Faith of a Child

Many of you have heard stories about one of our students, Amy. She is in E4 this year. Amy has become a part of our mission family because Petrea (an amazing member of our team) has built a strong relationship with her and her family. Amy has begun to come to church with us and she spends a lot of time with the team; always asking questions and learning about Christ.

In her E4 writing class, her teacher this year Anna (another amazing team member) assigned the students to write a letter. This is Amy's letter:

Dear Teachers (she named each of us individually, I will spare you),

How are you? Do you know that all of us believe in God and Jesus? Do you know that we are a part of God's familes? I hope that we can go to church every Sunday and be together. Sometimes I really enjoy that we eat lunch together. Do you all pray to God every day?

Do you read the Bible every day? Do you enjoy it? Maybe someday, we can tell people to believe in Jesus and we can also tell them to go to church because church is such a beautiful place!

Your Family Member, Amy

Amy has been such a blessing to us at CELA and to our entire team. She has embraced her faith with such enthusiasm. She tells her family and friends about God and invites them to church. Amy gives us smiles and encouragement every time she sees us. Our little missionary!

Praise God for the students like Amy. Please continue to pray for Amy and for all of our students at CELA as they learn about Christ's love for them. Please pray that all of our students would embrace God's love as passionately as Amy has.

Its That Easy?!?

Tonight was out first Friday Night Bible Study of the year. It was exciting to see everyone again and get to catch up on how everyone's summer went. After our singing time, we had a lot of time for fellowship.

Another missionary and I were talking and she asked me why Erin (one of my Youth Group students) wasn't a Christian yet. I told her I didn't know. She suggested we ask her. Amy, you see, is a genius, and always uses the most direct methods.

So, Amy and I asked Erin why she wasn't a Christian. Here is a dialogue of the conversation:

Amy: So, Erin, why aren't you a Christian?
Erin: Oh, well, what do you have to do to be a Christian?
Beka: Do you believe that Jesus is God?
Erin: Yes, of course.
Beka: Do you believe that Jesus is the only God?
Erin: Yes, I think there are no other gods except Jesus.
Amy: Well, then you ARE a Christian.
Erin: Oh, well, then what do I do.
Beka: You should be baptized.
Erin: How do I get baptized?
Beka: Let's go talk to Pastor Alex.
Erin: Ok.


Erin talked to Pastor Alex and she will begin baptismal classes next week with the hope that she can be baptized later this year.

As we were talking, I kept thinking of Paul and Silas:
He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household." Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. Acts 16: 30-33



Sometimes it is scary when you work so hard to befriend and gain trust with someone, especially one of your students, to ask the simple questions.

Praise God that sometimes they come to you and ask the important questions for themselves. This experience has taught me that the simplest of times, the quickest of conversations, can open the doors to faith.

Please pray for Erin and her new faith.

Typhoons

This weekend has been an adventure for team Taiwan. Please keep our people in your prayers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090809/wl_asia_afp/taiwanweathertyphoon_20090809051426

Back for Year 2

After spending a few weeks in American catching up with family, supporting churches, and friends I am now back in Taiwan for year 2. I am excited about the work we are doing here and I am looking forward to seeing how we are able to expand and grow our ministries. This year, everyone on the team has decided to come back again and although we still need two more missionaries, it does not seem that anyone will be coming. So... we press on.

For the next three weeks (and last week), I will be teaching at our CELA Summer Program. We teach english classes in the morning and have camp-like activities in the afternoon. The highlight of the camp for us, is the VBS program we will have every Monday morning. CELA has never had a VBS before so this is a new experience for everyone; one we hope will help the students know and understand Jesus more.

Because of our relaxed and shorter summer schedule, the few team Taiwan members who are here have been able to spent a lot of time in fellowship together. We have long dinners, watch movies, and go swimming at the local pool. There are only five of us here now but starting this week, more and more will be arriving.

Please keep Taiwan in your prayers. Ask God to bring our students to faith. Also pray for the administration at both CELA and CMS as many changes are being made this year that will add stress to everyone's days.

