It’s been just over five months since we arrived in Taiwan, and, as seems to be a theme in our life, we have a new normal and new routines. We’ve been full-time in the office for the past six weeks. It has been lovely to take a 10 minute walk to work rather than driving 30 minutes to language school each morning. Our days still include quite a bit of language learning on our own, as well as real-life practice with coworkers. We have an office on the 4th floor in the Chaplain Department. We continue to have our weekly bible study (though with a new cohort of students) and biweekly Filipina Fellowship. We’ve also had the opportunity to join in on staff prayer times and worship, including helping to lead music. Last week I was able to visit an English-speaking patient and spend time chatting and praying with her as she sits in the hospital on bedrest due to pregnancy complications. It was also a great opportunity to meet some more of the nurses. Our colleagues are getting more comfortable with us and we are feeling more useful as the weeks go on.

Outside of work we’ve been busy! We closely followed the World Cup; for two of the US games we even got together with other US folks and had a watch party along with breakfast. Two weeks ago we went hiking with a colleague and his family and friends and reached 3176m (10,420ft). We could even see two of Taiwan’s islands from the top, way off in the distance. Caleb has been able to run more following some trouble with plantar fasciitis. I got a toaster oven for my birthday (thanks to Caleb and both our moms) and have enjoyed being able to bake cookies and roast more dinner foods. We finally went to the Hualien Public Library, got library cards, and spent quite a while taking in all their English books — they have a much larger English selection than we expected they would. We practiced some self control and only checked out five books between us but will definitely be back. The joy of reading a physical book is unmatched, especially after exclusively e-reading for five months. We also went away just the two of us for a relaxing weekend to RuiSui, a town known for hot springs, dairy farms, tea fields, and pomelos.

A couple weekends ago we had our very first typhoon, complete with a typhoon holiday (meaning the offices and schools were closed due to weather). In preparation we bought instant noodles, filled water bottles with filtered water, closed our heavy storm shutters, and charged all of our devices. On Thursday the office was abuzz with palpable excitement. It felt akin to the day before a big snow storm where everyone is pretty sure there will be a snow day; the day feels more lighthearted because of it. This was forecasted to be the largest typhoon in a number of years and, while I’m sure some were concerned for the devastation it might bring, the overall feeling seemed to be excitement. Our colleagues told us to watch the evening news for the work closure to be announced. One friend said “I am so tired, I really need a typhoon holiday so I can sleep.” On our way home from Shoufeng that evening we received a text alert “Dangerous waves are expected along the coast from tonight through tomorrow. Stay away from the shore and do not go wave watching.” So we stopped by the boardwalk to watch the waves. They were definitely way larger than normal and the wind was picking up. That evening Hualien announced closures of all schools and work for Friday. We went to sleep unsure how scary, if at all, the next few days would be.

Imagine our surprise when we awoke to clear, sunny skies. Well, it’s still coming, we thought. We went to check out the waves a couple more times. There were many, many people wave watching (from a safe distance). We spoke to one Coast Guard worker keeping people from getting too close. “Do you get bored out here all day?” “No, it’s fun to be able to see the waves.”

Friday night I woke up once to strong wind and rain, but easily went back to sleep. In the end we had pretty strong winds, but minimal rain (90 centimeters/35 inches had been forecast — we got less than an inch!). The radar showed the storm just consistently going around and bypassing Hualien, though other parts of Taiwan did get significant rain. It felt like a ‘snowpocalypse’ being forecast and then getting barely a dusting — we’re thankful to have been spared the torrential rain and potential flooding.

The last two weeks we welcomed some folks from AMBS and MMN. It’s fun to host people in a new home. In my experience, it always makes me take greater ownership and feel more at home as I am not the one experiencing everything for the first time. That being said, a big welcome to anyone wanting to make a trip to Taiwan! There are now direct flights from Dulles to Taipei for our East Coast friends. We would be very happy to host :)

Peace,

Steph

Currently Reading:

Mao: The Real Story by Alexander Pantsov and Steven I. Levine - Continuing my Chinese history education. Generally enjoy this book and it’s a great biography of Mao; would recommend for anyone interested in recent Chinese history.

Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius - A Swedish novel based on true events about an indigenous reindeer herder and her family who try to maintain their culture and reindeer herd despite hatred and prejudice from their non-indigenous neighbors. One of my finds at the library and so far so good.

The Enneagram in Marriage by Christa Hardin - Another find at the library. If you know Caleb and I well, you know we are big Enneagram fans. The enneagram is basically a personality framework (think Meyer’s Briggs, True colors, etc) This has been a fun book focused on how our Enneagram types impact our relationship.

Currently Watching:

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon Prime) - I had seen the first episode of this years ago (Caleb reminded me that it was at his birthday party before we went to SALT, well before we were dating). Such a fun, fast-paced watch.

Currently Watching with Caleb:

Downton Abbey (Netflix)- I’ve watched it through once, but Caleb has never seen the last season. A mostly relaxing historical period drama.

Seinfeld (Netflix) - Continues to be a relaxing way to end the day with some laughs.

Terrace House: Aloha State (Netflix) - This is the last season we haven’t yet watched – it’s set in Hawaii rather than the typical Japan setting which changes the vibes a bit, but we’re still enjoying it.

Avatar the Last Airbender (Netflix) - Our Mandarin homework :)

Some pictures from the last couple months:

We celebrated my birthday with a steak dinner. This restaurant takes birthdays seriously and my meal was half off, the whole restaurant sang to me, and I got my own special dessert!

At 3176m (10,420ft)

Wave watching as the typhoon approaches.

Top row: Tropic of Cancer, first cookies baked (banana chocolate chip!), tea tasting

Middle row: Breakfast and World Cup in 瑞穗, prepping music for worship, climbing 關山嶺山 （Mt. Guanshanling)

Bottom row: Church visit to Fangliao Mennonite Church, meeting with Eastern District Mennonite pastors, volleyball competition (our team got 4th place!)

Coming to you all on the three-month anniversary of our arrival here in Taiwan. As we’ve mentioned before, it feels like we’ve been here much longer — things are good, we have a nice routine, we feel adjusted to life, and it feels like forever since we lived in Harrisonburg.

We’re closing in on the end of language study — just three weeks left. It’s been a good course, but as the semester’s gone on we’re losing a bit of steam for classroom study and having a test every week. So, the timing feels about right in terms of wrapping up at Dong Hwa, starting to work at MCH full-time, and switching to primarily self-study for Chinese.

Some days it feels like we know a lot of Chinese, and other days it feels like we know none; so, that’s fine. In our classroom setting or in a slow, intentional conversation we can definitely hold our own, but in natural settings there is still tons we miss. But, as our friends say, 慢慢來 — it will come slowly.

Two weekends ago was a three-day weekend for Labor Day/May Day; we traveled with a group from MCH down to Kending, a national park at the very south tip of Taiwan for a weekend of snorkeling — it was great to travel with the group and the snorkeling was super fun. During my years in the Philippines snorkeling was something we did as a family on a regular basis, but I don’t think I had been since then, so it had (somehow) been 20 years since I’d gone...but wow is it fun! The highlight was seeing some sea turtles — they are extremely majestic and chill, unlike the fish which are very freaked out by humans swimming by. (Pictures below.)

One big difference between going to the beach here as compared to the US is how people approach the sun — we were covered up head to toe while swimming, and everyone on the beach was also doing their best to totally avoid the sun. The crowds were also pretty significant — the first beach we went to was crowded enough that even the ocean felt like it was full of people.

We’re coming to think of Taiwan as a work hard, play hard culture — people work longer hours than in the US, and many people work weekends — but they also know how to take vacations seriously. Traffic getting down to Kending was maybe the worst we’ve seen since we arrived, turning what should have been an hour drive from the train station into nearly double that. That’s nothing compared to Bangladesh or Vietnam (or Indonesia or many other places), and the infrastructure here is excellent, so a little traffic after a seamless four-hour train ride is still a positive travel experience.

The weekly bible study we’ve been leading on the exile and second temple period has been a lot of fun and will also wrap up at the end of this month. We realized last week we’re more or less going in reverse-chronological order by accident, which is pretty silly, but eh, it happens. It’s probably the longest I’ve spent in this period for a concerted study, so that has been fun, and we do lots of discussion — it’s been a good way to get to know some of our colleagues.

Another fun MCH activity was being invited to participate in a singing competition — they asked us to pick a “Mennonite song,” and after a little deliberation we settled on Ken Medema’s “I Saw A Tree By the Riverside,” aka the tree song. Doing something with motions and fairly simple English made sense, and our friends who sang with us loved it, as did the crowd, who awarded us fan-favorite and third place overall. The event also fell on our anniversary, so they gave us some fun special gifts — a necklace and headband from the indigenous Taroko people, some real and some fake flowers, and a cake. Again, work hard, celebrate hard — it was fun that they highlighted the anniversary so much, and it was a memorable way for us to mark three years of marriage.

Finally, some good news — after not quite-passing the first time, I passed my driver’s license test on my second attempt. It was honestly pretty uneventful — I went, I only missed three questions, and was out of there in 25 minutes. A bit of a bummer to need to go a second time, but at least I didn’t have to go for a third !

Peace,

Caleb

Read since last blog post:

Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism: Living in a Three-Storied Universe by Walter Bruggeman. I read this in my evangelism class in seminary; it’s Bruggeman, so very Old Testament focused, which is not usually my jam, but I actually found it very interesting for the topic, since Old Testament and New Testament approaches to evangelism are (on the surface) rather different. His basic argument is that we need to take different approaches toward evangelism towards outsiders, (jaded) insiders, and youth, and that collapsing those three categories down doesn’t serve any of the groups. A nice quick read and very interesting if you’re interested in evangelism or church growth.

The Generalissimo’s Son: Chiang Ching-Kuo and the Revolutions in China and Taiwan by Jay Taylor. A good history book, which always brings me much pleasure. The younger Chiang really lived through it — an unhappy childhood separated from his father, a decade in the Soviet Union, and a key role through the war against the Japanese and then the Civil War. His administration in Taiwan is also very informative to read about. Taylor is definitely a bit too pro-Chiang family and overall doesn’t cover the ethnic Taiwanese view of CCK’s role very much, so might need a less sympathetic take on them in the future.

