Hello all! Sorry we have been neglecting the blog lately the past two weeks have been busy and yet somewhat uneventful :) however we did both have talks so we can tell you about that.
On Feb 8th I had my first bible reading in Chinese here in Taiwan. And even though I have had several bible readings in Chinese back home, this one made me extra nervous. I think it was because I knew that everyone there was going to instantly know when I made a mistake and how my mistake probably completely changed the meaning of the entire reading. I was also nervous too because back home I have never been able to read the material in the allotted 4 mins, in fact the last reading I gave in the states my time was over 6 min! This time, even right before the meeting as I was practicing I couldn't do it in less than 5 mins 30 sec. But after allot of practice and a lot of prayer, the time had come to give my reading.
Brother Gao introduced me and I went up fulling expecting to have the bell rung on me. I did my reading Matthew 23:25-39. I made several mistakes and had a few pauses that were too long but over all it went ok. (you can decide for yourself though it is posted below). Afterwards the congregation clapped and brother Gao thanked me and said something about it takes lots of practice. He also told the congregation that if you have ever had to give a talk in another language you know how hard and scary it is. After the meeting I had allot of people come up to me and thank me for my talk and say that they couldn't have done the same thing in English.
The Following Friday (Feb 15th) Hannah has her first talk with Jamie. Her theme was: "How Does God’s Patience Lead to Salvation? (2 Pet. 3:9, 15)". First she wrote the talk out completely in English then using Watchtower library and the sync features included in it she translated what she could on her own. After that she asked one of the Taiwanese sisters to help her translate the rest. They made arrangements to do so on Monday after field service since Hannah had about half of the talk translated already it didn't take too long. Although I think She would have gladly spent a little more time on it if the sister helping her would have slowed down. They were still doing door to door (at night) when the sister started reading what she had on her tablet. She then translated it and dictated it to Hannah. Hannah had to write what she was dictating as fast as she could. Hannah has learned that there is a downside to sounding good when speaking Chinese when you don't know a lot. That is as soon as they hear you talk they assume you must know more than you do and they will not slow down. :) long story short though she was able to get it all down and type it up at home. It was nice too that we had that week off of school for Chinese new years, so Hannah had lots of time to practice. As you will see from the video below she did great! Afterwards brother Gao commend her on doing a good and her effort. He also said he couldn't understand why two Americans would be talking about this topic in fluent Chinese. Everyone laughed. :)
On Feb 8th I had my first bible reading in Chinese here in Taiwan. And even though I have had several bible readings in Chinese back home, this one made me extra nervous. I think it was because I knew that everyone there was going to instantly know when I made a mistake and how my mistake probably completely changed the meaning of the entire reading. I was also nervous too because back home I have never been able to read the material in the allotted 4 mins, in fact the last reading I gave in the states my time was over 6 min! This time, even right before the meeting as I was practicing I couldn't do it in less than 5 mins 30 sec. But after allot of practice and a lot of prayer, the time had come to give my reading.
Brother Gao introduced me and I went up fulling expecting to have the bell rung on me. I did my reading Matthew 23:25-39. I made several mistakes and had a few pauses that were too long but over all it went ok. (you can decide for yourself though it is posted below). Afterwards the congregation clapped and brother Gao thanked me and said something about it takes lots of practice. He also told the congregation that if you have ever had to give a talk in another language you know how hard and scary it is. After the meeting I had allot of people come up to me and thank me for my talk and say that they couldn't have done the same thing in English.
The Following Friday (Feb 15th) Hannah has her first talk with Jamie. Her theme was: "How Does God’s Patience Lead to Salvation? (2 Pet. 3:9, 15)". First she wrote the talk out completely in English then using Watchtower library and the sync features included in it she translated what she could on her own. After that she asked one of the Taiwanese sisters to help her translate the rest. They made arrangements to do so on Monday after field service since Hannah had about half of the talk translated already it didn't take too long. Although I think She would have gladly spent a little more time on it if the sister helping her would have slowed down. They were still doing door to door (at night) when the sister started reading what she had on her tablet. She then translated it and dictated it to Hannah. Hannah had to write what she was dictating as fast as she could. Hannah has learned that there is a downside to sounding good when speaking Chinese when you don't know a lot. That is as soon as they hear you talk they assume you must know more than you do and they will not slow down. :) long story short though she was able to get it all down and type it up at home. It was nice too that we had that week off of school for Chinese new years, so Hannah had lots of time to practice. As you will see from the video below she did great! Afterwards brother Gao commend her on doing a good and her effort. He also said he couldn't understand why two Americans would be talking about this topic in fluent Chinese. Everyone laughed. :)
Most of the week we spent either working on our talks or in field service. I will talk about that more in the next post.
Love Phil and Hannah
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