I will try to post a new story as often as possible, so keep reading!!!

Bao Líng Chiu

This weekend, we took the youth group bowling. For those of us with an American perspective on life, this is a normal youth group activity, but for the students who meet with us every week this was a brand new experience. We took 20 + kids ranging in age from E6-Senior 2 (11 years old-17) to the local bowling alley. When we arrives, we quickly learned that about half the kids had never been bowling before and the other half had been maybe once or twice. We were in for an interesting evening.

After teaching to kids how to get shoes and balls and organizing them into lanes, we started bowling. Most of the kids kind of dropped their balls down the lane. We had quite a few falls and dozens of gutter balls, but were they those kids having fun. Every pin that got knocked down was applauded and high fived. Every time one of the students walked up to the lane, we held our breath in anticipation. As they got the hang of it, some of them started getting S, /, and X (splits, spares, and strikes).

In Taiwan, kids spend 97% of their time studying, at school, and in cram schools. They don't get a whole lot of time to be kids. They don't play around with their peers and they don't go out with their families. Academics rule their lives. Seeing the light in the kids' faces when they were allowed to just be kids was amazing. What a blessing to witness and what an answer to our prayers. New students came bowling with their friends and students we hadn't seen in months re-emerged.

Please pray that bao ling chiu opens the doors of our church to more kids as they find a place to relax and learn together about a God who doesn't care what schore they got on the JEPP but loves them without restraint.

Retreat

Two times a year the missionary team going on a retreat, somewhere away from our ministry area, so we can relax and enjoy Christian fellowship and God's creation. This semester our trip took us to Kenting. Kenting is located on the southern most tip of Taiwan and is about a three hour drive from Chiayi. It is a big tourist destination so there are western resteraunts for us to enjoy as well as white beaches, blue water, shopping, a night market, and beautiful scenic spots.

During our trip, we were able to spend a lot of time in the Word and grow in the Spirit and as a team. We always have a lot of fun together and sometimes its nice just to be us, a team and a family. During Bible study we focused on building a firm foundation of faith. In our ministry, we talk a lot about planting seeds and this is a great analogy for us because we only see our work produce fruit on rare occassions. But this time, we talked about the other parts of farming we sometimes neglect. As the Bible says, "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow." Most of the time we focus on being Paul in this verse and "planting the seed" but God also calls us to be Apollos.

Our team has been in place for a long time. The people of Chiayi have been talking to us and getting to know Jesus through LCMS World Mission for a long time. There are many people who already have a seed. So, sometimes, we need to remember to look in on those seeds and water them. Our ministry isn't all about meeting new people and getting new people to come to church. We also need to strengthen relationships from the past and bring them to the waters of baptism.

But, we also need to be reminded of the last part of the verse. It is God who makes the seed grow. No matter how much time we spend with a person or how much of the Word we teach them, their salvation is in God's hands. We cannot make anyone believe. Turning our Taiwanese friends over to God is hard because we want them to be with us in heaven someday but only God can give them the gift of faith.

So we will continue to plant new seeds and water the old ones. We will pray for the faith of our friends and ask God to bring them to faith. Please join us in these prayers.

New Faces

This week, we have had a visiting music ministry team staying with us. They are performing concerts and going to classes at Chiayi Girl's School and sharing the love of Christ with the girls there. For many of these girls, it is the first time they had heard about Jesus. In addition to the ministry at the Girl's School, the guys are also telling people about our church and our work. On Friday night, for our Bible study, we had over 100 people in attendance. Our normal attendance is between 60-80 so this was a big blessing.



The most exciting thing though was our Saturday Youth Group. Youth Group is my joy for the week. We have a very small group of kids who come for singing and Bible study in Chinese. We get to talk about deeper faith questions and teach the Bible in the kids' native language. On an average Saturday we have between 5-10 kids come. Because the guys from the music team were here, we had more then 50 girls there this week. It was amazing to see them sing and learn about God.

