Jesus Loves the Little Ones...

This is Meredith. She is our boss, Callie's daughter. This weekend, the CELA staff took a trip to Kending, a beach resort area on the southern tip of the island. It was an amazing trip. We went to the beach, tried surfing, toured some local history, and went shopping at an amazing night market. It takes about three-ish hou had the joy of sitting next to Meredith for a lot of the journey. Meredith knows very little English but she learns very quickly. She is in my K2 class so she knows some Bible songs and some English sentences. While we were together, I was reminded so much of what Jesus means "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Meredith is the biggest little gospel light I have ever seen. She sings about Jesus all the time. Her favorite song is "Jesus Loves the Little Ones." She would constantly lean over to me and say "Little Ones, Beka" and we would sing. I want to be more like her, easily accepting, loving, and singing about Jesus!

In Kending, I was also reminded of how much God loves us. The picture to the right is a view from our spot on the beach. If God were just some bored figurehead up in heaven, looking for something to do, he could have made the world grey and bland. He could have made it flat and dry. Instead, God wanted to show us his power and love. He made white sandy beaches and green mountians and blue, blue oceans. He have us friends to enjoy these with and time to cherish his creation! God is so amazing!

Missionaries Around the World

I wanted to point out the new side bar on my page. It can get pretty boring for all of you to read about me all the time, really my stories aren't that interesting. So I added links to some of my missionary friends serving here in Taiwan and around the world. I hope you enjoy!

Sometimes I forget...

DISCLAIMER: There are many differences between America and Taiwan. I know this is obvious even to those of you who have never been here but I wanted to get that statement out of the way right away because the rest of this post will be about how American and Taiwan are the same and I didn't want you to think I was completely disillusioned to the differences. Believe me, I know.

Sometimes I forget that I am living and working in a foreign country. When I am with my students or in the office, I can forget that I knew something different once. This is called acclimation, I think. Here are some examples...

1. In America, when a child does something to offend another child and they know they are about to get tattled on, they run up behind the tattler and say "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I said I was sorry!." In Taiwan when a child does something to offend another child and they know they are about to get tattles on, they run up behind the tattler and bow to them saying "Debuchi, Debuchi!" (which means I'm Sorry!")
2. When I am on the street on a scooter or in a grocery shopping, people will often see me and those I am with and say "Megouren." This means American. That's right, they know just by looking at us. Well, the last time this happened a small child walking next to me said "Megouren" and I looked around to see who she was talking about.
3. When I had the coin contest at POPCS, the students who helped me count the money became very excited when they found foreign money. They thought it was so cool and were very excited when I let them keep it. Last Saturday at Youth Group, one of the other missionaries here, Kevin, throw coins on the ground for an object lesson. They were 1NT coins which look exactly like American pennies. Kevin had a big bag of them for the lesson. When the kids picked up the coins, one of the boys came over to me and showed me a shiny penny. He wanted to know what it was. I told him it was "megou yen," American money. He was so excited. He became even more excited when Kevin told him it took 3 of the American pennies to make 1NT coin. (No one had the heart to tell him this was not a positive exchange rate) The boy was enamoured by the coin and took it home to show his friends and family.

These are just a few of many stories I wish I could tell you about tmy experiences in Taiwan. I feel so blessed to be here and watch as the people we work with learn and Christ and His love for them. Sometimes, the light in their eyes is amazing to see, when they understand for the first time.

Sometimes I forget that I am in a foreign country. Then, I drive down the street and I see people outside their shops burning spirit money to give to their ansestors or see an ornately decorated buddhist temple or walk past the giant golden buddha down the street from our school. Then I remember that those this places feels like home, I live in a land polluted with evil. I learned just this week that Chaiyi County (where CELA operates) is only .4% Christian. Then I remember that "I am but a stranger here."

All hope is not lost. Today, we were told by a fellow believer from our church that her 82 year old grandmother had asked to be baptized and a student at Friday Night Bible Study asked for a Chinese Bible to study on her own.

Please pray for the people of Taiwan. Help them to learn through our witness. Praise God for the chances we have to share the gospel. Pray that they are led away from the evil and lies of their folk religion and turn to Christ as the only true God.

