Elder and Sister Croft in Taiwan

  We are meeting a lot of amazing people and learning from them! A few weeks ago we heard about a woman who might need some help so we went to see if there was anything we could do. She is 80 years old. Her husband has passed away. Her older son was killed in a car accident. Two other sons live with her because they have disabilities. Her first language is an aboriginal language and she is also fluent in Taiwanese. Mandarin is a third language for her and the one she is least fluent in. She can’t read in any language. She found some unused land and grows a garden to help ends meet and keep herself active and productive. She had two different garden plots, but recently decided to focus on one. We took her some food as a gift. She received it reluctantly saying she gets by ok and people don’t need to bring her things. We asked when we could help with her garden but she said we were doing God’s work and she could handle the garden. She doesn’t have a car but she has a scooter and drives h

新年快樂 Happy Chinese New Year! Today is Chinese (Lunar) New Year! Last week all the missionaries got together for a traditional Chinese New Year dinner. As part of the festivities Sister Croft and I  dressed up in a lion costume and did a lion dance . During our 60 seconds, we bumped into the wall once and I hit Sister Croft with the lion head once, but we had fun and there are no lasting injuries! Since we were married we have always celebrated Chinese New Year in our home, but there are many homes in American that don't have any traditions around this Asian holiday. That includes my childhood home where we celebrated English boxing day. (Yes, my kids got to celebrate boxing day too.) Family to family and country to country there are many cultural differences including: language, food, architecture, clothing, cash, appliances, holidays, traditions and so on. Despite those sometimes large differences, I have had two distinct experiences in the last two months that have impressed on m

One of my goals is to become better at following the spirit. What I mean by that is paying attention to little feelings or promptings to do something good. I believe those types of feelings are from God, through the Holy Spirit, to accomplish his purposes. The first week we arrived in Taiwan we were rushing to our first staff meeting. As we crossed the church property I saw someone by himself looking at a fountain. I had a quiet little thought that I should go talk with him. I started to push it away because it would make us late and because I can't speak Chinese and didn't know what I could do besides say, "Hello." But, I decided following the feeling was more important than my excuses, so I changed direction to meet him. When I came up to him I realized he was American and soon found out that he was meeting with missionaries. We kind of connected. but didn't talk long and I didn't see him again while we were in Taipei. A week later when we were in Taidong, h