The best part of the day was during our Bible study. We broke into groups of about 15, each group had a foreign missionary and a national to translate. We talked about the 10 commandments. We talked about the laws God gave us and how we cannot keep them no matter how hard we try. The girls accepted this easily. In their religion, they are taught they do bad things all the time and the gods punish them for them. After we talked about the law, I got to share the Gospel. I told them that our God is different. Our God loves us and is gracious to us. He sent His son to take our punishment for us. Jesus came and died so that we can have eternal peace with him.

After the lesson, the girls talked about what they had learned, what was new to them. One of the girls said, "I didn't know God loved me too. I just thought He was for good people." Another said, "God is not mad at us. God will not punish us. That is so good!" These girls had never heard of our God who loves them deeply and wants them to be his children.

We gave every girl a Bible and a Christian music CD. They were excited about the CD but surprisingly it was the Bible that had them fascinated. "You mean I can have it. I don't know about this. I have never seen a Bible before. I want to learn more."

Please keep them girls in your prayers. They came because of the music team but they were abel to hear the Gospel and the Holy Spirit is working on their hearts. Pray that they continue to come to our church and hear about Christ.

Joyful Noise

In the past few weeks, the students at CELA have been practicing for the Easter Pageant they will present to their friends and family on April 11th. Each class will be acting out a part of the Passion week story as well as singing songs about Jesus. My class will be singing three songs: "I'm in Love with the King," "I Have Been Chosen," and "He Hung Upon a Cross." They really enjoy singing all the songs but their favorite is "I Have Been Chosen." They like the song because they get to scream some of the words and as they are children, they love any excuse to scream. It is such a blessing to me to hear them singing about the love of Jesus in such enthustiastic voices.

Last Friday, we had our first all school practice. All the students from E3-E6 went to the gym and sang the songs together. I hope heaven sounds like this day. Voices lifted up in praise to Jesus. People from "every tribe, every tongue, every nation" laying claim to the promises of God:

I have been chosen. I am a child of God,
A royal priesthood, selected by the Lord
To proclaim the excellenct of Him who made me.
And called me from the darkness to the light.

Please continue to pray with me that my students not only sing the words of these songs but they may come to believe them and hear the truth in the words. They are chosen children of God, chosen to love and to be loved by our Savior. Pray they become what they sing, "children of God."

Little Bears and Evil Fish

This weekend, I went on a trip to my student/friend, Angel's, house. It was a unique experience for a number of reasons. First, Angel's family does not speak English .She has two sisters, a brother, and parents. One of her sister's speaks English and another understands it, but they were all to shy to actually talk to me. Secondly, Angel lives on the coast, in a very small community. The neighborhood is very Taiwanese and the older people do not even speak Chinese. The children in the community had never seen a white person before. They stared at me and whispered about how I looked, ate, walked, and talked. This is something that, surprisingly, you get used to with time.

Angel was very excited to have me visit and wanted to make me everywhere. We went to her schools, her parks, and her temples. She introduced me to her family (she seemed to be related to everyone!). We went fishing and walked along the harbor. Her sisters and I baked cookies together and her family had a barbecue on Saturday night.

I loved talking to her family and getting to know them. Because they did not speak English, Angel spent a lot of time translating. Her younger brother was particularly interested in me. He is twelve and loves American baseball. He asked so many questions. Once, while we were fishing, he started to ask me the "real" names of the teams. He knew their Chinese names but wanted to know their English names. Some of my favorite were the Chicago Cubs which are the "Little Bears" and the Florida Marlins which were the "Evil Fish."

The whole weekend, I was feeling like a bad missionary. I never found a time when it would be appropriate to talk about God or ask about their beliefs. I was so discouraged because even with friends, I was struggling to talk about the Gospel. I didn't want to be awkward or rude, so I just continued to pray.

The best part of the weekend, by far, was my last hour. While Angel's mom was making lunch we were all in the kitchen talking. Out of the blue, Angel says "My mom said that now we will all be Christians now!" I was overjoyed! Praise God. The Holy Spirit works in such amazing way! Here I was struggling, thinking I was failing Angel and her family, when in truth, God was working through me despite me.

