Just Passing Through: Moving Time

We're moving one week from today! While I was typing this our moving company delivered this huge load of boxes. This is getting real.

We're moving to Sanchong (三重), a district just outside of Taipei City that has the lowest number of churches per capita in all of northern Taiwan. We're excited to settle in, learn a lot, and continue on our church planting journey there.*

We're sad to be leaving this apartment which has been our home for three years. This little space on Chaozhou Street holds many special memories for our family.

Here we grew from a family of 3 to a family of 5...

...and celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary.

This is the home where Keira learned to talk. This is where Jude took his first steps. Here's the bathtub where James was born!

We're even more sad to be leaving this neighborhood that's been our home ever since we moved to Taiwan six years ago. You'd think that when you live in a crowded city, you'd feel detached from your 3,000,000 neighbors, but to my surprise the opposite is true: your city block is like a small town. Everyone knows each other and looks out for each other.

The man that runs the corner cafe knows exactly how I like my coffee and has offered endless words of encouragement as I've pored over Chinese textbooks at his counter.

The security guard on our street invites us in for tea every time we walk by and always brightens up our day.

The convenience store clerk always gives pop rocks or chocolate to my kids. Our meat and vegetable vendors at the market always give us the "regular" discount or throw in a few free lemons.

The grandpa who lives across the street always brings out freshly baked cookies when he hears us coming, and remembers all our names. A neighbor a few doors down brought us food every day for a week after James was born.