Currently Reading:

The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton. This has been on my list for a long time, working through it as part of my devotionals in the mornings. A very wonderful spiritual autobiography — it’s beautifully written and quite moving; I highly recommend it. Merton was a party boy in the interwar years and didn’t grow up in church, but eventually became a Trappist monk. He was a well-known anti-Vietnam war advocate and eventually died in highly suspicious circumstances, with the CIA constantly being rumored to have been involved. Anyhow — a spiritual life to emulate.

The Remains of Life by Wu He. This is one of the weirder books I’ve ever read — the entire thing is one stream of consciousness paragraph and seems more like a memoir than a novel; I’ll be interested to see how much of it is fully based on the author’s experience when I look it up after I finish it. It’s centered on the aftereffects of one of the worst violent episodes in Taiwanese indigenous history, the Musha incident, when some members of the Sediq tribe killed a bunch of Japanese colonialists in the 1930s, and then were almost entirely wiped out with chemical weapons in response. The author (or narrator?) went and lived (or did he?), a generation later, on the reservation where the few survivors from the tribe were relocated. A really meaningful read so far, but tough, and sad. It’s fun to have a number of colleagues from the various indigenous groups at MCH — a reminder that indigenous issues are still salient here in Taiwan, as they are around the world, including in the US.

The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh. I previously read his Living Buddha, Living Christ which was very good and covered in-depth the many similarities between Buddhism and Christianity. There is lots to admire in the Buddhist tradition, and plenty I also disagree with, but as always I hope to do said disagreeing with understanding and compassion.

Currently Watching:

Born for the Spotlight (Netflix) — This is a Taiwanese drama about actresses at various stages in their careers — really brutal, as the film industry can be, but also very touching, and a good way to get more Mandarin listening practice in.

With Steph:

Seinfeld (Netflix) — Really hit a new gear in season 4, and I think even Steph is enjoying it at least some now :) deserves its place as an American classic.

Terrace House (Netflix) — Only two episodes left of our current season.

A few pictures from the Kending snorkeling trip, though of course pictures don’t do it justice. Photo credits to Jacob Chang, our boss, whose underwater Go Pro setup was a highlight!

Us with all our gifts at the end of the singing competition at the end of April.

We love seeing kids and dogs on motorcycles — this is the first time I’ve seen a dog wearing a helmet and goggles; luckily enough we stopped right beside them at a light so I could get a picture!

It’s been over a month since we’ve last posted and we have so many stories and experiences that are simply too much to share in a brief blog post — but I will attempt to give a glimpse of what life is like right now.

Hualien is starting to feel like home. Our days have fallen into a rhythm of language school on weekdays and recouping energy on weekends. We began language school on March 9 at National Dong Hwa University, a local state university about a 25 minutes drive from our apartment building. Caleb and I are in different classes (level 2 for me and level 3 for Caleb). While this is the best benefit for our individual language learning (and our marriage) it does mean we spend all day — a little more than 9 to 5 — at the university, as my class is in the morning and Caleb’s is in the afternoon. In between our classes we have lunch at the university cafeteria (a large buffet paid by food weight — we usually pay about $6-7USD for both of our lunches). While this arrangement does mean long days, it does lend itself to us actually focusing on studying while the other is in class. We both feel like we are learning a lot and our MCH colleagues graciously give us lots of positive feedback and clearly think we’re learning quickly. On the weekends we explore the city (we found a great thrift store!), often visit a local coffee shop to study, have lunch with new friends, attend the local Mennonite church, do chores, etc.

Though our main focus and energy right now is language study, we were excited to begin an English language bible study at the hospital this past Wednesday. This weekly study will focus on learning about different biblical leaders and practicing English. Our attendees are all staff of the hospital (nurses, development, supervisors, etc) and it’s fun to get to know more people. I have also had the opportunity to go to the Shoufeng branch of the hospital (about 10 min from the university) once a week after my class to volunteer at the nursing home attached to the hospital. A new ‘coffee hour’ started there last month, where local café’s come to make coffee and provide small sweets for the residents every other Friday. The residents absolutely love this. I have so enjoyed being able to help serve the coffee to the residents, most of whom are wheelchair bound. I was delighted to go yesterday for the second time, and recognize and be recognized by residents. They are patient as I practice Mandarin, and teach me some Taiwanese as well.

I’ve been pondering both the new and familiar aspects of living in Taiwan; so many things are new sensory experiences So, I thought I’d share one aspect of Hualien life for each of our senses:

What we see: The sea. Hualien is truly a beautiful place. It is situated between a mountain range and the Pacific Ocean. A regular habit is getting out to run and walk on a path by the ocean. We enter the path at the port and enjoy noting how long large ships are docked and watch them be unloaded and loaded again. I typically head south on the path which is shaded by trees and blocked from the sea for half a mile. Then, as soon as I hit the wooden pedestrian bridge over a small inlet, I smell the ocean. Almost everyday I feel the need to stop and take a picture, though it never does the view justice. I also often take a break from exercise and sit on the pebble beach to watch the waves for a while.

What we hear: Music. Every afternoon, a truck comes by playing music — ‘how exciting that the ice cream truck comes so often!’ — is what we initially thought. Our first few days, it always came right when we were trying to nap (in an attempt to get over jet lag), and I made the comment ‘if that ice cream truck comes by every day I’m going to be pretty annoyed’. Turns out the ice cream truck is not an ice cream truck at all, but the garbage truck. Unlike in the US, the garbage trucks do not pick up your trash that you place on the street: you have to be ready to throw your trash bags into the truck yourself! The music is to notify residents that the truck is coming and to come outside with their trash. So yes, it does come every day, and yes, we do find ourselves humming the song constantly. And, since I’m no longer trying to get over jet lag and nap in the afternoon, I find it rather endearing and not annoying — most days.

What we taste: Bubble tea. Bubble tea has become one of our staple treats on a warm afternoon, or after we complete an ‘adulting’ task (like doing our taxes last weekend). Thankfully (for our health) the university does not have bubble tea options on campus so we are now limited to one bubble tea on the weekends. There has only been one day that we ‘accidentally’ had bubble tea twice in one day, but those first couple weeks we had it almost every day — luckily it’s only a dollar fifty apiece. As I mentioned to some Taiwanese friends “We know this is very 外國人(Wàiguó rén: ’foreigner‘) but we’re ok with that.” **Disclaimer: As a public health nurse I do not recommend this habit.**

What we smell: The rain/dirt/plants. Though it is not technically the rainy season, it has been raining quite often which makes me nostalgic of the first smells of spring in the US. I have always loved the change of seasons and feel at home with that earthy smell of warmer weather and new flowers. The smells are the same here.

What we touch/feel: Earthquakes. We experienced our first significant earthquake (5.7 on the Richter scale) since our last post. It was late on a Thursday evening; we were getting ready for bed and we started shaking. It is quite disorienting to not be able to find solid ground or have control over the movement of your body. The clanging/noise of things shaking in the apartment was not comforting and I did find my heart racing and had to do some deep breathing. It lasted less than a minute and within two minutes of it ending we had two calls and one text from colleagues at the hospital making sure we were ok. “Don’t worry, there’s no problem.” “Is anyone yelling in your apartment building? No? Then there’s nothing to worry about.” We are learning to trust in the building codes and locals who assure us there’s nothing to worry about. “The only people worried about earthquakes are people that don’t live here” is another common refrain. We are very thankful for caring colleagues who look out for us. We’ve now had three 5ish magnitude earthquakes, and I do concur that the more you experience them the less scary each one is. Yesterday Caleb said, with excitement in his voice, “it’s been a whole week since an earthquake — it’s about time for another one!”

We are so thankful for new friends here in Taiwan, and also for technology that allows us to connect with family and friends back home, particularly this past month with the passing of Caleb’s grandmother June. We had a really lovely goodbye with her before we left knowing that would likely be our last time with her, but her decline was much quicker than expected and it’s never easy to lose a family member. Still, taking part in her memorial service online was meaningful, though of course we wish we could have been there in person.

Looking forward, we have about two more months of full-time language study before shifting full-time to MCH.

Until next time — 謝謝你們,

Steph

Currently Reading:

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë: A classic that I missed out on reading in high school, and with the new movie adaptation coming out I decided I should read it.

Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister by Jung Chang. This is a history of the Soong sisters who had a large impact on 20th century China and Taiwan. It’s been fascinating reading Chinese and Taiwanese history through a new lens.

Currently Watching:

We were disappointed to find out Hulu is not available outside the US and we have not been able to watch Abbott Elementary anymore - such a good show if you haven’t seen it!

With Caleb:

Avatar: The Last Airbender (Netflix): In an effort to have more Mandarin input, we are rewatching this fun show dubbed in Mandarin without subtitles.

Seinfeld (Netflix) — First time watching it —maybe the jury’s still out on how much I like it :)

Our first bubble tea in Taiwan!

Lunch outside Mennonite Christian Hospital. Everyone thinks we’re silly for sitting in the sun.

Elevator mirror selfie on our first day of language classes.

Lunch on an excursion with Meilun Mennonite Church’s youth group.

In NDHU’s Chinese Language Center office. Note the correctly-sized Taiwan on the world map :)

Saturday morning coffee and studying. (Arsenal, Arsenal!)

A watch party in downtown Hualien of Taiwan vs Japan at the World Baseball Classic. Very fun to watch with a crowd, who were super into it. Taiwan ended the group stage in a three-way tie with South Korea (whom they had beaten) and Australia, but got knocked out on a tiebreaker.

Setting up for the coffee hour at MCH’s retirement home; shoutout 都好咖啡 (All Good Coffee).

We got in around 5am last Wednesday after a pretty straightforward trip — Dulles to Seattle, Seattle to Taipei. We were able to sleep a lot, and we both only watched one movie apiece (Tron: Ares was just as disappointing as the review I read beforehand said it would be, but this is what flights are for).

There to greet us after (very straightforward) customs were Jacob and Mark, two of our main contacts here. Jacob is the CEO of Mennonite Christian Hospital, where we’ll be working, and Mark is the Director of Development. Both speak English well and are kind guys who are excited we’re here.

