Pictures are worth a thousand words

Enjoy!

(Angel Class with Judy)

(Grace class with Yumi and Elene)

(Hope class with Connie)

(Joy class with Diana)

(Peace class with Jasmine)

(Rejoice class with Jeremy)

(meet john from rejoice class, the only student that memorized all the verses for this mission trip)

It has been quite the journey these past two weeks! God is faithful, good, powerful, and simply indescribable!

For our last day, we started off our final day of this mission trip with the reading of the word and enjoyed breakfast. We then headed to school one more time and each class rehearsed their respective song and following, we began the long awaited memory verse competition. This year we only had one student, John (from Rejoice class) who was able to memorize all 9 verses from the week! 

We invited parents/grandparents and family to come join their students in our closing ceremony, and at 11 we began the ceremony. Each class performed their song and the students received their certificate. 

All the teachers then lined up to say goodbye to all of the students and that was the closing of our two weeks on this mission trip.

Friends and family, thank you all for your prayers, encouragements, support, love, and thoughts! We felt it all from over seas and we are blessed by you all! This mission trip has been an amazing experience and each member here is grateful for the opportunity to come and serve Christ, working along these amazing youth and church members to teach and share the love of God! Thank you for your partnership and for being a part of this chapter with us!

God is good! All the time!

星期四

Thursday! Thursday! Thursday! 

      On this day, there were so many awesome things that happened! 

      Firstly, we had our first ever sports day where all the kids split into five teams to compete in different games! The kids played with hula hoops, used chopsticks to pass ping pong balls, and even ran a lap around the track against each other! Thankfully nobody got hurt and everybody ended up having a good time! 
 (Fun Fact: Judy ran) 

    More so later on in the day the team also got to visit Jack, a TA for our team, who unfortunately got hurt in a motorcycle fall the night before! Thankfully Jack only got slight cuts and scrapes and is doing well! Praise God that he is not seriously hurt and that his parents do not have a hardened attitude towards the church because of this! 

  Also Connie and Diana went to visit their student's home in the afternoon! Everything seemed to go really well as they were able to give their blessings and get to know their student better!

   In the afternoon the team got to organize inventory as tomorrow is the last day! The team went through lots of prizes for tomorrow's bible verse memorization event and even got to play lots of tag and fun games with the kids at the church! 
(Sad Fact: There were sooo many bugs and we all got bite)

   Finally the team went to a hotpot buffet for dinner where we celebrated our time here at missions! 
(Fun Fact: Jasmine put 水果豆花 into her kimchi hot pot because she thought it was tofu :O
...........................................The soup tasted horrible! .........................................................

Things to pray about!
1. Safety- Please pray that the team will get through the last day of missions safety and also for our travels back to wherever we will go after missions! 

2. Kids- Please pray that our kids will open up their hearts to what we have taught them the last two weeks! Our hope is that through this mission they will understand and experience God's love for them! 

 Although the team is tired we are all sad that tomorrow is the last day! Thank God we had sooo many happy, fun moments to make saying goodbye so hard! 

Till tomorrow! 

Taiwan Mission

Chiayi Team

Wednesday July 13, 2016

8:37 pm

Greetings! Update from our team in Puzi, Taiwan. We are doing well and teaching these kids has been an absolute blessing. The atmosphere here is beautiful as God is working around us and in us. 

The students are learning so much about God's love for them through English. Teaching them has truly been a rewarding experience. The amount of energy these kids show puts our stress aside and gives us new energy and excitement. God has shown us his love through the kids and their innate desire to play.

We are now approaching the final days of the camp and although it is sad to say goodbye, the impact left here won't be forgotten. These next few days include sports/activity days, performances by the kids and much more. 

The family visitations have been great and we got the opportunity to meet many amazing families that have treated us with such hospitality. The families we visited were not from church so we were able to spread the gospel for them and pray for the students in those families. 

Prayer requests. We thank you for continuing to pray for our team. Prayer has been such a powerful factor in our mission and we'd like to ask for a few more prayers: 

1. The kids will continue to feel God's love after the camp

2. The Teachers and Ta's safety as we head home after the mission 

3. The next few days of events 

4. Finally for rest and energy to carry out these next days. 

Day Ate

We are already feeling the time crunch. Only 3 more days with these little boogers. It is always amazing to see how people with different backgrounds and of different ages can come together and become quite close within two weeks.

These kids bring us joy and excitement every morning, albeit also annoyance once in awhile. Thankfully, Yang Ma-Ma (one of the local church members) helps bring in delicious Taiwanese breakfast every morning. We were reminded of our mission here in Taiwan during devotions, which is to spread the gospel not only through our words, but also through our actions. 

