Peace Out!

This morning we joined in one final team devotion led by Ms. Connie on the Great Commission. Whether overseas or at home, we are grateful to everyone who has partnered with us in furthering our God’s kingdom.

After a quick breakfast, we all began prepping for our closing ceremony and memory verse competition. 

For singspiration, each class went up to rehearse their song and verse, with everyone else cheering on. 

After a five minute break we practiced all the verses one last time and began our competition. 

This year our top two came from Kindness class (Felicia and Jason) and our third place came from Grace class (Dylan). We had 99% finish station one, and about 14% memorize all 10 verses!

We had about 19-24 parents/grandparents attend the closing ceremony and are excited for the opportunities the local church has to connect with these families and welcome them to church.

Please continue praying with us for the local church in their continuing mission work with the surrounding community.

Please also be praying for our team as we all begin traveling back home this week!

Thank you again for all your love and support!

God is faithful! We are grateful! 

Until next year, PEACE OUT! 

Second to Last Day

Happy Thursday!

  This morning a verse that stood out from our devotional is from 1 Corinthians 3:6-7: "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. " This reminded us that we are planting the seeds and also watering the seeds, but we leave the rest in God's hands. Even though we do not see the kids change, we know that God is still working in them after we leave. We give it all to God.

For singspiration, all the classes performed on stage to practice for our Friday ending ceremony. The kids made us proud, as they sang really loud as they did their hand motions. They also did a good job reading the Bible verse because they needed to memorize them for tomorrow. Afterwards, we went back to the classroom and spent our last hour with our kids. We were able to practice our Bible verses and tell them some of our last words for them.

At the gym, we had a sports day, where the kids were able to learn about teamwork and encourage each other. We played 4 different games. In the first game, the kids used a ping pong ball, tried to throw it into a cup, and another student tried to catch the ball. They were racing against each other to see who did it the fastest. The second game we played was balloon volleyball. They tried to hit the balloon over the string net and tried to not let the balloon fall. The third game we played was telephone, where the students passed a number down a line by squeezing the hand of the person next to them. Lastly, the kids had to pass through the hula hoop the fastest. The kids ended the day with a cool refreshing drink.

We are super sad that tomorrow is our last day! We cannot believe that the two weeks are already here!!! We want to give all the glory to God as we let God continue to do His work after we leave.

We hope we can all pray that our student's parents and grandparents are able to come to church and watch God in their child's performance. We also pray that God continues to put His hands over these students' lives.

Lastly, we are very grateful to have worked with these awesome TAs. They have been an amazing addition to our team. Even though our Taiwan mission is coming to an end, our friendship with the TAs will continue. It was great to have such a big team to work with to do God's mission.

only two more days left ):

“Grace and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank [our] God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership [with us] in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that He who began a good work in [us] will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:2-6

God is good! All the time!

A little note from us to you:

We are grateful! Grateful for all the support, prayers, and encouragement we received during these past two weeks and even prior to the mission trip! We cannot even begin to convey how much your support means to us! We feel it! 

Thank you also to the local church, all the staff, TA’s and everyone involved in making these two weeks run smoothly. We will cherish the memories built with you, and please know you hold a very special place in our hearts! 

And to our students: We are blessed by you! We are so excited for Friday, getting to watch you all show what you have learned these past two weeks and perform your class song. It has been our honor to serve you, teach you, and get to know you! 

Finally, the One that made it all possible — GOD, thank YOU is not enough. Thank YOU!

Recap of the day:
Today our devotions was led by Mrs. Huang on Romans 7:13-25. For those that have attended TM in the past at any point, you probably remember how vital these morning gatherings are. It is a way for the entire team to wake up together, dive into scripture, and start off our day on His word and strength. For those of you who have never been to TM, join us next year and experience these blessed times!

Singspiration was led by Ms. Connie and Ms. Elene. We rehearsed the five songs each respective class will be singing, and Ms. Yumi taught our new verse for the day, 2 Corinthians 13:8.

