The Magnifier of Ivan's Life: The Harvest in Sweden

Finllay the three-week voyage ends. I'm back in Taiwan again. This was my first time to Eroupe. Thank

God for sending me to the school I didn't like much and letting me know two of my dearest friends - Ellen and Princess. A lot of time you never know what your decisions or God's arrangements for you would bring to your life. In the end of July I took a trip to this, what I called, Paradise -- Sweden. At first I was not really accustomed to the high expense and way-too-opened culture there. However, after deepling realizing and experiencing thier life style, culture and ways of dealing with people, I found there are a lot of things I could share with my friends in Taiwan.

I'm so glad to have this opportunity to join this youth camp in Jönköping, as that may be the most

wonderful experience I've ever had. Although most of the people there, except for the leaders, were a bit younger than I am (around 15~18 I guess), they're much more independent and mature comparing to Taiwanese people at the same age. I was so impressed with the way they coped with people, the way they delt with things as groups, the way they palyed games, the way they thought and the way they praised God. Among the five days on the camp I felt there're plenty of things that we could actually learn from them.

DONT PUT YOUSELF IN A PRISON FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD!

Most of young people there could completely take good care of themselves. This is the thing that most of young people even adults in Taiwan cannot do. Nevertheless, the most different thing between Swedish and Taiwanese, I think, is the way of dealing with people. Taiwanese people always build a wall in front of themselves. We're way too afraid of having people on our own side; instead, we always pile up on the top of the wall to make it higher and higher when people try to get close to us. We're afraid to have our weaknesses exposed so that our weaknesses would never become our strength. We're fearful to have people inside so the wall would never be broken down easily. We always lie to people so as to hide the truth that we're not always perfect. But what's the point of that? I think it's the unnecessary self-protection machanisim that makes us have further distance from people. Unlike Taiwanese people, Swedishes, according to my observation, are more open-minded. They're willing to share everything in front of their difficulties or weaknesses with people. Through the conversations with Swedish people I felt they're so frank and so close to me. They always hug people as greeting which could naturally get rid off the embarrassment and effectively shorten the distance in between. I remember after the camp I hugged around 50 people in front of the church before everyone went home respectively. I think the things mentioned above are what Taiwanese people could learn from Swedishes. We should be more open-minded and admit what we're not good at so that people could have a push on us.

There are still a lot of things I cannot tell you here. It's too many to say. Yet my pictures could tell the story of this voyage :) Hope you enjoy seeing my pictures taken in Sweden. You can easily go to my album by means of clicking "相簿 (Album)" on the left side top of this page.