We reviewed a few songs, but also taught them how to swim through the song, "Going to the River." They seemed to have fun, especially when we called a few of the students to sing on stage with the teachers. During the morning singspiration, the children do not seem to be singing. They just copy the hand motions and bob their head to the music. However, during craft time today, Aaron found out that his students know pretty much all the lyrics. He played the singspiration music during that craft session and while the kids were working on their masterpiece, they were also singing along loud and clear.

Today's lesson was on the birth of Jesus. We wanted to give them a little taste of what precious gift the Lord gave us. A handful of students found the story quite fascinating, while the majority unfortunately didn't understand it. Keep those students in your prayers. Pray that these little Bible stories that we are teaching them can be planted well and watered in the near future. 

It also rained during the middle of the day. Therefore, the students weren't able to go out during recess and play. It was also a little hectic during "pick-up" time. However, by the end of lunch time the rain had gone away. We were able to visit two different families during family visitations today. As always, the students love when the teachers come and visit. They eagerly wait outside their house, scouting for the church van to pull into their driveway. Then show the teacher's their house with much excitement. 

As we head in to the last few days, we have a few more prayer requests:

1) Energy - It's a major and continuous prayer request. It's hard to keep up with the student's energy level as they bounce off the walls and onto our backs every break time. We're praying and asking God for both physical and mental energy. It's hard to emulate God's love to the kids when we're physically tired. Please pray that we are also patient when it comes to interacting with the 'trouble makers' of the class.

2) Mosquitos - When you come back to Taiwan, you're most likely going to be bitten by mosquitos at least once. However, some of the team members are being bitten continuously and it's irritating them. Pray that we are reminded that this minor sacrifice is nothing compared to what the Lord gave us. However, please also pray that we are not in major pain or easily irritated by these bites. Mosquito count for the whole team of 10: 110+ bites. 

The Adventure Continues

And we’re back!

It’s been such a great weekend of resting and preparing for the upcoming week! We’ve been super blessed to have tons of rain the past few days which has significantly cooled down the weather… Praise the Lord!  We were able to play lots of games together, enjoy each other’s company, and eat delicious instant noodles. :D

As the Monday morning came, we all woke up early and started our day with morning devotions. We were reminded of the wonderful gift of the Lord’s Prayer and how we can always turn to Him for strength in our daily lives. Then we all headed off to school where we were finally reunited with our students after the Typhoon Break. They were all excited to see us and even more excited to sing singspiration songs with us! We taught them a new song, Better Together, and reviewed songs from last week.

After singspiration we separated into our classes and taught them the story of the Widow’s Offering – we used currency and profession as the topic of our English lesson today. When it was time to go home the rain was coming down hard, so we led all the kids to the front of the school and brought them back to church by car.

Unfortunately the family visitations that we had planned for today were all cancelled, but there will be some later in the week.

It’s hard to believe that we are already half way through our time here, time really does fly! Stay tuned for our adventure tomorrow.

Prayer Requests:

Health: Praise the Lord that most of us (who were not feeling well) are feeling better and had a long weekend of rest! Elene's health is also continually improving, but is still recovering and has bouts of discomfort. Please continue to pray for the team's overall health and for each member to be healthy.

Energy: The whole team woke up very tired this morning- please pray that each member can get a good night’s rest and that God would fully recharge their batteries. 

Typhoon: Praise the Lord the typhoon has left Taiwan and did not cause significant damage to the church. Please pray for the places that did suffer significant damages. We have been told that the rest of the week will be very rainy- please pray for everyone’s safety, especially the kids.

***As a treat, we have a video of one of our team members getting rid of insects… in a special manner***

Typhoon Hiatus

It's been a great day of rest since typhoon Nepartak made landfall last night. Praise the Lord Chiayi county has not been greatly impacted from the typhoon, but was able to cool down from some rain and wind. However, we have been warned to expect heavy rain following Nepartak.

This morning we continued on with our daily team devotions and then had time to prepare for next week as well as enjoy some rest and bonding time! We even had friends who came to visit and bless us with dinner! 

(thank you Stella and family for your generous and kind blessing!)

For the rest of our weekend, we will be taking a blog hiatus and will return on Monday when our camp with the kids begin again. Until then, please keep us in your prayers (:

1. Health: Praise the Lord that most of us (who were not feeling well) are feeling better and had a day of rest! Elene's health is also continually improving, but is still recover and has bouts of discomfort. Please continue to pray for the team's overall health and that our time of rest this weekend would bring restful recovery and energy for next week!
2. Typhoon: Praise the Lord the typhoon is pretty much making it back out to sea and is leaving Taiwan! We are warned to expect for heavy rain tomorrow, please pray for our safety and that we might stay on the dry side.

