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TW Video

Update: Here is the video which we showed at the Credo Sharing Night. It summarises what the team got up to while we were in Taiwan.

Thanks and keep praying for Taiwan!

In Christ,

Jono Lee

#Credo #Video #Sharing Night

2 months later...

Things we have done in the past two months since getting back from Taiwan:

- Gone back to uni (two days after coming back), busy busy!

- Visited the Sydney Taiwan Prayer Group in Strathfield, where we shared about what we learnt and were very encouraged

- Been thinking about what we've learnt and how we've changed

- Shared at our churches

- Answered the same question hundreds of times: "How was Taiwan!?"

Two big things left to do:

- Share at Credo! All gladly welcome, 29/9 7.30 UTS. Click here for event.

- Thank YOU

God has answered a massive list of our prayers, and we know that hundreds of people have been praying for us and supporting us financially. We are so joyful that you could partner with us, and this trip has helped all of us grow in our walk with Christ. We have learnt so much about God and His mission.

For more info, speak to your nearest Taiwan team member ;)

In Christ,

Liz Fong

Blessed be your name... where your streams of abundance flow

Well today's stream was more of a river, and it was certainly abundant in rocks and rapids! Our first day of debrief contained a much longer than expected river hike, containing much climbing over sharp rocks, going down rapids on our rather sore bums, among other dangerous challenges. At the suggestion by one of the international short term missionaries, that this sort of challenge should have been our orientation training - I (Adam) commented that maybe OMF was worried that we would die before we got a chance to do mission, maybe I'm the only one who got bruised up!

This morning though, we had a good chance to reflect on our time here. We got huge pieces of butcher's paper and wrote and drew pictures all over it to reflect on some of the funny moments, the struggles, the conflicts, the resolutions, and how God has worked in our time here, as well as thinking about what happens when we return to Australia. We had a chance in the evening to present to the international team, (the other short term team here in Taiwan), what we had been up to in the 3 and a bit weeks since we had seen them.

They shared about their time working in areas of Taipei suffering with prostitution, poverty and gambling. It was interesting to see how different their experiences had been to ours, even within the same country, and the different ways they had done ministry, yet in many ways we still see God working in similar ways. They had also done kids' camps, park outreaches, and it's been good in our time here to pick up on ministry ideas that I can see myself using in Australia.

So a good day in all. Currently we are practicing for song-leading tomorrow morning, and it's been a great time for me singing to God, reading his word and praying to him with Christians on our team, the international team, the missionaries here, and the local Christians. A great encouragement, and I pray that God will use that to cause us to delight in him and his word more and more as we return to Australia.

Please pray for us during debrief as well! It feels a bit strange to think that we have been here for 4 weeks and that our time here is nearly over, and we have to think about uni and work and church and friends and life at home. Thanks for praying through our time here and keeping up with us. God has blessed us with many challenges here, so it's been a time where we have all learned much. Praise God for his work here, and in all of us. He works in our weakness, to glorify himself and all because of what he has done in Jesus death and resurrection. Thank him and praise him.

Amen.

Adam.

Feelings? What is this?

At least that's how some of the boys see the mixed feelings of joy, sadness and relief that are breaking out. The last two days have been full of their ups and downs.

Stalling the van and having to jump out and push it up the ramp as we attempted to leave the night markets was a definite up for the boys. While cleaning the entire gospel centre was a definite downer for Liz, Lachlan and I as we had to clean the bathrooms.

But on a more serious note Kirsten had an accident on Saturday and injured her foot while she was reversing on her scooter. Please pray for her that God would heal her quickly so that she is able to concentrate on her ministry to the Taiwanese people. What was encouraging about this whole incident was the fact that Angela stepped in for Kirsten's kids ministry when Kirsten had to go to hospital. Praise God for Angela's willingness to take on something she doesn't usually do.

Saturday was also the last day of VBS which went well but not in the way we intended. While it was great to sing and play with the kids, we were expecting and praying that many parents would come and join us. Only two came and stayed. Unfortunately the few parents who wanted to come had work, others were either disinterested, busy or unaware due to their children's reluctance to tell them. One of the kids told us that he did not want his parents to come. This reveals the sad state of many families in Taiwan. Just consider, in Australia most parents would come and support their kids on the last day of a kids club if asked.

