Hi!
Well I can't thank you enough for your prayers and support because the last two weeks have been fantastic. First off we had a typhoon that went right around our team, forecasters were predicting a lot of flooding and stuff in the area we were in because it was headed straight for us... we barely got wet. But while our team was not getting wet, we were pretty busy with a lot of other stuff., The first week of our time down south we worked with the pastor of the only church in a town of 200,000, running a children's program in the morning, teenagers discipleship training in the afternoon and evangelism or adult bible studies in the evenings. With the kids we had lots of fun, and learned some Chinese songs and games as well as sharing a lot of bible stories. With the adults we were able to pray for a lot of people the pastor has been talking with, and who are interested in Christianity, but have not made commitments to Christ yet. We got to hear some incredible praise reports from that group before we left of physical healing and God restoring relationships. The greatest thing was each one that shared wanted to give the glory to God for what was happening in their lives. He is doing something in their hearts, breaking the chains of ancestor worship and spiritual oppression as they see Jesus is the name above all names.
My favorite times from this week were with the teenagers, about 20 of them that have accepted Christ and have a discipleship group led by the pastor's son. We taught subjects like evangelism, spiritual warfare and hearing God's voice. These kids really got excited about evangelism after our session on that. I talked about the way Christ communicated personally when he was on earth and we had a really good discussion on the "cultural keys" for Taiwanese to come to the realization of who Jesus is, and what the Kingdom of God looks like for a Taiwanese person. It really is an amazing culture here, and there are a lot of things we identified with this group that God has put into the culture, things he can use to draw their friends and neighbors to Himself. One of the things I had sensed since being here was that Taiwanese Christians really felt like they needed to separate themselves completely from their culture when they became Christians, It was really awesome to see God opening their eyes to His dreams for the nation and culture of Taiwan.
This past week was the busiest we have had yet, as we ran a summer camp for a public school (just the 7 of us and 4 translators, close to 200 kids). We were running 4 classes simultaneously, so while two of my students taught music, two taught English, two taught sports and I taught drama. It was a fun time, but really draining, summer camp is so much easier when the kids speak the same language as you! But the DTS students did amazing, and on Friday we had a camp performance, where students who had never heard the gospel performed an amazing rendition of "Amazing Grace" they learned in Music class. In our drama class the main theme was how drama tells a story, and I shared with them the story of the Firey Furnace in Daniel and the Gospel message of Jesus coming to earth to save us. The kids did a great job with skits and fun activities, but most importantly, I think they came away with an understanding of who Jesus is, and what it means to have faith in Him! We were technically not supposed to "preach..." of course not, it's summer camp!
Again we have felt the prayers being lifted up for us every day in the areas of wisdom, energy, protection, typhoons and traveling mercies! God truly has gone before us and been the guard behind us each place we go. We leave for Hong Kong in a few days, really excited, not quite sure what the next few weeks will look like. I predict more Chinese food, chopsticks and Asian looking people, but I've been wrong before :-)
Blessings,
Andrew
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