Day 6

And that's a wrap!  The typhoon is rolling in and it was officially announced this evening that class will be canceled tomorrow (Friday).  Although our first week with the kids will be coming to an early close, there have definitely been a lot of highlights throughout the week.

During today's singspiration we reviewed some of the songs that we have been learning this week.  The kids love singing worship songs that involve a lot of jumping and shouting, and keeping up with them is no joke!  We also heard them humming worship songs throughout the day and after school -- it's amazing how quickly they are picking up on the songs!

The kids are also beginning to warm up to the teachers and TAs, and they are definitely starting to feel more comfortable around us.  The energy level in the classroom was much higher today, and we could all feel the heat level raising straight through the roof!  Although most of us felt quite drained after class, we are glad that we're able to start building up relationships with our students.

As we wind down in our first week, here are some answered prayer requests and some things you can keep us in prayer for:

1. Health and Rest:  Praise God that most of us (Yumi, Jasmine, and Diana) who were feeling unwell at the start of missions are now feeling much better!  Elene's health is also on an upward trend, although bouts of discomfort still come and go.   Please continue to pray for the team's overall health and that our time off would bring restful recovery from this week.
2. Typhoon:  The typhoon is expected to come in later tonight and is said to be one of the largest typhoons on record for Taiwan.  Please pray that the typhoon will pass safely this weekend and that we would be able to resume our regular class schedule next week.
3. A/C:  Praise God for providing not one, but TWO new air conditioning units for our living quarters at the church!  Some of the team members have had to tough out the past five nights without A/C, so we are extremely grateful and hope that they will be able to get some good rest in this weekend.

DAY 5

Hello, it's finally the end of day 5! Today was as exciting and fruitful as ever! Our day with the kids started off with a really fun but tiring worship session full of jumping and dancing! Then the kids got a chance to memorize the daily bible verse and learn more about Daniel And the lion's den! Finally the kids were led off to their respective classes to learn some English! 

A cool thing about today was that in the afternoon we finally started home visitations at some of our student's home! Today Connie, Jasmine, and Yumi went to visit four of their students who requested that the mission team go visit them! Even though only three teachers were able to go, praise God that the visitations allowed them to get closer to their students and understand each student's unique living situation. More so, praise God that the visitations allowed the teachers to pray and encourage each student and their parents to attend church on Sunday where they will be performing worship songs they have learned. 

Update: Super typhoon Nepartak is expected to hit Taiwan later this week! Due to this, the team was preparing to cancel class tomorrow if necessary! However it seems that class will continue as usual as the typhoon is not expected to hit too hard in the area! 

Things to pray about

1. Weather! Please pray that the typhoon won't hit too hard in our area and that the weather will be bearable for us to safely continue our mission here. Also please pray that the weather will not cause any safety issues! 

2. Health! Please pray for all our team member's health and that we all continue to have enough energy to get through the week! Please  continue to pray for Elene and her health. Thankfully she is getting better and has been eating a lot of yellow things! (which the doctor recommends her to do) 

3. Home Visitations! Please pray that home visitations later on in this week go successfully and pray that these visitations bring some fruit and lasting impact into each family's lives!

Fun Fact: Pastor Hwang bought a lot of snacks for us because he thought the typhoon would cause us to not have class tomorrow! So please pray that we will all not get too fat! 

Taiwan mission

Chiayi team

Tuesday July 5, 2016

7:42 pm

Hello everyone! Update from the team! We are doing well here and although a typhoon is approaching, we feel God's love and protection in the camp and in our team. Our prayers have been answered as Elene has begun to heal from her sickness again. 

It is definitely a blessing to bless these kids here with God's word in the past few days. The kids are beyond adorable and they really seem to be learning a lot really fast. Teaching English and the Gospel is harder than we thought, but by showing our love to them we show God's love for them and that definitely pays off. We feel that God has really manifested himself at our camp through our teaching and dedication. God has really blessed our team and tested us with ups and downs. It really has been a blessing serving with each other as we have gotten to know each other much better. 

We've learned that we serve at our best when we are at our worst. God has shown us to leave our comfort zone and enter the AC-less, sleepless zone. Sacrifice has really played a big role in our time here at missions and God has shown us to give even when we have little energy or time to give. 

Prayer is powerful so we ask for your prayers: 

1) the AC is in the process of being fixed. 

2) we'd like to continue to ask for prayer for Elene as she slowly recovers. 