A little explanation of why we start off camp each day with singspiration:

• This makes checking-in easier on the TA’s when everyone is congregated in the same place before splitting off into class 
• We get to burn off a little bit of energy so the students can sit through lessons, and it is a way to introduce them to music (some students prior to camp may not have much music contact)
• We are here first and foremost to share the gospel; and so using English as a bridge to welcome the students to camp — teaching English gospel songs with hand motions makes it kid friendly, active, and fun! 
• We also teach a memory verse each day, to share the gospel and let them know who Christ is and all the things He has done for them. It is also a way for us to work with them on their conversation and pronunciation. 

After singspiration/Memory verse, we went to our classes and taught our Bible Story on Moses and the 10 Commandments (Exodus 20-34:1-28)

Each teacher also teaches “English” whether it be simple vocabulary, or grammar structure, to conversation, based on each classes level. Our students can range from knowing only A, to knowing the entire alphabet, to basic vocabulary, to writing and speaking in full sentences. Thus, everyday each class has a different lesson plan. (If you are at all curious about TM, ask questions! Ask those that have joined in the past, or come join us next year to find out for yourself)

As we are beginning to pack some of our materials that will not be used the next two days, we are already looking forward to what God has in store for Puzi next year. But in the meantime, join us in prayer:

• Spiritual strength: it has been a battlefield! We hardly mention the negative things that happen during our day/week and we all try to stay as upbeat and positive as we can with a good attitude. But over the past week and a half, we have had students who were bullied, bullying another, or getting into fights. And it is not a testament to Christ. We see how parents are affected by the news that their kid got into a fight, or was bullied upon and it leaves them with a sour taste of Christianity. Pray for us as we continue on with His work these next few days, that our Lord would continue to protect and work in hearts! To grant us wisdom in dealing with situations like these, to have compassion and love when talking to the parents and the students. 
• Physical energy! We are tired! We are grateful the wether has been really nice, and not super hot draining us even more physically, but each day is filled with so much activity that we need our strength!

Until tomorrow, cheers (:

Tuesday :)

Morning: This morning we started off with morning devotions at 6:50 led by Mr. Ling. Our passage  was from Psalm 119:89-96 and our devotion was about God’s unchanging, powerful words. It was a great time to reflect and sing about God’s presence in our lives. 

Singspiration: Our singspiration was led by Connie and Yumi who led the handmotions on stage. During these past few days we have been inviting kids on stage so they can perform in front of others and prepare for their class performance on Friday. Many of the kids seem to enjoy being on stage and dragging their T.As with them. Our bible verse was led by Jocelyn from John 14:6 and the kids had a class competition to see who could read each verse the loudest.

Class: This day’s bible lesson was about Noah’s Ark and all the teachers planned activities and drawing books around this. Some classes also had craft time with beads and crosses. Most of the classes have been memorizing and practicing bible verses in their classes to prepare for the bible verse competition on Friday!

Home visits: Gentleness (Yumi), Faith (Jocelyn) and Grace (Elene) class had home visits in the late afternoon and it was a great time for them to see their students and to get to meet their parents! Praise God that Home visits have been very fruitful!

Pray: Please pray for the weather and that it will be pleasant for the remainder of our time here. Also please pray that our last 3 more days will be extremely fruitful and blessed and that our kids will not only have a great time but also really learn and remember something from this camp. 

Happy Monday

Monday

Hello again dear readers,

Thank you for tuning in to this week's blog post! Today was a great start to the beginning of a new week. First, we had singspiration in the gymnasium, led by Jocelyn and Judy. Then, we had the bible verse, led by Judy and had some people memorize the bible verse, which was 1 Corinthians 13:6. Then, we broke up into our individual classes and began our lessons. Today, our Bible lesson was about Joseph and his brothers, so after the teachers of each class taught the story, they did an activity related to the story. During the school day, some of the classes made a photo frame to go with a class picture, which will be handed to them on Friday. Friday will also be our last day with the kids :( and we will be combined at EFC Puzi for a closing ceremony, where each class will perform a song and memorize a bible verse.

Yumi's class (Gentleness)

One of Judy's (Angel class) photo frames

At the end of the day, we split up into two groups: the students that were going home waited at the front lot for their parents, while the students that were going to church walked back to church. Reflecting back on the day, it was pretty good compared to last Monday. Everything was more organized and the classes were all well-behaved. Praise God that we were able to have such a wonderful day today.