From the airport it’s a little less than a five hour drive down to Hualien, with 13 tunnels along the way, including the longest in Taiwan. Driving through Taipei in the early morning was very beautiful — it felt similar to Hanoi, but a bit bigger and more modern (by train Taipei is only about three hours away, so we’ll have plenty of chances to explore the city in earnest, likely as early as next week). Shortly after leaving the city we hit mountains — and these are serious mountains with dense tropical forest, much steeper and taller than our Shenandoah ones. Coming from the “Virginia tundra” — 2.5 weeks of snow on the ground and mostly temperatures in the fahrenheit teens — the sunshine and 70 degree weather was a bit of whiplash, but welcome!

We stopped en route a few times — once for breakfast (hot soy milk and fired dough sticks), once for Starbucks, and a few times to take pictures. When the Portuguese first encountered Taiwan, they called it isla formosa — beautiful island — which I always thought was hilarious because...aren’t all islands sort of the platonic ideal of beautiful? (Except for maybe…Britain?) But being here in person, it totally makes sense — particularly here on the east side of the island, things are just stunning — the mountains diving right into the clear sea are just the definition of picturesque, and pretty much everywhere in Hualien you can see the mountains and the ocean. Can’t beat it.

Anyhow — we made it to Hualien around 11 and got all our bags into our apartment. The hospital arranged an apartment for us in a building they run that’s owned by the local Mennonite church — it’s about a 10 minute walk from the hospital, and right by the church. We have a pretty spacious place with plenty of room for hosting (you’ll just have to visit), and it’s already feeling like ours. We’re on the fifth floor and we have a westward facing view of the mountains. Contrary to our expectations, there is an elevator in the building (thankfully), and while apartment living will take a bit of time to get used to, it’s a nice building and a good fit for us.

We’re in the neighborhood of Meilun (which means beautiful hill) a mile or so out of downtown Hualien, and in some ways it feels a lot like Park View — there are quite a few Mennonite institutions, and we’ve already run into people we know on the street a few times, which I just didn’t expect after being here less than a week! Lots of the hospital staff live within walking distance, many of them in buildings the hospital owns or operates, so there is a really nice sense of community in the neighborhood.

Over the next few days we met a lot of people and had a fun welcome party at the hospital, where we met the heads of most of the departments. We’ve also already been treated to delicious meals by a few doctors, pastors, and elders from the church — we sort of feel like local celebrities, which I hope wears off, but we’re also really grateful for the warm reception. Overall jet lag hasn’t been too bad — we were up by 4 the first two days, but more or less slept through the night every night.

In general our Mandarin is holding up okay. Lots of people speak pretty good English, but being able to greet people and handle basic things in Mandarin already as we’re arriving opens lots of doors and has helped with the transition. This week we’ve had plenty of time to study on our own, and we’ll start full time classes the second week of March for three months.

It’s still winter here, and a bit colder this week than last, with highs in the low 60s. Since our apartment isn’t heated, this is actually pretty cold, particularly with the high humidity, but we packed for it and spring is already right around the corner.

Yesterday was lunar new year — we’re really glad we were able to be here for the holiday. Lunar new year is sort of the ‘one holiday to rule them all’ in a lot of countries here in Asia, with most people getting at least a full week off of work and heading back to their hometown to spend time with family. We had a really tasty new year’s eve dinner of hotpot at Bethesda, a special needs home where a new German friend of ours works, and followed that up with a tasty new years day dinner of hotpot at the home of an elder from the church.

Another highlight from our time so far was a fishing trip that Jacob took us on — we drove about thirty minutes south and then hiked up through a small river to a really beautiful spot with a few nice pools. We caught pretty small fish, maybe between 5 and 9 inches, but they tasted super yummy when they were fried up (and Jacob promises to take us to catch bigger ones soon). Jacob takes fishing, picnicking, and camping very seriously, so we had a real feast of noodles, vegetables, soup, and freshly fried fish before heading to some hot springs for a relaxing afternoon. Again, special and we feel very welcomed.

We’re spending lots of time outside — there’s a multi-use path that runs along the ocean front, maybe about fifty yards from our building, and we’re really enjoying running and walking together there. After the cold of the US winter, and before that chemo, and before that ankle surgery, this feels like the first time in two years or so that I have actually put a string of long runs together without any pain, which feels great and I hope I can keep it up. The food here is very tasty, so I’ll definitely need to keep up the exercise too.

Personally, it feels so good to be here. As my cousin Eli put it, “Asian Caleb is so back.” There’s a piece of me that just fits here in a way it doesn’t in the US — so many things just feel familiar, even in a country I’ve never been to before. It’s also really special to be experiencing things with Steph — unlike for me, with moving here sort of a lateral move from Vietnam, this is her first time in an East Asian context; plus, her blond hair makes her stick out a bit more than I do. That said, this has been a really smooth first week, and we’re enjoying exploring and learning together.

Okay, I think that’s enough for now — reminder that we’ll be sharing more in-depth about the ministry side of things in our prayer letter, which you can sign up for here (fill out the MMN form, selecting ‘yes’ on receiving occasional prayer and newsletter updates; we are fully funded for our first term so no pressure at all to donate). We’re hoping to do one of those by the end of the week, and after that we’ll aim for a bit of a staggered blog/newsletter schedule.

Peace,

Caleb

Read since last blog post:

The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self Discovery by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile. Pretty good, with some memorable stories; an overall nice accessible introduction to the enneagram. I’d recommend Richard Rohr’s intro over this one though. Shoutout to Pak Andios, our MMN supervisor, for visiting before we left and for bringing us this book as a gift.

Currently Reading:

Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It by Gabriel Wyner. This has been plugged by some of my YouTube language gurus plenty of times, so thought I’d give it a try as we go deeper with Mandarin. I’ve really enjoyed the first third, and some very helpful suggestions already. Unlike with previous languages I’ve studied, and per the advice of this book, I’m becoming a bit of an Anki-maxer (aka, doing flashcards with the help of a Spaced Repetition Software as my main study technique). You can watch this Ted talk by the author on why spaced repetition and his system works. If this academic-y stuff isn’t your jam, I once again suggest the following satirical takes on language learning that also do teach you a lot — LanguageSimp’s videos about learning Chinese and Vietnamese are peak comedy.

Currently Watching:

I’m between shows personally, haven’t had much time for TV with packing and now the move.

With Steph:

At the Moment (Netflix) — this is a Taiwanese anthology show of love stories during the pandemic in Taipei. Pretty fun, and available in the US.

Seinfeld (Netflix) — I’ve never watched all the way through Seinfeld, though I’ve seen many episodes over the years, so I’m enjoying a more systematic approach now.

This is a lookout right before the last mountain/tunnel before arriving in Hualien’s plain/valley. If you look closely at the mountains you can see the old, very treacherous mountain road that the tunnels have replaced.

Jacob Chang, CEO of Mennonite Christian Hospital, with Hualien in the background. (Opposite of the last photo.)

Downtown Hualien.

Meilun Mennonite Church, main entrance just out of sight to the right. Our apartment building is the brick one just visible back-left of it.

View of Hualien from the south end of the multi-use path.

Jacob Chang frying our catch of fish after a morning of hiking and fishing.

Hard to believe it’s already been three months since we got the good news that I’m cancer free! It’s been a busy fall, and full of good things.

The plans to move to Taiwan are moving apace. Just last week we received our visa pre-approval letter, which is the stage we had gotten to in the spring before I was diagnosed. So, the next step is to go to the not-an-embassy in DC and apply for the real deal. There are always more details and checks and re-checks to make in bureaucratic processes like this, but we’re over the most difficult hurdle and excited to buy tickets in the coming weeks — we’re aiming to make the move the first or second week of February.

With this upcoming, we restarted our Mandarin lessons a couple months ago, this time with a teacher from Hualien. Lessons over Zoom are definitely trickier than in person, and going from mainland dialect to Taiwanese dialect has combined to make our current progress feel pretty slow — but it’s our own fault for trying to learn Mandarin! In any case, our plan is to spend our first three months in country studying language full time, which is honestly extremely exciting for me, plus that should give us some good transitional time to adjust to the setting before diving into formal work projects.

We have an awful lot to do in the next six weeks to get ready to go — but I think none more important than spending time with people. We’re already trying to be a bit more intentional about how we spend our time, but as with any goodbye there are some things that won’t go as we hoped.

An upcoming date on the Taiwan front is January 25 — we’ll have a commissioning service, and I’ll be formally ordained, at Park View Mennonite at 4pm; everyone’s welcome.

On the work front, my final day at the Heritage Center was December 23. What a Godsend this job was! I’m grateful for meeting a whole new set of people here in the valley and for a chance to serve a really exciting and meaningful institution. My final weeks there were dominated by the annual Christmas play, which was a total blast. In addition to a lot of ‘producer’ details, like finding a director, people for the cast, and assisting with costumes and a million other details, I acted in it, which is my first acting appearance since Hesston (shoutout my dual stage & pit role in Little Women (a great show with a soundtrack worth listening to if you’ve never encountered the musical version)). The Heritage Center now has three plays set around the time of the Civil War and will stage them on a three-year rotation — if you’re in the Harrisonburg area, I encourage you to check the plays out in future years.

To reflect a little bit on my takeaways from my time at BMHC, I think the phrase I keep turning over in my mind is “a people without a past are a people without a future.” We live in an era when remembering the past is, I think, becoming more and more difficult — the siren’s call of current crises and issues makes truly engaging with the issues of the past seem less important than ever. If we truly want to make the world better, follow Jesus, and heal the wounds around us we need to seriously engage with our own history and the history of others, and BMHC was a place where I could seriously engage with and share Mennonite history, Christian history, and local history in meaningful ways; it was the right job for me at the right time, and I could have been happy in the role for years rather than months.

In any case, I’m glad to have my work to-do lists now all completed, and I’m turning my energy to our personal to-do lists. Steph’s last day at the Health Department is January 9, and then it will really be the final sprint until departure, but in the meantime I have plenty of house projects and the beginning of packing to start work on. After the 9th we’ll tackle them together.

One big thing we were worried about with leaving was finding renters for our house, and we’re lucky to have already solved that! Friends from Kansas actually moved into the upstairs apartment in November and will rent the whole house when we leave — it’s been fun to overlap with them the past few weeks and help them settle into the house and life in the Valley.