Devotion yesterday was also a high for me. It was refreshing to be reminded how awesome our God is. That he is all powerful, gracious and loving and that he is sovereign in salvation. That he will bring to completion the good work He has begun in us and in the kids at VBS. It reminded me that although only two parents joined us for the last day of VBS that our labour for the Lord has not been in vain. Although we were not able to reach a lot of parents directly we have been able to make an impact for good in this community. As a result many parents no longer view the Gibson's (missionary family) as weird, but are beginning to see that they care for the community. Pray that the Gibson's will be able to visit and tell of God's love to the families within this community through the contacts that have been made as a result of VBS.

Lastly yesterday afternoon was a big high at the park carnival. The atmosphere was great. Many families came. We estimate that there was over 200 people there, many of whom had great chats with the missionaries. God was clearly working at this carnival.

Our time doing mission is now over. Today we begin debrief. Please pray that our debrief time will help us to learn from our experience here in Taiwan.

David

Busted by the Po-po!

…well some of us did. Some of us got done for flyering for Sunday's Park Carnival in the night market. Apparently you are not allowed to hand out advertisements, even at its entrances. But we were allowed to continue to do so nearby outside the venue.

Anyway, this morning everyone seemed a little more awake and chirpy, it might of had to do with that we were not having breakfast in the OMF centre where we live, but in a shop. And of all things, we were surprised to find spaghetti on the menu after living on an asian-food-only diet of over 3 weeks! Some of us got curious of a meal listed on the english version of the menu as 'vegetables and fruit' (don't worry mums, even us boys are eating healthy…ish). It turned out to be this..

It's day 3 of VBS, and even though we saw dark clouds in the distance when we were getting ready to head out to Zhongpu, God blessed us with 37 kids rocking up for today's program and sunny weather! It's amazing how numbers have grown each day as more kids turn up, just from word of mouth :) It is really encouraging that the kids already start turning up at 2pm when we just get to the community hall to setup (VBS starts at 4pm) and that they are now really getting into the songs that we've been teaching them, even the older kids who were a bit too-cool-for-school to begin with about singing. I've realised we've had three days of VBS, but you haven't seen any pictures yet! So without further ado,

singing,

storytelling,

vocabulary,

craft...

…and today we had all three year groups do games together because…we had water games!

There was an assortment of water projectile toys, buckets, sponges...and we used around 250 water bombs! After a few organised games, the inevitable water fight came about.

And do you remember Jono's red neck from Sunday? Here's how it is now

~Ell

VBS Day Two!

Second day of VBS today. It was an awesome day. 10 new kids came along! Praise God!

We arrived about an hour early at the neighborhood centre where the program is run to set up and get prepared. Within about 10 minutes, we were inundated with kids from the program who had turned up early, keen to play games with us. It was not only a great time to build relationships with the kids but it was a really great encouragement to the team that the kids had enjoyed the first day so much that they came early today to spend more time with us!

Today was definitely a day of highlights! The oldest age group were much more enthusiastic after we changed a few things in their program in the hope of getting them to be a bit more interactive after a difficult first day with that age group.

Another huge highlight was when Jono and Candice (a new short termer who arrived in Chiayi today from Singapore) had the chance to share part of the Gospel with Bear, a boy who came today for the first time. The opportunity presented itself when Bear was listening to the story of Zacchaeus and Jesus was first mentioned. Bear exclaimed “but Jesus is dead”. Jono and Candice then explained to him that Jesus is not dead, but rose again on the third day. Bear then asked if Matsu (the god of the sea in Chinese folk religion) was a real god, to which they both replied no. Bear questioned them as to whether there was only one “Creator God” and they explained that there was. HUGE PRAISE AND PRAYER POINT!

At the end of the day, the team performed our “You are Special” skit again. The kids watched intently and it was great to see that they did understand the story, evident by the way they exclaimed, “It is Jesus!” when the “King” walked onto the stage.

Praise God that He is so obviously working in these kids. Pray that He would continue to work in them over the next few days. Pray that after the VGM camp is over, the long-term missionaries here would be able to follow up these kids and continue to share the Gospel with them.

Although it was a great day, many of the team are feeling quite stressed, preparing things for the final day of VBS tomorrow and the follow up event the next day. We are also feeling quite tired, entering into our last week here in Taiwan. Pray that God would refresh us each day and energize us to do His work.