Prayer Requests:
- Weather: There is a typhoon called Typhoon Maria headed our way. Please pray that it will not affect the camp too much and that we will still be able to teach the kids.
- Lessons: Please pray that the rest of the week will go smoothly like today
- Please pray that all our members will be able to rest well and maintain their health so that we will be able to properly teach the kids

Praises:
- Today was a really good day, and currently, all the students that registered for the camp have come!
- We had three visitations today. Two with the same family and one with another family. We got to know a little bit more about the kids and connect with them
- The weather so far has been really nice. Even though it was quite hot today, for the past few days, it wasn't too hot and wasn't too cold

Fri-YAY

Happy Friday!

This morning our team started off with daily devotionals led by Elene, who reminded us that nothing just happen by coincidence, God has plans for all of us. 

After our team devotional and delicious breakfast, we headed back to school. We were very excited to get back to our classrooms and spend more time with our own kids. 

We started the singspiration lead by Judy and Yumi. We practiced 5 songs including the “Oh , the Love God has Shown Us”, which the kids will perform during this coming Sunday service. Although the kids are shy, when the songs come on, they are pretty engaged with the hand motions.  

Then Jocelyn taught the new Bible verse Psalm 103: 17 “But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting.” These kids are picking up the Bible memory verses quickly.

We then went to our individual classes and taught the story of Joshua and the Wall of Jericho. Some classes made crafts, while others already made the craft on previous days.

Prayer Request:

1.       Please be in prayer for all our health.
P     Please pray for this Sunday, Pastor Huang's sermon and for the kids who are performing, as well as the parents who will be coming to watch their kids perform to receive the message

2.       Please pray for a restful weekend and a successful and strong start of the second week.

3.       Please continue to be in prayer for students that we will be visiting and their families, that God can continue working and softening their hearts and make us the living testimony for these families.

Thank you all for your continual prayers, encouragement, and support.  

We will be taking a blog hiatus for the weekend and will return Monday (: More update to come then!

Day 4

We made it over the hump!

It was another day where we held camp at the church. Today, we woke up to a devotional from 1 Kings 3:4-14, where we learned that we need to have a humble, child-like heart and ask God for wisdom. We will not be able to do any of this without Him giving us strength. In our verse, Mrs. Huang pointed out how Solomon would talk a lot about David, his father, because he was a big influence on Solomon. We are able to influence the people around us and make a big impact on their lives as well.

For singspiration, we are starting to hear the kids sing-along with us, and remembering the hand motions. We are able to teach another new song to the kids, "Jesus I am In". Also, we learned a new Bible verse Psalm 119:43: "Never take your word of truth from my mouth." 

We also made stain glass for craft. Some students are able to trace a design that the teacher and TAs drew and some students were really creative with their own drawings. Some examples I saw were: panda, dinosaur, owl, bunny, and dog.

Our Bible story is next. We learned about Daniel and the Lions. The kids were understanding that Daniel was being faithful to God and continued to pray to God, even though he was breaking the law. Daniel was also not afraid to be taken into the lion's den because he knows that God will be able to protect Him.

The last activity for today, we did another science experiment. This time, we learned about the different density with oil, water, and food coloring. We were able to do an experiment called fireworks in a cup. Secretly, the team was celebrating fourth of July with everyone in the US. The students were able to see the beautiful food coloring falling from the oil into the water. The students were really engaged in the activity.

As we continue to work with the local TAs, we are able to serve these kids together as a team!  

Continue to pray for us. Pray that God gives us wisdom as we interact with the students. Pray for soften hearts of the students and parents because we will be having visitations tomorrow. 

Day 3

Today marks day 3 of camp and we are enjoying each moment!

Day 3 - 78 students, 8 TA’s, 5 Teachers, 5 Staff, 1 Cook, 

200+ supporters, all gathered because of GOD (:

The kids are warming up to us (most of them are already opening up to us as if we have been their friend for ages!) and we are loving their bubbly personalities!