Role Model

I have recently been introduced to the history of mission work in Taiwan. It has always been something that is hard to learn more about because Taiwan is a little island and few people have come here or really even know where it is. However, one woman, Lillian Dickson, made a huge impression on the work of Christ in Taiwan.

Lillian Dickson was the wife of a missionary who decided to didn't want to be a missionary's wife but a missionary wife. She started clinics, schools, orphanages, treatment facilities for tuberculosis, black foot, and leprosy. She took in children off the streets and helped get young people out of jails and into productive jobs and homes. Any time she saw or was told of a problem among the people, she found a way to solve it. In the sixty years that she spent here she and her friends started hundreds of churches and showed many people the joy of Christ and lead them to the Savior's waiting arms. She was truly a role model for anyone who wants to serve God overseas. All this she did with a humble heart and tireless personal effort. She also raised a family of four children and supported her husband in his own mission work.

I was lent a copy of her biography Angel At Her Shoulder to read. I read the book quickly as I loved to hear all of the amazing things that she had done for the people here. When I finished the book I wanted to learn more about her and her work in Taiwan. The book was published in the 1960s and I wanted to know what has happened with her ministry, Mustard Seed Inc., in the last thirty years. There is very little information about her. She wrote a book but it is out of print. When you look her up in Wikipedia or Google, there are no results.

Eventually, I found the website for Mustard Seed Inc., now an international mission sending group who have work in every poor part of the world. They support millions of men, woman, and children. All of this came from one woman's desire to be the kind of Christian that God wants us to be; forsaking all for the gospel.

If you ever get a chance, check out Lillian Dickson. She was an amazing woman of God who should be remembered for the work she did for the Gospel.

Temples

So, in Taiwan, temples are a common part of the landscape. The folk religion is so pervasive here that store fronts, back alleys, and even people's homes have temples and alters in them. This week, another of the missionary's parents is visiting. We love when people come to visit because it gives us an excuse to be tourists again. On Saturday, we went to Beigang, a nearby city that is well-known for its temple.

The temple in Baigang is one of the oldest in Taiwan. People from all over the country to give offerings to the gods for good grades on tests, new business ventures, and approval of marriages. Other gods from the country also come to "visit" the temple. When this happens large, long, loud parades occur. We were lucky enough to get to see one of these on our visit.

First, people dressed as "unnamed gods" come through and do a dance. These gods protect the big gods and light fireworks to ward off evil spirits. Then, the big gods come. For this particular parade there were five big gods. The big gods were terrifying. They looked just like demons. They had red, gold, green, and black faces. They wore ornate robes of gold and red. They danced in circles. They come dancing down the street and into the temple flanked by people waving incense sticks and throwing ghost money at them.

The worst part of the experience was when a woman came out of the crowd. She was screaming and chanting in Chinese and she had her hands thrown into the air. There were people all around her, listening to what she was saying with rapt attention. After she carried on for some time, she passed out into the arms of some of the temple attendants and was carried into the temple. When I asked our guide (a Taiwanese friend from the area) what was going on, she said the woman had the spirit of one of the gods in her and she was being used as a voice. Anna, a missionary, said, "so she is possessed?!" and our friend said yes!

Baigang is known by the Christian community as the dark pit of Taiwan. The people there focus thier entire lives on the temple and worshipping their gods. They rely fully on burning offerings or giving food gifts. They have no hope in life or an afterlife.

Please pray for the people who flock to these temples looking for something to hope for. They are so lost, confussed, and straning to find truth while looking for it in the wrong places. Help us to reach out to them and see the truth of God's richest salvation and grace.

Photos Online

It has recently been brought to my attention that not everyone is on facebook which means these same people do not have access to my pictures. In order to remedy this situation I have posted all of my most recent pictures of web albums using Google. If you click on the link below you can access my pictures and see what I have been up to. Enjoy!

Click HERE to see my albums!

Blessings!