Changing topics, the holiday season has been very meaningful so far, largely thanks to family being here from abroad — my sister and her family are here from Indonesia, and Steph’s brother and his wife are here from England. Add to this our plans to leave in February, and we’re packing as much family time in as we can, and so far so good with more gatherings yet to come.

Detail thing — I plan to continue this blog, but it will shift to be more collaborative with Steph and more Taiwan focused; however, it will still be more of a personal blog than a newsletter/prayer letter, which we will also do. If you’d like to receive those, click here and fill out MMN’s form, selecting ‘yes’ on receiving occasional prayer and newsletter updates (we are fully funded for our first term so no pressure to give, but while you’re doing the form, why not get us working financially towards our second?).

Finally, I’m simply full of gratitude to be here at the end of the hardest year of my life so far. I never anticipated cancer or a serious illness before 30 — who does? — but it’s also been a rich year, with an unstoppable partner in Steph and caring community near and far. It shouldn’t take an illness like this to remind us how precious life is, but sometimes it does — in any case, I’m grateful to all of you — to better days ahead.

Peace of Christ,

Caleb

A YouTube recommendation: Pissing Out Cancer by Hank Green. Hank Green is sort of the Bill Nye for the YouTube generation, doing science-y stuff for kids a bit younger than me; I didn’t know him that well, but his standup special on his own cancer journey is absolutely hilarious, very informative, and cathartic for me every time I watch it. Slightly on the crass side, but very fun — check it out here.

Read since last blog post:

The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China by Jay Taylor. This was decent, definitely added a personal flavor to Chiang, but his story is so bound up in China’s in the 20th century that sort of just felt like another go through that era. I’d probably recommend China at War or Mao: The Real Story as more informative takes centered on the same events, but obviously for more details on Chiang and his family this is the way to go.

Jade City by Fonda Lee. A very fun novel, the first in a series I will keep reading. Set in a fictionalized Taiwan, where only Taiwanese people can wear jade, which gives low-grade superpowers/magic to its wearers. The jade trade is dominated by gangs, so the story mostly unfolds in a typical mob story, but really neat and imaginative and portrays some of Taiwan’s current questions in interesting ways.

Currently reading:

Everything Under the Heavens: How The Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power by Howard French. Just started this yesterday at Dylan’s recommendation — really solid and would recommend it if you want a dual history-current events take on China. Very readable and not too dense, a good introduction if you don’t know much East Asian history.

The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglass Adams. When I was diagnosed and started re-reading some of my all-time favorite books this went on the list straightaway, but only picked it up again about a week ago. This is the funniest book I’ve ever read — great pearls of wisdom and humor on every page. Can’t recommend highly enough.

War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War by John Dower. I read Dower’s book Embracing Defeat last year, on the Japanese after WWII; this one examines the pacific theatre of WWII proper, primarily focused on how both the Japanese and Americans couched the conflict in explicitly racial terms. Not fun reading, but important.

Currently Watching:

Practical Engineering (YouTube) — I’ve really enjoyed this channel recommended to me by my buddy Graham. I’ve said that if I went in a more technical direction I may have ended up as an engineer, but I’m too people-focused in the end; anyways, this channel does great intros to engineering challenges and systems all around us that we take for granted. If you need some more edutainment in your life, this should definitely be in the mix.

Slow Horses (Apple TV) — really enjoying this British spy show. The slow horses are internally-exiled security service members who MI5 have decided it’s cheaper to keep on the payroll than fire, so each season typically has an outside issue but also internal MI5 tension playing out. Suspenseful and fun, and very modern/topical British politics.

Still Watching — Andor (Disney+)

With Steph: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Hulu) — honestly still a little on the fence about this show; it always makes me laugh, but its characters are all (intentionally) completely unlikable and awful people. Hilarious, but doesn’t feel great most of the time.

Still Watching — Terrace House (Netflix)

Great news — I am cancer free!! We got the news last Monday. My PET scan was completely clean, so no need for radiation or anything — time to just get back to normal life.

It’s taking some time for the news to sink in. From the beginning of the process when I was diagnosed this was always the most likely outcome, but it is so great to be here, and throughout chemo it felt like a long, long distant goal and it’s so great it’s here. I will likely do a CT scan at three months and six months to make sure there hasn’t been a recurrence, but I am planning to not recur, and with this cancer we’ve gone for cure, not just remission.

My hair is growing back, but honestly I am more self conscious now than I did when it was bald; still, I am looking forward to it coming back. One volunteer out at the Heritage Center was very surprised to see me with hair — he’s only ever known me with a shaved head, which seems so strange!

Elsewhere, we are, to quote our director at MMN, “restarting the engine” of our Taiwan move. The timeline is still a little up in the air as we have quite a number of details to get in order, but we’ll aim for early next year, potentially as soon as February. Eventually I’ll switch back to our Taiwan blog from here, but I’d like to do at least one longer post reflecting on the cancer a bit before I dive fully in there, so expect at least one more post here in the coming months.

Closing thought — Richard Foster’s A Celebration of Discipline is a classic of contemporary Christian discipline and well worth your time. One of the disciplines of the Christian life he emphasizes is, somewhat counterintuitively, celebration. We can get so hung up on the bad news — and there is plenty — that we neglect to remember and mark the good things in life, past and present. So, if you need encouragement to celebrate something these days, you officially have my permission and encouragement to celebrate this news.

Thanks again for all your prayers and support throughout this journey — couldn’t have done it without you all!

Peace,

Caleb SH

(PS — I haven’t finished any books or started any new shows since my last post, so I’m not updating the reading/watching section today.)

Obvious good news is I’ve now been done with chemo for almost a month; this coming Monday is the second Monday that would be a chemo Monday, so I’m grateful instead it will be a mostly normal day; however, this Monday we’ll go in to get my PET scan results. The scan itself went well on Wednesday — after being injected with radioactive sugar and waiting about an hour, I sat in the expensive tube for about half an hour and that was that.

The possible outcomes are: 1) I’m cancer-free, 2) I need a little bit of radiation, or 3) I stopped responding to treatment and need more chemo. One and two are far more likely, and I’m MANIFESTING that I’m done with treatment entirely.

Being done with chemo is a bit of a trip; six months is a long time, and it will take a bit for my mind and body to accept that I’m really done with chemo. I’m starting to let my hair grow back in, but I’d say it was only yesterday that I really noticed that my beard is starting to look a bit more full. I can’t say I’ll miss being bald, but I actually did come to enjoy shaving my head — a guy I met in Chicago said that shaving his head has become like prayer for him, and I think it did for me as well. Similarly, at this point I’m still having anticipatory-chemo angst every other weekend; I look forward to that being in the past soon.

Work has been quite busy; we have our biggest event of the year — the Heritage Festival & Open House — next Saturday, the 18th, from 9am to 2pm; Harrisonburg friends should definitely come out. I don’t really love event planning so work hasn’t been quite as joyful this last period, but this will be a very fun day featuring farm animals, a hay ride, the opening of a new historical exhibit, and a free lunch of homemade soup and pie. One fun piece in the run-up to this was recording two different radio spots and being interviewed by the DNR — local media is not dead yet, apparently.

Another new fun thing is two fairly different classes I’m taking part in. First, I’m in an EMSeminary continuing education class on Bowen Theory, also known as Family Systems Theory. Earlier this year I read A Failure of Nerve, a leadership book informed by Bowen theory, and it kind of rocked my world, so I was really, really excited to see that this class was available at an affordable price to dive a little deeper. I highly recommend some Bowen theory training for anyone with a leadership position and to anyone with a family. I think Bowen Theory will challenge the enneagram for me as the primary theoretical model I use for understanding people and people in conflict. (As a sidenote, I know these types of models aren’t everyone’s cup of tea; however, I heard someone say recently that all models are wrong, it’s just that some of them are also useful; this one is definitely useful. Of our two textbooks, I’d recommend Extraordinary Relationships by Roberta Gilbert if you’re interested.)

Second, I’m taking a train-the-trainers class from CruCon/Crucial Conversations, which is a part of Ken Wettig’s larger SLAQ initiative for promoting maturity in youth. This particular crucial conversation we’re focusing on is Faith and Gen Alpha, with a heavy focus on how technology and social media is shaping our culture. We’re just a week into this one — and I’m already a little behind on the reading, alas (sorry Ken if you’re reading this) — but I’m already finding the emphasis on having hard conversations across generations very informative, and it’s a very practical class that I hope will be able to inform how Stephanie and I approach our ministry in Taiwan if/when we get there.

With chemo being in the past, we’re starting to think more seriously about Taiwan again; obviously, things hinge on the news we get Monday, but we’re more or less living into the goal of moving in February or March, which will be here before we know it. As such we are hopeful to start up Mandarin lessons again soon, and we’ll need to start getting a lot of affairs in order if we can actually move that soon! One thing we’re excited about is that we already found renters for our house, some college friends we reconnected with when we were out in Kansas this summer; they’re moving into our upstairs apartment next month then will take the whole house when we depart. Looking forward to sharing the house with them for a bit!

Another fun highlight from the last month was sneaking up to Philly to surprise my cousin Eli on his 30th birthday; it was great to be able to celebrate with him and it was a blast that we pulled off the surprise! We also spent the night in DC en route and got to see the Pirates play, which was really fun. In hindsight, I’m surprised I got to do as much as I did that felt ‘normal’ during chemo; still, a weird year for sure.

Thanks to everyone for their prayers and support, and it’s my goal to update again by the end of the next week with the outcome of the scan.

Thanks,

Caleb

—

I want to do a longer section here on how much I appreciated Norwegian Wood by Hiruki Murikami; I think it cracks my top-ten books of all time, and it’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed a novel this month. Murikami’s classic The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is also in my top ten and a total must-read — it’s rightly discussed in the best novels of the last fifty years for a reason — but this Norwegian Wood is much more straightforward and ended up being a bit of a right book at the right time for me. Where Wind-Up Bird focuses on Japanese war guilt through really unconventional magical-realism fragments, Norwegian Wood is sort of a Catcher in the Rye-type novel set in the late 1960s in Tokyo, focused on a protagonist whose best friend died right before they were set to begin college together. Wind-Up Bird is quite long (but still worth your time); I got through Norwegian Wood in about a week, so if you want to give Murakami a try this might be an easier place to start.