We asked for volunteers and some 

brave ones jumped at the opportunity

These kids are pure energy and joy! Of course there are a few shy and quiet ones, but some of them come bursting with sunshine the moment they step foot onto campus and by the time they leave, they somehow have twice the energy than when the day started.

Our team started off our day bright and early at 6:50am with morning devotions led by Ms. Judy on Luke 23:32-43. We then proceeded with breakfast and headed into the sanctuary for singspiration.

This year’s theme song (courtesy of Jana Alayra) and verse is from 1 Peter 5:7 (sing-along with us here)

Courtesy of Jana Alayra

And then Ms. Connie led a hands-on activity using slime! Most of our kids here have never seen, played or heard of slime. They were quite excited to touch, poke and make a mess with the goo.

Slime Time

Post slime experiment, we made salvation bracelets and shared about Jesus dying on the cross to save us because He loves us so much! 

Black for sin, Red for Jesus’ Blood

White for Purity, Blue for acceptance/Baptism

Green for growth, Yellow for eternal life

We are encouraged that some of our kids from previous years, remember the story and can tell it back to us! We are honored to have this opportunity to share about Christ and are touched that they remember!

Tuesday 😀

Tuesday, July 3

   Devotions: We started the day with morning devotions at 5:50 led by Mrs. Hwang. We sang the song Change my Heart, Oh Lord with all the T.As and read from the bible verse 1 John 2:24-29. It was a great time for reflection and contemplating about God’s presence in our lives.

   Singspiration time: Connie led the singing and dancing accompanied by Yumi helping on the side. Judy was in charge of introducing this day’s bible verse from Psalms 26:3. We also reviewed yesterday’s bible verse with all the kids. This day’s theme was Joy and the teachers taught about the story of Jesus’ birth in their classes.

   Class: In addition to learning our ABCs reviewing bible lessons and verses,  today was also the first day we got to do crafts! Angel class (Judy) and gentleness class (Yumi) made bead animal crafts (put beads on a template and iron) and the kids had a great time. While Faith (Jocelyn), Grace (Elene), and Kindness (Connie) made bead animals with string.

  Home visits/Family Visitations: Today was also the first day of home visits. Elene and her T.As visited two students at night and Yumi, the T.A and Mrs. Hwang also went to visit a student. This was a blessed time to visit students, see their home environment and get to meet parents!

Fun: There was an earthquake today at 3AM and that was very surprising!
        The pastor brought us stinky tofu for our late night snack 👍

Pray: please pray for the weather tomorrow and that it will be clear/good for all our activities. It started raining very hard tonight,
         Please also pray for all the teachers and our classes tomorrrow and that the students not only have a good time but also experience God’s love.

Manic Monday

Day 3

Hello dear reader,

Happy Monday! Taiwan Mission officially started today, and we finally got to meet the kids! To start off the day, Elder Ling led us in devotionals at 6:50 am, where we were reminded to surrender ourselves to God, be truthful, and show our sincerity. This was a great way to prepare our hearts for the day ahead of us, as well as the next two weeks. After devotionals, we had breakfast and got to bond with our TAs a little bit before diving into our teaching. Around 7:45am, it started sprinkling, so most teachers, TAs, and staff members drove to the school. Once we got there, it started pouring, but it was okay because we were all gathered in the auditorium. One by one, the children started arriving at the camp, and once they found a seat, we handed them the dreaded placement test. Luckily, most were willing to try their best and fill it out (praise God!!), and so for the most part, we were able to accurately place them in the correct class.

After the placement test, Connie and Elene led a wonderful singspiration, with new songs and new hand motions for the kids to learn. Even though some things did not go as expected, we were able to find a way to fix the problems we had today, so hopefully, tomorrow will be better. Since it was the first day of class, things were a bit hectic, especially because we had to be out of the auditorium by 9:30am and also because it was raining. Thankfully, God had a plan in mind and we were able to pull everything off successfully.

During class time, the five teachers, Judy (Angel), Jocelyn (Faith), Yumi (Gentleness), Elene (Grace), and Connie (Kindness), all introduced themselves to the class and had a few activities to get to know their students better. We also taught John 3:16, our first bible verse of the week, to the kids to help them get acquainted with God.

