“Dear angel, please take my prayer, take care of my father and lead him safely home. He is a soldier and left home half a year ago for Iraq,” prayed Nica Narcis Andrei, a 14-year-old from Romania.
Andrei is among the 163 children who came to Taiwan to perform in a prayer concert organized by World Vision Taiwan today.
“[My father] said that he will buy a house where I will have my own room, and will have a dog that plays with me after he comes back,” Andrei continued. “But I don’t want my own room and I don’t want a dog — I just want my father to return safely.”
“Dear angel, please take my words to God, and ask him to stop all wars and bring peace on earth,” he said.
The children — from Mongolia, the Philippines, Swaziland, Romania, El Salvador, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, India, Ecuador and Taiwan — are recipients of World Vision Taiwan’s humanitarian aid programs.
“The purpose of organizing such a concert — bringing together children from 11 countries across the world — is to allow the public in Taiwan to see the needs of children around the world, and to give them a hand,” World Vision Taiwan director Hank Du (杜明翰) told a press conference yesterday.
“There are 9.7 million children around the world who die before the age of five, 9.3 million who are unable to attend school, 125 million are sick or die because they don’t have clean drinking water and a billion children are living in poverty,” Du said. “We should hear their prayers.”
Swapnil Gorkhede Rahul, a 13-year-old from India, said poverty is a part of everyday life in India.
“Dear God, I pray that you give jobs to the poor — they work difficult jobs so that their children may be educated. Many people and their children live on streets, suffer hunger and the cold of winter. I beg you to give them jobs so that they may have shelter against the chilling wind and rain,” Rahul said. “There are many children in poverty who cannot go to school because they have to work — I pray that you free them from poverty.”
Vehid Ademovic, from Bosnia and Herzegovina, prayed for the environment.
“I like to sit by the lake, but [I’m] sometimes not happy for its beauty, but depressed for the bad things that people do. I am often shocked to see trash in the lake,” he said.
“Dear God, please protect the lake, please save the environment and make people learn how to love the environment that they live in,” Ademovic said. “I pray to you, for that I know how beautiful it feels to breath clean air in the arms of Mother Nature.”
Some of the prayers will be accompanied by music and sung by the children at the concert.
The concert, with free admission, will be held from 3pm to 5pm today at the NTU Sports Center (台大綜合體育館) at 1 Roosevelt Rd. Sec. 4, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路四段一號).
Foreign travelers entering Taiwan on a short layover via Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport are receiving NT$600 gift vouchers from yesterday, the Tourism Administration said, adding that it hopes the incentive would boost tourism consumption at the airport. The program, which allows travelers holding non-Taiwan passports who enter the country during a layover of up to 24 hours to claim a voucher, aims to promote attractions at the airport, the agency said in a statement on Friday. To participate, travelers must sign up on the campaign Web site, the agency said. They can then present their passport and boarding pass for their connecting international
Three Taiwanese airlines have prohibited passengers from packing Bluetooth earbuds and their charger cases in checked luggage. EVA Air and Uni Air said that Bluetooth earbuds and charger cases are categorized as portable electronic devices, which should be switched off if they are placed in checked luggage based on international aviation safety regulations. They must not be in standby or sleep mode. However, as charging would continue when earbuds are placed in the charger cases, which would contravene international aviation regulations, their cases must be carried as hand luggage, they said. Tigerair Taiwan said that earbud charger cases are equipped
Temperatures in northern Taiwan are forecast to reach as high as 30°C today, as an ongoing northeasterly seasonal wind system weakens, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. CWA forecaster Tseng Chao-cheng (曾昭誠) said yesterday that with the seasonal wind system weakening, warmer easterly winds would boost the temperature today. Daytime temperatures in northern Taiwan and Yilan County are expected to range from 28°C to 30°C today, up about 3°C from yesterday, Tseng said. According to the CWA, temperature highs in central and southern Taiwan could stay stable. However, the weather is expected to turn cooler starting tonight as the northeasterly wind system strengthens again
Taiwan sweltered through its hottest October on record, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, the latest in a string of global temperature records. The main island endured its highest average temperature since 1950, CWA forecaster Liu Pei-teng said. Temperatures the world over have soared in recent years as human-induced climate change contributes to ever more erratic weather patterns. Taiwan’s average temperature was 27.381°C as of Thursday, Liu said. Liu said the average could slip 0.1°C by the end of yesterday, but it would still be higher than the previous record of 27.009°C in 2016. "The temperature only started lowering around Oct. 18 or 19
RSS