A few great quotes, some of which a little long:

“Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life.

It’s a cliche translated into words, but at the time I felt it not as words but as that knot of air inside me. Death exists — in a paperweight, in four red and white balls on a pool table — and we go on living and breathing it into our lungs like fine dust.

Until that time, I had understood death as something entirely separate from and independent of life. The hand of death is bound to take us, I had felt, but until the day it reaches out for us, it leaves us alone. This had seemed to me the simple, logical truth. Life is here, death is over there. I am here, not over there.

The night [character] died, however, I lost the ability to see death (and life) in such simple terms. Death was not the opposite of life. It was already here, within my being, it had always been here, and no struggle would permit me to forget that.”

— I think this will be one of my lasting take-aways from cancer (again, assuming my scan results are good): that death is never as far away as we’d like it to be. Here, obviously, it’s put a bit more poetically than it is in the country song “I hope you get the chance to live like you’re dying,” but I do think we tend to forget how death is a part of life.

“I play tennis and basketball. Basketball teams are made up of both staff and (I hate the word, but there’s no way around it) patients. When I’m absorbed in a game, though, I lose track of who are the patients and who are staff. This is kind of strange. I know this will sound strange, but when I look at the people around me during a game, they all look equally deformed.

“I said this one day to the doctor in charge of my case, and he told me that, in a sense, what I was feeling was right, that we are in here not to correct the deformation but to accustom ourselves to it: that one of our problems was our inability to recognize and accept our own deformities. Just as each person has certain idiosyncrasies in the way he or she walks, people have idiosyncrasies in the way they think and feel and see things, and though you might want to correct them, it doesn’t happen overnight, and if you try to force the issue in one case, something else might go funny...it may well be that we can never fully adapt to our own deformities. Unable to find a place inside ourselves for the very real pain and suffering that these deformities cause, we come here to get away from such things. As long as we are here, we can get by without hurting others or being hurt by them because we know that we are “deformed”. That’s what distinguishes us from the outside world: most people go about their lives unconscious of their deformities, while in this little world of ours the deformities themselves are a precondition.”

— Really love this passage about a mental health facility, and honestly think it should apply to the church: when we admit we’re sinners and wrestle with them in community, we get closer to the way of Jesus than when we pretend we aren’t wrestling with our own deformities.

“‘Hey, are we counter-revolutionaries?’ Midori asked me when we were outside. ‘Are we going to be strung upon telephone poles if the revolution succeeds?’

‘Let’s have lunch first, just in case.’”

— One of my mantras throughout the cancer has been ‘enjoy every sandwich.’ These are hard times for the world and obviously personally, but no matter what, come illness or political violence, we can and should enjoy our next meal.

“What do they think I am, a donkey pulling a cart? They’re old enough to know how the world really works, so why are they so stupid? It’s easy to talk big, but the important thing is whether or not you clean up the shit.”

— This reminds me of another of my life mantras: everyone wants a revolution, no one wants to do the dishes. Or, in the words of James, actions speak louder than words.

“Nagasawa spoke first of the Foreign Ministry exam. Most of the examinees were scum who might just as well have been thrown into a bottomless pit, he said, though he supposed there were a few decent ones in the bunch. I asked if he thought the ratio of good ones to scum was higher or lower than in society at large.

‘It’s the same,’ he said. ‘Of course.’ It was the same everywhere, he added: an immutable law.”

— Don’t think this is necessarily true, but a punchy line that stuck with me.

“By living our lives, we nurture death. True as this might be, it was only one of the truths we had to learn...no truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, ,no strength, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning.”

“‘No one should have to die like that.’

[Character] stretched out her hand and stroked my head. “We all have to die like that sometime. I will, and so will you.”

Currently reading:

Fiction:

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See. I picked this up at Gift and Thrift as a birthday gift for Steph; she really enjoyed it. I’m only a few chapters in, but it’s about a young girl in China from the Akha people, one of the ethnic minority communities scattered across southern China and Southeast Asia. Very meaningful for me after my connecting and spending the lunar new year with some Tai Dam/Black Tai folks in Vietnam.

Faith:

The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity by Kallistos Ware. Recommended and lent to me by Steph’s cousin Tim (thanks Tim), I’m almost done with this. Fun, and informative for me since I haven’t interacted too much with Orthodoxy. Like every Christian stream there is much to recommend amidst plenty of disagreement. This book is maybe a little dated and isn’t the most readable, but I’m enjoying it regardless.

Still reading — Brethren Society: The Cultural Transformation of a Peculiar People by Carl Bowman

Still reading — Living the Quaker Way by Philip Gulley

History/Nonfiction:

The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin. Robin was on Ezra Kline’s podcast discussing today’s conservative movement and its origins so I picked up his book; I’m finding it an extremely informative book. For more progressive friends, I’d recommend it as a serious look at the philosophical underpinnings of a movement we often dismiss as not being ideologically coherent as it is; for more conservative friends, I’d be very curious for your take on it, so please read it and tell me where it falls short.

Still reading — Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James McPherson.

Still reading — The Buried: An Archeology of the Egyptian Revolution by Peter Hessler.

Still reading — The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer.

Currently watching:

Stuff Made Here (YouTube) — a new and now core part of my YouTube diet, this guy is an extremely talented engineer making some incredible and hilarious projects. I’d recommend this video of him making the world’s smallest rideable bike as one to check out. Just neat problem-solving over and over, and almost always makes me laugh a lot too.

Baby Reindeer (Netflix) — this show was a bit more than I bargained for; about a young comedian and his relationship with a stalker. Not for the faint of heart, but a really well-made and gut-wrenching story of sexual abuse, self-doubt, and rising above.

Still watching: Andor (Disney+) — Totally rocks, please watch it!!!!

With Steph: Still watching: Abbot Elementary (Hulu)

Currently Listening:

Still listening: The History of Rome — Mike Duncan, who makes Revolutions. I’m about 2/3rds of the way through this now, and many what a good podcast! I have always been more of a modern-history guy than ancient-history guy, but this podcast may be changing that. I’m just now around the time of Constantine the Great; if you want to understand his life and times, he enters the picture around episode 130. Duncan does well introducing some about early Christian history, though it’s not the focus of the show; still, much helpful context that will pop up in my sermons I’m sure.

Podcasts I listen to weekly-ish: (no change here)

The Ezra Klein Show (politics — the best political show out there in my view; clear-eyed, and current but not daily so not completely memory-holed; actually looking at big questions), Men in Blazers (Soccer/football commentary), Pod Save the World (weekly foreign policy roundup)

It’s hard to believe August is over, and it’s hard to believe I only have two more chemo treatments to go.

The last two months since the halfway point scan have been really rich — while I always knew intellectually that this cancer was very treatable, from March (when I was diagnosed) until the beginning of July (when we got the good news that I was responding well to treatment) I was living with a bit of a cloud of fear and sadness even in my good weeks; since halfway, I’ve been able to see the finish line of treatment and start dreaming more fully of a post-cancer life.

Also, I’ve continued to figure out how best to handle treatments and their aftereffects; the main change I’ve made recently is just fully embracing that I should just sleep as much as possible before, during, and after treatment. Three or four times now I’ve clocked being asleep for 20 out of 24 hours, which is a bit surreal, but there is no reason for me to be awake, and the more I sleep the sooner I start feeling myself again.

Being 10/12ths (5/6ths) the way done with chemo is just so relieving. To be putting events on the calendar for when I’m done with chemo makes me incredibly excited; imagining putting aside this two week cycle, of big sleep and big energy, and going back to a bit more regularity and predictability makes me very, very happy. Of course, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves as I may still need radiation, and this cancer can recur, but I’m still looking forward to reaching this first big finish line of my cancer journey.

Professionally, it’s been a really busy stretch at the Heritage Center, but September looks like it may be a bit lighter — at least we don’t have any big weekend events. In August we hosted Sing Me High music festival and a special one-day Virginia Mennonite Conference gathering, both of which were fun and went well, but it’s tiring to work back to back weekends on top of my regular administrative responsibilities while having cancer.

It’s also hard to believe it’s only been a month since Lucas and my debut as Fish For People (album available here if you haven’t listened yet). The house show went great, our set at Sing Me High was even better, and this past Sunday we led a new song at Park View during the worship service; it’s been really fun to be in a season of writing and performing music together. We have a few more church gigs lined up for the fall and will play at the relief sale; I’m really enjoying the project.

On another note, it is so good to have Premier League soccer back. It’s probably my main hobby, and it’s a good rhythm for me to slow down and carve out time to be home and watch games; it also provides a great chance to invite friends over just to sit and chat while watching. My team, Arsenal, are actually quite good now, with a real shot at the title this year — I’m still used to them being perennial also-rans — so it’s an exciting season with high expectations.

Since baseball, not soccer, is the main sport in Taiwan, I am also following the Pirates closely these days, and they at least scratch my itch for a reasonably terrible sports team that I can follow with no hope of them winning anything. Taiwan, on the other hand, won the Little League world series for the 18th time last week; they are second only to the US in terms of number of titles.

Also, I’m pleased to be driving around on the e-bike we are borrowing from Steph’s brother and his wife; I didn’t realize how much I missed riding a motorcycle! Zooming around Hanoi was great, and now doing so here also just makes me really happy and I enjoy my commute a lot. I can average 28 miles per hour without pedaling once on my commute to the Heritage center, so I do treat the bike as a moped more than a regular bike.

But on the topic of regular bikes, this past ten days I’ve actually been exercising again. About eight weeks ago I played tennis and rode my bike and just couldn’t do either without really bad fatigue and shortness of breath, so I called it quits on these things, thinking it best to just wait till I finished chemo; however, I was summoned to the pickleball court last weekend and realized I could still play an appreciable game of ball if I paced myself. I’ve played twice more since then, and also ridden my bike across town twice. If I’m disciplined not to push it and to stop and get a breather when I need, I am still good for some real physical activity.

Okay, I think that’s all for now. Probably the next time I write I’ll be done with chemo! Thanks to everyone for supporting us through this time.

Peace,

Caleb

Currently reading:

Fiction:

Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn. I was so disappointed in Star Wars Episodes seven to nine. This book was the extended Star Wars universe book (then series) covering roughly the same period; it is really fun to read this imagining of what could have happened after the original trilogy. This book actually made it to NYT #1 bestseller if my memory is correct, which is totally wild for a fantasy book.