3) lastly we'd like to ask for your prayers for our energy and focus in these next few weeks as we dedicate our time and energy into these students and staff around us.

 

 

Day 3

It's beginning to look a lot like Typhoon season. Yet, God's continual love flows and pours into us.

Today was the first official day of the camp. A little dash of crazy and a whole pint of sweat. Sorry friends for the imagery, but the amount of sweat we produced today was enough to wash a load of laundry. Okay, maybe not that much, but you get the point. However, meeting the squishy cheeks of the eager students today was a major highlight.

After we gave the students their placement test, we introduced them to the new foreign English songs. Since it was the first day, we were not expecting much energy from them yet. It also did not help that the auditorium was inside a steaming gym. So basically just imagine a concert venue located in a sauna wrapped in a humid jungle called Taiwan. Thank goodness we got some chuckles out of them from our skit. We performed "The Man With a Hole in His Heart," and they seemed to have enjoyed it.

This year with nearly a hundred students on the first day, and even more supposedly showing up tomorrow, we split them into 7 classes based on their English levels. We originally planned to have 8 classes for this summer camp, but unfortunately Elene was not allowed to teach a class this year. God has his plans and his ways, and it continues to amaze us how everything works perfectly. We all taught out of Genesis' first chapter, "The Creation." Thankfully nothing too crazy happened today. However, we don't know what is in store for us in the coming days.

Prayer Requests:
1. Health - Elene still is not feeling well. She went back to the hospital in the afternoon. A few of our members also are starting to feel worse. It's only the first day, please allow God to keep us healthy and strong for the next two weeks.

2. Rest - it's been hard getting rest as the majority of the members battle jet lag still. Thankfully, we have been busy enough to avoid the afternoon knock out. The guys' room is still lacking a working air conditioner.

Fun fact: one of the church members here adopted 4 dogs to protect the church grounds. However, Yumi is very afraid of the dogs.

Day 2

Day 2 check!

What a roller coaster it’s been! So much has happened already and we can see God’s faithful hand at work!

The team all enjoyed delicious Taiwanese breakfast together this morning; and we all have different items we want to try next! After breakfast and a short time of rest, we began our first morning devotion – it was a huge reminder that God has created us differently and equipped us with different talents and skills. Our different talents and skills allow us to be different parts of the body, but together we make up one body. The challenge of the devotional today is for all of us to use all of talents to bring God glory and to humble ourselves also.

At 2 o’clock in the afternoon, we all headed over to the sanctuary where we joined EFC Puzi  for Sunday service, the speaker was our very own Pastor Huang! After service we walked around the school where we will be holding our Summer Camp. The elementary school is four stories and the auditorium is as big as a high school gym! We also enjoyed authentic beef noodle soup, dumplings, and xiao long boa’s after … delicious!

As our first day of the Summer Camp begins tomorrow, we have many prayer requests!

1.       Health- Elene hasn’t been feeling well and went to the hospital tonight. Please pray for a speedy recovery and for God to give her His strength. A few of our members are also battling colds – please pray for their health too.

2.       Preparations- Please pray that the kids that we are going to be witnessing to would come with open hearts. And for our team members as well – for God to prepare our hearts and give us peace every step every step of the way.

3.       Rest- pray for each team member to get a good night’s rest every night, especially for the guys. The air conditioner in their room is broken. Pray that they will be able to sleep through the night and be refreshed the next day. 

Hello All!

Praise God for bringing everyone safely to ChiaYi!  We had our first team meeting this afternoon with Pastor Wu of EFC Puzi (our host church) and our fellow TAs.  We were all surprised by the overwhelming volunteer support that we received just on our first day here, and are extremely grateful that God has provided us with so many people to help serve and do His work.

Later in the afternoon, we had some free time to mingle with members of the church and visitors as well as settle into our living quarters.

As we prepare for our first week with the kids, please keep us in your prayers!  Here are some praises and prayer requests from the team:

1. Praise God for our team's safe arrival at EFC Puzi!  We have approximately 120 kids enrolled for our English camp and already have 37 potential home visits, far exceeding our initial expectations.
2. Health and adjustment:  Please pray for the health of the team as some of us feel a bit of a cold/sickness coming along.  Also keep us in prayer as we adjust to the warmer, humid weather and the jet lag.
3. Preparation for our first week:  Please pray for each of the team members as we continue to prepare for the start of our English camp.  It is the first time anyone in the team has served at this location and, for some team members, it is their first time on missions.  Pray that we will be able to adapt to the unexpected.

Thank you all for your prayers thus far and stay tuned for more daily updates!