hiking these stairs with an Arthur on one's back.

Our return gondola wait was incredibly brief - we might have just walked on, but the lady handling boarding knew it wasn't fair to the folks waiting on the stairs for us to simply take the elevator up and get on. We also returned early enough to find seats for all of us all the way home, though we weren't able to sit together (and the girls shamed us by talking to each other across the train - oh well!).

As we approached home, Q texted and we were able to arrange to meet in Zhuwei where we do our shopping. Just as we were finishing up at the market and grocery store, he walked up and we walked into our favorite buffet, had dinner there before the dinner rush arrived, crossed the street and walked up to a cab waiting at a red light and were able to load all of us and the groceries just as the light turned green, got whisked ALL the way home, all the way up the hill, AND the driver didn't add on the optional $1 to our fare! Wow! WOW, WOW!!!!!!!!!! All I can say is, if you have been praying for us, your prayers are WORKING, and please take a moment to thank God on our behalf too!