Faith:

Still reading — Brethren Society: The Cultural Transformation of a Peculiar People by Carl Bowman

Still reading — Living the Quaker Way by Philip Gulley

History/Nonfiction:

Still reading — Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James McPherson.

Still reading — The Buried: An Archeology of the Egyptian Revolution by Peter Hessler.

Still reading — The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer.

Currently watching:

Andor (Disney+) — Several people told me that this Star Wars show was worth my time while most others aren’t, and wow they were right!! I’m almost done with the first season, so a bit to go yet, but I do think this instantly goes into my top-10 shows; extremely well made and incredibly moving, telling a story of resisting empire that should resonate for all of us today.

With Steph: Abbot Elementary (Hulu) — A really fun sitcom right off the top drawer. Steph watched it last year and since we finished New Girl we've been watching it together. Very funny and good social commentary; I don’t know how educators would feel about it, but from where we sit we really enjoy it.

Currently Listening:

The History of Rome — Mike Duncan, who makes Revolutions, made this podcast as his first project, and boy howdy it is worthwhile. It isn’t as polished a podcast as Revolutions, but in terms of understanding western history and the context of Christianity this podcast is a must-listen. I’ve always been much more of a modern history guy than an ancient history guy, but this podcast may be changing that; or, at least I’m enjoying a swing into that era more than I ever have before.

Podcasts I listen to weekly-ish: (no change here)

The Ezra Klein Show (politics — the best political show out there in my view; clear-eyed, and current but not daily so not completely memory-holed; actually looking at big questions), Men in Blazers (Soccer/football commentary), Pod Save the World (weekly foreign policy roundup)

Coincidentally, “Hello everyone, sorry it’s been over a month since my last post” is how I opened my last blog post eight weeks ago. Sorry :)

First things first — I got my midway point scan results back last Monday, and it was good news: the chemo seems to be working effectively, with all the enlarged/cancerous lymph nodes being “significantly reduced in size.” This obviously is great, and takes a big weight off; it was something to go through six rounds of chemo and have no real indication if it was having any (positive) effect or not. While this is unmitigated good news, we also do keep in mind that this was just a CT scan, and the much more definitive and full body PET scan awaits in November; but still, this is good news worth being excited about.

We waited a week after getting the CT to hear the results, even though they would have been available online via MyChart sooner. I didn’t want to risk getting bad/complicated news without a doctor there to answer questions, but our oncologist, Dr. Struble, compassionately and hilariously questioned our choices when we met with her! She was so surprised we’d waited a whole week to check the results — her humor and good spirit have been a great help through this process.

Two other bonus good news as well.

1) When discussing the scan results, we asked what would be next if the PET scan does still show some cancer once I’m done with chemo; at some point when I was diagnosed we were told that the likely thing in that scenario was another six months of chemo, but when we mentioned that to Dr. Struble she looked at us like we were stupid and said “What?? Who told you that?? No, we’d just do a little radiation to get a couple spots if there are any left, relax!” So, I’m happy to have been stupid — this, too, is a huge weight off my shoulders. Barring a worst-case scenario (recurrence, which does happen with this cancer) I really should be done with chemo for the moment come the end of September. Radiation of course has its challenges, but it’s not the same whole-body difficult as chemo, at least as far as I understand.

2) I am now over halfway with chemo — 7/12ths of the way, to be exact. This is the second-to-last irreducible fraction I have in front of me, as 8/12ths is 2/3rds, 9/12ths is 3/4ths, and 10/12ths is 5/6ths.

In less good news, chemo is definitely getting harder every time. I still haven’t thrown up, but my body knows the poison is coming, and I get pretty down in the day or two leading up to chemo. The day itself is increasingly hard. While the majority of the side effects are still contained to the next three days, I can’t do much at all other than sleep during them, but what’s worse is I’m also losing the ability to exercise much at all in my good days: I get winded after one tennis rally, or the first hill on my bike, to the point I need to stop and rest. Lord willing this too shall pass, and I’m grateful to still have the desire and ability to get outside and move a little, but as I’ve mentioned in previous posts exercise is something I enjoy and rely on, so not having that ability over a beautiful summer is certainly a bummer for the moment. Still, the worst side effects being so contained to four out of 14 days means life is pretty okay.

Also, while I’m grateful my beard still hasn’t fallen out, I’ve embraced the bald life. (I didn’t choose the bald life — the bald life said I choose you.) While my hair is technically still somewhat growing in, it is super patchy and thin, so I’ve taken to shaving it with a razor about once a week. It took me a couple weeks of getting used to it and not needing/wanting to wear hats even when indoors, but I’m pretty at peace with it now. It had always been on my bucket list to shave my head at some point, so at least that’s done. Relatedly, I decided to try out the Anabaptist beard for a week or so and shaved my mustache...but the mustache too has come back in very patchy, so now I’m shaving that consistently, too. I want to reflect more on trying this facial hair out another time, but frankly if wearing a funny beard means I get to have a few more conversations about Jesus and peace then it is totally worth it.

I think that does it for the directly cancer-related updates; more general summary of the last six weeks or so below.

Since my last post we made our big trip of the summer out to Kansas and Chicago. It was great to spend a week with Kendall and Robin’s family (Kendall is Stephanie’s older brother). I always enjoy getting back to Hesston — we were able to go to church with them at Whitestone, where I attended in my years out there. We saw a dozen or more connections from the college, old professors and community people and whatnot, plus a lot of good family time with them.

On our way back from Kansas we swung by Chicago; by midwest standards it’s fairly on the way, meaning it only adds about three and a half hours to the 18 hours of direct driving if you just go straight from Harrisonburg to Hesston. We stayed with Harrison and Addy, good friends of ours who have been in Chicago for about four years now. They are one of fairly few gringos to live in Chinatown, and it was a totally cool experience to stay there and see so much Chinese culture in the US! However, as with most Chinatowns the main language in the neighborhood is actually Cantonese, not Mandarin, so Steph and I couldn’t try out our Mandarin much, alas.

On that front, with the good news of the scan it sort of feels like we can start thinking about the move to Taiwan again — not that it was ever off the table, but we worked hard to make peace with the fact it just might not be possible. But, the visit with Harrison and Addy and the good news has combined to have me thinking much more about the move again. 我們來了，台灣!

Since getting back from the trip things have been good. I’m still facing a learning curve in my job at the Heritage Center, but I enjoy it enough that I’m still excited to go to work every workday, even though there are still many things to figure out!

Two highlights from work: 1) Our ‘Worship in the Woods’ program: we have worship services every Sunday evening this summer, usually with a Brethren speaker and a Mennonite musician, or vice versa. Come on out some Sunday at 7pm if interested. 2) I’ve enjoyed giving tours to some friends and family; as mentioned in my last blog the tour is really worthwhile for everyone, both folks who know the valley and Mennonite history well and people who don’t know anything on these topics! The job is just fundamentally a great fit for me; it’s a privilege to, as the Heritage Center’s mission statement says, “share stories of Jesus as reflected in the lives of Brethren and Mennonites in the Shenandoah Valley.”

Last thing, and maybe out of left-field but very exciting — Lucas and I have started a new band, Fish For People! Fish For People is about making Christian music and doing Christian life together. Our first two singles are currently free to listen to here, and the full album will drop on Friday, August 1. We’re hosting a house show/album launch at my place that evening, message me for details if you want to come. We’re also playing at Sing Me High music festival on August 16. Much more to come from us, stay tuned.

It’s been really fun to work with Lucas on the album, I think it’s his best yet. This is 70% Lucas' project, but I wrote and recorded three of the ten songs, a big first for me! Excited to see where this music goes.

Anyhow — thanks everyone for your prayers and support. So grateful for the love we’ve gotten so far, and hope things continue in a positive direction.

Peace,

Caleb

Currently reading:

Fiction:

Still reading —The Brothers K by David James Duncan. I have like 50 pages to go. This book is SO GOOD everybody. Please read it.

Faith:

Still reading — Brethren Society: The Cultural Transformation of a Peculiar People by Carl Bowman

Still reading — Living the Quaker Way by Philip Gulley

History/Nonfiction:

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James McPherson. This has been on my list for a long time as the best one-volume history of the US Civil War; with my job at the Heritage Center I felt it was time for a refresher/deeper study of the topic. From my masters thesis I’m very well read in reconstruction, but less so on the Civil War proper. It’s a thick book, some 800 pages, but well written and I’m already about 100 pages in.

A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix by Edwin Friedman. Friedman is one of the founders of family systems theory and better known for From Generation to Generation than this one. Still, I’d say this is the best/most helpful leadership book I’ve ever read, though I’m not all that well read in the genre. Per a conversation about the book with David Brubaker, Friedman is a little leader-centric; or as I’d put it, he is not very Anabaptist! But many, many helpful insights. Also thanks to David Gingerich for the recommendation.

The Buried: An Archeology of the Egyptian Revolution by Peter Hessler. Steph and I are reading this out loud together, which made the midwest drive totally fun! Hessler is my favorite American China-focused author. River Town, a memoir of his first two years in China, hit me right in the feels because it reminded me so much of my time in Hanoi; Oracle Bones is the single best book on China I’ve encountered. So, Hessler’s decision to move to Egypt and write a book is a big topic change, but he is a phenomenal writer and brings countries alive in meaningful ways. It’s been fun to think about the Middle East more deeply again, I haven’t done so in a good while, really since cross cultural way back in 2016.

(Still reading — The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer.)

Currently watching:

With Steph: Maniac (Netflix) — a limited series I watched while living in Hanoi; explores mental illness and loneliness in a really offbeat and often unsettling near-future Japanese pharmaceutical trial taking place in New York, starring Emma Stone and Jonah Hill. Honestly, it rocks. If you’re up for something a bit psychedelic and challenging as well as heartwarming, give it a shot.

(Still watching — New Girl (Hulu), Terrace House (Netflix))

Currently Listening:

The Revolutions Podcast: Finished the Russian and American Revolution, now on to the French Revolution. Funny, insightful, masterfully told — this is my favorite podcast, no doubt.