Moon Festival

This weekend is Moon Festival, a holiday in Taiwan that is celebrated with barbecues, moon watching, and moon cakes. I still do not understand the origin of this particular festival but it was great to learn about it with my new Taiwanese friends.
After classes were over on Friday night, the national teachers pulled out the little barbecue pits and tried to start fires. Now I should mention that this was a bit of a challenge because we are in the midst of a typhoon; bringing strong winds, rain, and darkness. The picture here is of two of the teachers working over a fire.
When they got the fire started, they began grilling everything imaginable. We had pork, chicken, sausage, shrimp, clams, bamboo...It was all amazing. The most interesting thing I ate was a delicacy called "chicken butt." I think that explains itself. We ate, and ate, and ate. We also had the opportunity to spend time with our national co-workers and their families. It was nice to have the chance to socialize outside the office. We have some amazing people at CELA who are an amazing blessing to us. However, most of them do not know the love of Christ. Please pray for them, and for us that we may be a light to them. It was an awesome experience. I hope to be able to share many more days like that one, in complete bliss, sharing the gospel and spending time with new friends!

My First Classrooms

This is a picture of my very first classroom. It is an E3 (Third Grade) class comprised of 20 eager learners. It was a tearful experience when it was shown to me. It is what I have been working for for so long! I feel so blessed to be in this place working at
CELA so the gospel of Christ can be heard by the children of Taiwan.
It was a new and different experience preparing the classroom for my first day of school. There are no teacher stores or die cut machines so bulletin boards had to be made by hand. I didn't know anything about my students except their names. I organized and decorated as best I could. I even had fun doing it.
Then the students came in for the first time. It was a grand mixture of nerves and energy. My students are great! I am getting to know their individual personalities and quirks.

We will be working and learning together this year. My job is to help them hone their English skills. My real goal for the year will be to show the love of Christ to those in my care so they are open to the Gospel. I will be daily planting and nurturing the seeds of faith. Please pray for these students!

The picture to the right is my kindergarten classroom. In addition to my E3 class, I also teach four K2 (four year old) classes. They are going to be a challenge to say the least. The children are adorable and fairly well-behaved. They are a joy to be around and they make me smile all the time.
However, they do not speak English. Any English. They know the vocabulary we teach them: table, chair, teacher, boy, girl, mom, dad, etc. My job is to teach them basic vocabulary and teach them how to answer questions. My goal with these children (all 80 of them) is to introduce them to the gospel in a way that they can understand. For many of these students, it will be the first time they will have ever heard of Jesus. Please pray that my ministry to them may be meaningful and that I find the right words to show them the Gospel.

Job Descriptions

Have you ever heard anyone say, "this is not in my job description."? When you are a missionary, you don't really have a job description. You do what you are asked to do because you know somehow, it will work toward the goal: bringing people to Christ. In Taiwan, we work as teachers in a cram school. We get to spend a few hours every day with amazing children who I get to tell about Jesus.
As we prepare for the school year to begin, we are readying the school. In the last two days, for the missionaries, this meant we are putting the school library together. Before this year, we had a teeny-tiny library. During the summer, two other branches of CELA closed and we inherited their libraries. This was what we call a mixed blessing. We tripled the size of our library. Praise God!!! The more resources we have, the better we can teach. However, the books were not organized at all and each book was in a plastic bag.
So we fixed it. We took the books out of the bags, organized them into categories and shelved them. It was tedious, time consuming work. By the end we were dirty and tired. We all felt like saying, "this was not in the job description." But we had a good time together and now we have a brand new library!
This whole experience made me think of Jesus (of course!). He had people who asked him to do things that weren't in his job description. He came to seek and save the lost, to die for us, to bring us to God. He did not have to heal the sick, comfort the weak, teach the disciples. He spent every minute of his days helping people in ways we cannot even attempt. He didn't throw up his hands and say "that's not my job."
By improving our library, more students will be able to use it as a resource. As more students become learned in English, they are more able to learn from us of the gospel story and Christ's love for them.
Even things that aren't our job can help the kingdom. I will have to keep remembering this as more and more "odd jobs" are thrown my way.

Week One

Here is the list of new and exciting experiences:

1. The food is pretty much amazing. Everything I have eaten, I have loved! Chicken rice, beef noodles, lemon dwa dwa, shrimp fried rice, fried sweet potatoes... everything has been a feast for the palate.
2. The religion. We have seen so many temples and buddhas. They are ornate, colorful, beautiful. It is very sad to see people with so much passion and excitement for something that is so meaningless and empty. My heart hurts for these people. We have met very few Christians, even among those we work with. Please pray for us as we minister here that our witness may open doors and hearts for the gospel.
3. The sights, The sounds. This island is beautiful! I love the flowers and the trees. The streets are all bright with signs and advertisements (none of which I can read but are still interesting).
We have gone all around Chaiyi and Min Shiung on scooters and have seen many great places. The swimming pools/spas are an amazing sight. The night market is something everyone should experience in their lives. The only thing I can equate it to is the French Quarter in New Orleans times 10,000.

I am falling in love with this place!

Please pray for the people here, for our ministry, and for our immersion.