After class, everyone headed back to the main entrance to either be picked up or to line up and head back to church for lunch and additional classes. For lunch, we had a very delicious meal consisting of chewy pao mian noodles that was seasoned very well, chewy fish cakes, crunchy bean sprouts, warm rice, sweet and sour pork and cool, refreshing mung bean soup. After lunch, the teachers and the TAs went to the meeting room for the daily debrief, where we were able to review what went right and what went wrong for the day and create solutions for potential problems that we might have tomorrow. We also went over the people we are having family visitations with. So far, we have 19 visitations that will happen throughout the next two weeks! Then, we started planning for tomorrow's lesson, went to dinner, rehearsed for tomorrow's worship, continued our lesson planning, and then went to sleep around 11:00pm.

Today, there were a lot of things to be thankful for. Firstly, we had 69 out of 80 kids that signed up show up which was an amazing turnout! Next, the rainfall was rough, but many of the kids were prepared and had their own umbrellas, which made the transportation from school to church more smoothly after school. In addition, we survived an earthquake! Just kidding, it was just a small shake :) Lastly, the AC has been working amazingly, to the point where sometimes, it's even too cold! Is that even a thing in Taiwan?

As we continue on this first week, here are some prayer requests we have:

- Preparations: Two of our classes, Faith and Gentleness, have a wide range of students with multiple English skill levels, so the kids were a bit wild, making it hard for the teachers and TAs to teach them. Please pray that these two classes will be prepared to reach out to these kids and let them know about God's word. In addition, please also pray for our other classes, Angel, Grace, and Kindness, that everything will go smoothly and that all the kids will be prepared to receive God into their hearts these next two weeks.
- Rest: Please pray that we will be able to get a good night's sleep every night so that we will be properly energized to serve God through this mission trip by not only teaching but also and playing with the kids and getting to know their families.
- Weather: Recently, we've been experiencing a lot of rain. Please pray that the rain won't cause a huge problem for the staff, the kids, and the teachers.

Please enjoy this short clip of what the auditorium looks like:

Thank you for taking your time to read this post and for supporting us during this trip! We couldn't have accomplished everything we have already done without your prayers and support :) 

Sabbath

Official update will come tomorrow (: 

Happy Sunday y’all! Jesus is Risen! 

Praises:

-all our members have arrived safely!

-it rains at night, keeping us relatively cool during the day!

Keeping it short for the weekend (:

Good morning from Puzi, Chiayi, in Taiwan!

7 out of 8 arrived today at the local church, and we are getting acquainted with our TA’s and the church staff. The mosquitoes gave us a warm welcome the moment we arrived and we are itching to settle in for the upcoming two weeks!

For now, please keep our team in your prayers:

The team (Pastor Huang, Elder Ling, Mrs. Huang, Connie, Elene, Jocelyn, Judy, Yumi) -

• Spiritual health: for each individual to stand firmly in His truth
• Physical health: that God would grant us His energy and strength
• Our bonding: for us to be understanding and patient with each other, as we work together and get to know each other 

The Mission field:

• TA’s we will be working with: may each of our interaction be glorifying to Christ as we support and encourage the believers and be good witnesses to those who don’t know Christ yet
• Students: may they feel loved, cared for and seen! Whatever stories they are coming from, may these two weeks show them that there is a Great, Big God that loves them and is here for them
• Local church staff: may our team be their support and help them bridge with the community, helping them serve and witness as they continue on with their long term mission
• Community: may their hearts be softened and willing to receive God’s word

And pray for YOU:

Our team of 8 is here in on the action, but without you, we couldn’t possibly even step into the field. It takes a village, and you are our village. This is a partnership, and as much as we need prayer, you are our support, encouragement, backbone, and cheerleader. You are part of this mission too. So please also be in prayer over your own spiritual lives! May God also work within you at your mission field (whether it’s at home, work, school, or global) giving you the courage to witness to loved ones/colleagues/friends. And to open your eyes to the things He wants you to see and do. 

We are praying for you too!

God be with us. God with us.