Podcasts I listen to weekly-ish: (no change here)

The Ezra Klein Show (politics — the best political show out there in my view; clear-eyed, and current but not daily so not completely memory-holed; actually looking at big questions), Men in Blazers (Soccer/football commentary), Pod Save the World (weekly foreign policy roundup)

Currently Playing:

My cousin Eli just lent me a boatload of Switch games (thanks Dre), which is awesome! I started in on a new Kirby game, then went back to Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and hope to start a few others soon.

Overall things are going well — I’m now 3/12ths done with my chemo treatments, so a quarter of the way through. I’ll go in next Tuesday for my fourth dose.

While we’re starting to get into a rhythm, knowing what to expect and how I’ll feel through the process, in some ways this is good and bad. While my main symptom after each dose is fatigue — I spend close to 14 hours asleep each 24 hours for a few days after treatment — it’s just pretty clear my body knows it is getting a big old dose of poison, and I don’t like it. It’s hard to get around dreading going in for the next dose, to receive poison that will stay in my body for three days or so; but in the wise words of my friend Lorren Friesen, at the end of a very long day of our bike trip across the country, facing up to a huge hill we hadn’t known was on the route — “ain’t nothin’ to it but to do it.”

I think the most important thing is not dwelling on upcoming treatments. So far I’ve done decently at living my life when I feel well and not getting too stuck thinking about what is coming up after the next one, but certain foods and smells really get to me and remind me of chemo and that can really puncture my mood.

In other news, my hair has not completely fallen out, but it has thinned considerably; Steph had buzzed it almost down to the skin, but now it’s both growing and falling out! I’ve always had really thick hair, so the new thin-ness is odd; many people’s hair falls out in patches so the shave completely; for now if that doesn’t happen to me I’ll probably let it grow back in to see what it’s like. I’m a big hat guy now. :)

Since my fatigue clears pretty fully within six or seven days of treatment, I get almost a whole ‘good week,’ where in addition to working (more on this later) I feel totally fine to go on walks and do chores and normal life things, and even light sports like tennis and pickleball are fine too. I’ve done some runs but do get winded, so they’ve ended up as run/walks. On this front, really through college I’d never understood exercise addicts — I enjoyed playing sports but you’d never catch me saying cardio was fun at all — but the bike across the country flipped a switch for me. Nothing beats exercise endorphin highs, and I am basically happy when I can run or bike and sad when I don’t. So, in addition to the chemo being poison I am also stuck with a general lower mood from not being able to exercise. But so it goes.

Last health update: we were apparently wrong about the upcoming timeline of finding out how I’m responding to treatment; we thought there would be a PET scan after my fourth dose, but it’s actually a chest CT after my 6th. That means we get less info and have to wait a month longer for it, which is a little annoying, as it means we won’t know if the cancer is shrinking as hoped until later in the process. Again, though this cancer typically responds well and we have no reason to think it isn’t working, not great to find out we’ll have to wait longer to confirm that.

Anyhow — time to pivot to talk about my new job.

My role as Interim Executive Director at the Brethren and Mennonite Heritage Center here in Harrisonburg has so far been fantastic; I started May 5. Yesterday was the first day that Sam Funkhouser, whom I’m replacing, wasn’t around, and it happened to be the last field trip of the season, which involved 80 kids, 20 or so parents, and 40 or so volunteers. It’s a big production and a lot of work for many people, but its really fun to share stories of history, faith, and peace with so many kids.

It’s been very fun to have co-workers. Sam is an incredibly smart and dedicated guy and a very gentle presence. Jonathan Scarr, the Associate Director whom I’ll work closely with going forward, spent a decade in the Brethren archives in Illinois and has one of the best detail- and task-oriented eyes I’ve encountered. If we’re not careful, the three of us end up sitting and talking theology and church history and not getting our more urgent tasks done, but it’s been great to enjoy this small window where we all three overlap. Jonathan and I are both on 20-30 hour a week contracts, and the plan will be for me to work close to 40 hour weeks on non-treatment weeks, and Jonathan can flex to cover when I’m unavailable.

Sam will be back next Thursday and Friday so we can run some final questions by him, and I’m very glad he’s going to continue on the board and a couple committees, which will benefit BMHC and myself quite a lot!

I could say much more about the Heritage Center, but two final comments for today: 1. It is a real theological delight to learn about Brethren history and society. Steph and I went to the Brethren relief sale — which also happens at the Rockingham County Fairgrounds — last weekend, and it really felt like stepping into a parallel universe!! Just a blessing to have this chance to learn about and grow with another of the historic peace churches; I’ll be a better theologian for it the rest of my life. 2. If you’re in Harrisonburg but have never done the full tour of the Center, stop in sometime 10am 5pm Wednesday to Saturday; a volunteer tour guide can give you the tour (it takes about two hours to see everything in-depth). Come say hi if I’m in my office.

Pivot again — this time away from myself and to global events.

I am really disheartened by the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and it’s so hard to know how to engage. Obviously the past few days the tragic anti-Semitic shooting in DC has taken the headlines — and it is important to call a spade a spade here, this was clearly a hate crime, and extremely counter-productive to the Palestinian cause on top of that — but we can’t allow that to obscure the fact that thousands of children are starving to death in Gaza, facilitated by our tax dollars. Terrorism is evil, Hamas is evil (and has a big hand in the current situation, obviously), but similarly let’s call this spade a spade: Smodrich and Ben Gvir, Israeli government ministers, are talking openly and publicly about killing every living being in Gaza, and half a million people face death by starvation in the next months if something doesn’t change.

If you’ve never taken the time to read about how famine affects people, or look at some photos of people starving to death, this is the time to do so. Know that today the food those people need is literally sitting within miles of them, ready to be delivered, and Israel is chooses every day to deny access to that food.

Both Stephanie and I have spent time in places with memories of severe famine still in living memory. In Steph’s case, The Bengal famine of 1943, and in mine, the Vietnamese famine of 1944 (the human stories of which are told well in the novel The Mountains Sing). In both cases, more people died than would have had to, and politics and nature intersect to lead to mass death.

While it’s not perfect, and I wish we could do more, I’m inspired by Mennonite Action’s choice to organize an effort of collective fasting, as well as my longtime family friend Russ Leinbach’s even more serious personal commitment to fasting until more aid is allowed in.

With my health situation I can’t do the whole fast as recommended, but I am generally a big proponent of the idea of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. So, on my non-treatment weeks I’m fasting until early afternoon two days a week. This might not seem like much, but I’ve regularly done some fasting like this as a spiritual discipline; skipping food for only a few hours gets me thinking both more about the starving people around the world and about God than just about anything else. Try it out; commit to praying every time your stomach rumbles.

Okay! Thanks for reading. I appreciate the thoughts and prayers and support.

Peace,

Caleb

Currently reading:

Fiction:

The Brothers K by David James Duncan. On the off-chance I don’t make it, I am going back to some of my favorite books; I’ve read this twice before, but what a beautiful, beautiful book, perhaps the best-written book I’ve ever read. Makes me both laugh and cry in nearly every chapter. If you have a family that’s dealt with tragedy and Christianity and hard-headed siblings, this book will make you feel things; the Platonic ideal of the Great American Novel in my mind. Quite possibly my favorite book of all time.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Similarly about a complex family, but in southern India. Really very, very sad, but so well written — Roy writes two of the most believable children I’ve ever read.

Faith:

Brethren Society: The Cultural Transformation of a Peculiar People by Carl Bowman. The best one-volume intro to Brethren life and thought near as I can tell, with plenty of history and theology thrown in there. Bowman is a board member at the Heritage Center; it’s a well written book but will take me a while to get through it! Very interesting to read about the interacting and overlapping, but also sometime competing and arguing, of Brethren and Mennonites.

Compelling Convictions: Finding Our Future in a Modern World; Brethren in Christ Core Values Revisited edited by Brensinger, Lancaster, and Robinson. Reviewing this for Nancy Heisey (Nancy if you’re reading this I’ll have the review to you in two weeks). Enjoying this, a nice walk-through of BIC core convictions, with a chapter on each and then two short responses from other authors from around the BIC church around the globe. In case you need a refresher, Brethren in Christ are a member denomination of Mennonite World Conference — they are much closer to Mennonites than Church of the Brethren, but were influenced by Pietism/Brethren which is part of how they got their name.

(Still reading — Living the Quaker Way by Philip Gulley)

History:

Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War by Stephen Platt. Encountering history books that read as page-turners always brings me joy. If you want to read about the second-deadliest conflict in human history, behind only World War II, this is very accessible even if you don’t know anything about Chinese history. It offers a lot of insight into China’s complicated relationship with Christianity, the West, and itself. I read it cover to cover in about ten days.

(Still reading — The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer.)

Currently watching:

With Steph: Shogun (Hulu) — really well made, fun to see 1600 Japan brought to life; pretty dark and intense story, but some interesting commentary too on how the Catholic Portuguese impacted Japan, and a reminder of how difficult language learning was before there was any digital technology!

(Still watching — New Girl (Hulu), Terrace House (Netflix))

Currently Listening:

The Revolutions Podcast: Just two episodes left of the Russian Revolution, then I think it’s back to season one for a complete re-listen of the series, haha!

Podcasts I listen to weekly: (no change here)

The Ezra Klein Show (politics — the best political show out there in my view; clear-eyed, and current but not daily so not completely memory-holed but actually looking at big questions), Men in Blazers (Soccer/football commentary), Pod Save the World (weekly foreign policy roundup)

Currently Playing:

As mentioned above it was my birthday last week, shoutout to my friends who went together to buy us a Nintendo Switch! So far I have most enjoyed Conduct Together, not that well known a game, but sort of like Overcooked, in that it’s a collaborative and fun game; you conduct trains to prevent them from colliding. I also started Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.

After awaiting the results of the second biopsy at UVA — which did confirm the initial diagnosis of classical, non-bulky Hodgkin's Lymphoma — I finally got underway with chemo last Monday, the 14th.

Our appointment was at 9.30am, and they told us to come prepared for a long day. We overpacked — I brought my kindle, two books, and my laptop. We started with getting some blood drawn and then had an appointment with Dr. Struble, where we talked over the plan for the next six months. Then, it was back out to the treatment area to get started.

