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.