A year ago, I had never been outside of North America. I had traveled a lot within the States and gone on a trip to Canada, but I had never left my cultural bubble. If you would have told me at that time that I would be living abroad and traveling all over the world I would have called you crazy. Now, having reached my six month mark in Taiwan and traveled to 5 different countries, I would tell you I am blessed.

Chinese New Year is an exciting time for the missionaries of Taiwan because it is our first (and only) big vacation of the year. We have three weeks off from teaching and we all take the chance to travel. Members of my team went to Italy, China, Cambodia, and America.

My friend, Stephanie were able to go to Thailand to visit some fellow missionaries. It was an exciting and energizing trip. We went all over Thailand. We stayed in Bangkok and traveled to Hua Hin on the coast and stayed at resort on the beach, attending a Thai wedding. We flew to Ching Mai and rode elephants through the mountains. We went to Wat Po, Wat Aron, and the Grand Palace. We even went to Thai school for a day and took a trip to a museum to learn about the history of the country. We were able to see many new and different things. I even got my first real massage. It was an amazing trip that I will never forget.

Now is the time for making the decsion to stay for another year or move on, and I have decided to stay. I feel so blessed every day by the experiences I am having , the people I am meeting, and the work we are doing. Though the work has its challenges, I feel that God is calling me to stay. I am excited to learn more and more about the language and culture so that I can better serve the people of Taiwan.


And for all of you who have been praying for my family, my mom in particular, I would like to tell you that you are all miracle workers. I truely believe in the power of prayer and just as God listened to the persistant widow, God has listened to you. My mom is now tumor free and has finished chemo treatments. She is getting stronger every day and will be returning to work March 2nd. Praise God for He has done marvelous things!

A Joyful Noise

The missionaries working at CMS all attend Salvation Lutheran Church. The church has about 15-20 members and no pastor (although we recently called a man who has agreed to come in April). We are small and we struggle. On an average Sunday, the missionaries outnumber the nationals. The service in conducted in Chinese, as is the sermon, and we listen to a translation using a headset. Julia, our translator, only translates the sermon so we rarely know what is going on the rest of the time but we manage well enough once we memorize the service order. We follow along in a whispered English during the litergy and songs.

This week, for the first time, the service was conducted completely in English. One of my fellow missionaries dad's was visiting and gave the sermon while our bossman led the service. The national members listened on headsets, getting a glimpse of our worship experience.

Because the service was in English, we were much bolder when it was our turn to talk or sing and the nationals were just as loud in Chinese. When we sang, prayed, and recited the Scripture, it was loud and in two languages.

At first, it was hard to focus but after the first song, the noise of our bilingual worship was beautiful. The Bible tells us that when Christ comes back "every tribe, tongue, and nation" will bow down to Him. Heaven, I hope, will sound like church. Every voice, language, and people singing bold praises to God, thanking Him for the gifts He gives us.

Mountaintop Experiences

After returning from a trip home for Christmas to see my family, I was not quite ready to get back into the swing of classes. Luckily, I had only three days of work to do before I had another vacation. Over the Western New Year holiday, three friends and I took a trip to paradise. We took a long train ride to the east side of the island, to Taroko Gorge. Taroko is the most beautiful place I have ever been. We went hiking and walked around this place that is as close to heaven on earth as I will ever get. The weather was perfect, the sky was a clear blue, and the mountains were picturesque to say the least.

When we were hiking, we walked about 1,000 feet above the river, along a cliff on the side of the mountain. The whole time I was seeking a way to get down to the water. I wanted to be close to it and feel it. While looking for another trail, we happened along a service path. It looked like we would be able to get closer to the water, so we started down. The path was not really meant for the average hiker. The trail was unstable and we had to do some quick thinking. At one point we had to slide down a rock and jump down hoping we didn't break our necks. After an adventourous journey, we made it down to the water. It was breathtaking. It was so tranquil that we sat at the edge of the water in silence.

I felt so close to God on this trip. Sitting on the edge of the water, with the breeze blowing and the sun shining, I kept thinking that God must love us so much to create this place for us to see; to make a world with mountains and rivers and flowers and trees. What an amazing and loving Father we have.