They do a nice job of making everyone comfortable as they get chemo; it’s a sitting area with perhaps 20 chairs — with both heat and massage functions! — with large windows overlooking a well-manicured section of the RMH grounds. Being in the Mennonite village, we knew three of the nurses on staff who came and said hi throughout the day.

We started with “pre-meds” — six or so pills, including some steroids and benadryl, and an injected anti-nausea med. Then we just relaxed for thirty minutes while those got into my system, and then we started with the actual chemos.

I’m getting four infusions, a regime called ANVD; three are “traditional” chemos and one is an immunotherapy — so, three drugs that kill dividing cells (cancers cells, but also hair cells and immune cells), and one that helps the immune system recognize cancer cells and thus fight it naturally.

Steph and I have been very conscious that we, luckily, have not been close to anyone who has gone through chemo, but that means we are kind of relying on TV and movies for what we were expecting; with that meter stick, the treatment was not nearly as bad as I expected. I read, played some GameBoy games on my laptop, and then even fell asleep while I was getting the infusions! Having a port means that the infusions don’t run through my arm, so I felt pretty comfortable getting up to run to the bathroom/could almost forget about the medicine being injected.

I didn’t have any serious nausea — in fact I ate a chicken-salad sandwich during the treatment — but I did have a lot of fatigue. We left the hospital around 2.30 — probably a little sooner than expected — and when we got home I immediately got in bed and slept. Steph woke me up around six but I probably could have kept sleeping! Fatigue continued to be my main symptom — in addition to just feeling quite weak I slept about 16 of 24 hours the next three days; but in general even on Tuesday I was feeling like myself and felt strong enough to go on a stroll around the block in the afternoon.

Wednesday started much the same, but as the afternoon wore on (and as I was watching Arsenal complete their historic 5-1 two-leg win over Real Madrid in the Champions League), I started feeling a bit worse, with some light nausea and getting the chills. When Steph got home she saw I was looking a bit pale, and we took my temperature and it was 101. We were briefed sternly during our chemo training that any fever over 100 meant we should head to the ER, so even though we were somewhat on the fence about it we did decide to go in, since my lowered white blood cell count can make any infection very serious.

Per the low white blood cells, we are given a little card to give to the ER which means we go right back rather than sit in the waiting room with everyone else who is carrying infectious diseases — felt a little bad to skip the line but also glad not to be exposed to anything else. I was admitted and given broad spectrum antibiotics, and we stayed that night and the next there at RMH.

In the end they didn’t find a specific infection, and by Friday I was feeling much better and only running a low fever of 99.5, so the oncologists decided I was out of the dangerous woods and could head home. Two possible non-infection causes of a fever are a low-grade reaction to the chemo, or that the cell-death caused by the chemo releases a bunch of toxins into the blood stream that causes a fever. In either case these mean the chemo is working, so I’m not that mad!

Over the weekend I’ve felt pretty good — I was up for pickleball last night and plan to try a short run today. We had a good Easter, with a nice sunrise service at the Brethren and Mennonite Heritage Center and great worship and singing at Park View followed by a wonderful family feast with the extended Schrock family.

On the topic of the Heritage Center — happy to share some perhaps surprising news that I’ve accepted a role as the interim director there. It’s been a big question what I’ll do professionally here during treatment since we’re still aiming to head to Taiwan when possible, but when the Heritage center board heard I’d be around for at least the next six months they invited me to apply. I love history and think the Heritage center does a great job of hosting events and preserving history to spur us on toward better service of Jesus and the needy, so I’m excited to contribute to this work; I think it will be good to be busy! I’m grateful for their flexibility, as we remain a little unsure of how much I’ll be able to work, but hopefully between 20 and 30 hours a week is the idea.

So — in conclusion, not a bad first treatment week. I can handle fatigue, and I’m excited about a new role as we continue this journey.

Donate to Caleb and Steph

Currently reading:

Fiction: Xenocide by Orson Scott Card. Going back to the classics with this one, and it lives up to my memory — this one is maybe a little more preachy than Speaker for the Dead (the previous one in the series), in any case the Ender Quintet is right up there among my favorite series and Card among my favorite authors. The best fiction makes us understand our world better and wrestle with real questions — I think Card’s engagements with global politics and encountering sentient aliens feel the most plausible of what I’ve read, and they are also just good reading.

Faith: Living the Quaker Way by Philip Gulley. Got this book for Christmas (I think?), just a chapter in. Based on the SPICE acronym — simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality — which many Friends base their faith/practice around. I think I’ll use SPICE in the future, but maybe add JAR to it for Anabaptists: Jesus, Altruism, and Reconciliation.

History: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. This is a long read — I’ve been working on it for a while and am just at 33% (on the kindle so I know this precisely), and the invasion of Poland is finally about to happen. Still, wow! Shirer is an American journalist who lived in Germany through the 1930s; he met Hitler and many of the players a few times, and it’s pretty jarring to hear his personal anecdotes interspersed with events I know well (for example, he went down to the Reichstag to poke around the day after the fire, he heard Hitler speak at Nuremberg, and even traveled with the German front line troops during the invasion of France). Worth reading due to our current political landscape here in the US; a reminder of how things slide into the unimaginable.

Currently watching:

With Steph: Terrace House (Netflix) — this is the first and so far only reality TV show I’ve ever really enjoyed, but I highly recommend it. It just follows a group house of young adults in Japan as they get jobs and live their lives and date one another, but it’s also made enjoyable by a group of hosts watching the episodes with you adding color commentary at the beginning and middle of each episode. Fun Japanese culture and a relaxing way to end the day.

New Girl (Hulu) — second time watching for me, a good sitcom.

The Sympathizer (HBO) — not as good as the book (and PLEASE if you’re going to read one book about Vietnam make it this one), but an enjoyable adaptation/fun to see it come alive visually.

By myself: Castle (Prime) — I like crime shows; this one hasn’t quite hooked me yet? It’s okay, and I do like Nathan Fillion, but maybe feels like just another crime show.

Wave Makers (Netflix) — A fun Taiwanese series following a fictional presidential election in Taiwan. Energy for it kind of came and went over the last six months, but I finally finished it this week. Reviews say it does a pretty good job of portraying how heated and wild elections there can be, and overall a good window into more elite/professional Taiwan, with some good commentary on sexism, environmentalism, corruption, etc.

Kraut (YouTube channel) — I’m in the narrow young Millenial band that sits down and watches YouTube rather than shorter formats, but I recently started watching this political theory and history channel on a regular basis, really enjoying it. A long video but worth it if you’re curious— the ideology of Putin’s Russia.

Currently Listening:

The Revolutions Podcast: I decided to re-listen to the Russian Revolution, which is 105 episodes long; I first listened to it about two years ago, and listened to the other nine seasons since then, but I’m on a recent Russian history kick so felt good to go back to. Also listening to the Martian Revolution (fictional, obvs, but presented as history which is cool) as it’s being released.

Podcasts I listen to weekly: The Ezra Klein Show (politics — the best political show out there in my view; clear-eyed, and current but not daily so not completely memory-holed but actually looking at big questions), Men in Blazers (Soccer/football commentary), Pod Save the World (weekly foreign policy roundup)

Currently Playing:

Ghost of Tsushima (PS4) — really exceeding my expectations, a wonderful open world game with nice puzzles, good visuals, and intriguing combat. Generally I go through times of really enjoying one-player games and then months of not playing any; I hadn’t played anything really through the winter but this has been a great pastime the last few weeks.

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Greetings friends,

Some of you have been processing my diagnosis with classical Hodgkin's Lymphoma for a while now; for others, this is surprising news, and I’m sure you have a lot of questions. In either case, I plan to share updates regularly here as well as occasional reflections on my journey.

I was tentatively diagnosed (what feels like forever ago!) back on March 3 after a visit to the ER, then more firmly diagnosed after a biopsy on March 10, and just yesterday this was confirmed again by the results of a second biopsy.

For full details of my diagnosis — I have classical, non-bulky Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. (Coincidentally, I’ve always thought of myself as classic, and non-bulky, so this is fitting. (I am coping with humor.)) There are apparently more than 50 types of lymphoma and this is one of the most treatable, for which I am grateful.

After a flurry of appointments over the last month — including three surgeries (two biopsies and a port placement) — I’m finally all set to begin chemo on Monday. On one hand I’ve been grateful for a month of feeling myself before beginning treatment; on the other hand, I’m eager to start chemo so that I have more idea of what the next few months will be like. I’ll do chemo one day every other week here at RMH, so I plan to be close to 100% at least 50% of the time. Other than a fairly significant back ache (which is initially what led me to the ER and thus diagnosis) I remain asymptomatic, and ibuprofen has kept the back ache in check no problem.

Our hope remains to make our planned move to Taiwan if and when health permits. Treatment will last at least six months, with a follow-up scan six to eight weeks after that, so realistically we’ll be in Harrisonburg through the end of the year at least. It has been a big loss to delay our plans to move — we had been planning to move in May 2025 for over a year — but another spring and summer in the Valley will be filled with many good things alongside this cancer journey.

In general, we’re in good spirits. While this has been hard news, my long term prospects remain very good and I’m grateful to have two experienced and very time-generous oncologists working on my case, Dr. Struble here at RMH and Dr. Duvas at UVa. Both doctors spent more than an hour with Steph and I during our initial visits and have frequently checked in via phone.

As you pray for us, here are a few specific requests:

- For Caleb's health and fortitude as he undergoes chemo

- For Steph as she continues to work at the health department and as she supports Caleb through treatment

- For Steph and Caleb as they process the delay in moving to Taiwan

- That Caleb would find a balance of rest and work during treatment time. (We said our goodbyes at Daniel’s Run Peace Church, where Caleb had been serving as Associate Pastor, in February in anticipation of our departure; we'll need to decide if Caleb should pursue finding a new job beyond continuing to teach cello lessons.)

- Pray for Mennonite Christian Hospital and the churches in Taiwan, who are also experiencing loss with this change of plans

- For our family, near and far, who are walking closely with us during this illness.

We'd be happy for messages of support, and please do keep us in your prayers. We'll be in touch if and when we think of other ways you can support us. You can reach us fastest at schrockhurstman@gmail.com and/or steph.slabach@gmail.com

Peace of Christ,

Caleb and Stephanie Schrock-Hurst

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