- Liz

VBS Day One!

Today was the first day of the Village Bible School (VBS) in Zhongpu (中埔) and it went really, really well! Twenty-seven kids rocked up despite the heavy rain and had heaps of fun doing different activities. Registration in itself was an entertaining exercise. We got to give two boys English names because they didn't have one: Kyle and Jet. Yes, Jet. Jet came late so his name-giver is a mystery. I am determined to find out who he/she is.

The kids were split up into three different groups according to their school year and rotated around four different stations: storytelling, vocabulary, craft and games. Most of the team were split up and helped run different stations. It was interesting to see how different groups responded to the different activities. Being the first day, they were all a little bit shy to start off with but as the two hours wore on they became the most wild and close to uncontrollable kids imaginable. Just ask Elliot, who, at the end of the day, was swarmed by an army of them into the corner of the room, was endlessly jumped on, kicked, punched and poked... all in good fun of course!

I had the privilege to be the group leader of the Year 4 - 6 kids. They were the largest group of the three and had the rowdiest members (as expected). A highlight for me would have to be during the storytelling station where Adam and Janna took us through a story called "You Are Special" by Max Lucado. The take home message of the story is that we are special in the eyes of our creator regardless of what abilities and talents we might or might not have. This is the very short exchange (which was in Chinese) between Janna and one of the kids named Mark:

Janna: So have there ever been times where you have felt sad because you thought that you weren't talented or good at anything?

Mark: No, not at all!

Janna: Really? So you must be really great at a lot of things!

Mark: No, this isn't the case either! But I think that everyone has their own special gifts and abilities.

For me, to hear such a profoundly simple yet wise response from a boy in Year 5 was quite incredible and personally challenging. God has reminded me today of his unconditional love and also of his goodness in creating each of us so uniquely (Psalm 139:14-15).

Overall it was a very positive experience for the team today. The kids are awesome and we can expect more to turn up over the next few days given clearer weather and news getting around Zhongpu by word-of-mouth that VBS is happening. Stay tuned for more exciting updates!

Thank you to everyone who have been praying for us and for following us through this blog. The comments left have been very encouraging for the entire team as well! So please continue to do all these things all for His sake.

~ jono.

#zhongpu #english #storytelling #you are special #village bible school #jet

A Sabbath Rest + A Day in the Life of a Missionary

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. (Gen 2:2-3 NIV)

God rested on the seventh day, and gave it to us as a gift, that we too might rest, enjoy Him, and enjoy His creation, just as he designed us too. Yesterday was our opportunity to rest.

For most uni students, a day off = stay up ultra late then sleep in. True to form, most of the team (including yours truly, trying to relive his uni days) stayed in bed till after 12. Breakfast was 1:30pm, however it was still hard to get much out of Adam, because it was "too early in the morning" for that kind of deep conversation.

Half the team were treated to a wonderful Japanese dinner by Jono's relos (Four generations of the Lee family), whilst the other half went to see HP7p2. Hmm, did we really come all the way to Taiwan to have Japanese food and see international movies? ;) We praise God for his provision of rest and relaxation.

It was a well needed rest, although it may have upset ppls sleep patterns. That or the earthquake we experienced (dont worry it was only a cat 3.something, only the Liz's felt it). Today was a little struggle as we settled into our last program for the trip, started off by a super solid devotion from Phil 4. I really enjoy our daily team devotions, they are one of my highlights of the trip, getting to sink my teeth into God's world with seven other dedicated brothers and sisters each morning before we set about our work.

The morning activity was hanging out with the local missionaries in groups of two. Some got to hang out at the local market, others got to view the area they work in, all got to learn from the missionaries, inc why and how God brought them to Taiwan. It was a priceless experience, something, well, you don't get to do back home - I mean, you can always meet a missionary, there are always some on home assignment, but getting to see them and know them on their "home" turf, that's something special, something i have had the opportunity to do a few times now, and each time I am powerfully reminded of God's faithfulness.

In the arvo we started prep-ing out next activity - VBS (Village Bible School), which we will be running in the nearby village of Zhongpu for the next three days. Stay tuned for lots of updates.

We really appreciate your prayers, we can do nothing here without all of you interceeding for us. Please continue to do so, especially in the following matters:

For Adam as he is not feeling very well atm

For the other team members who are quite tired or just nor 100%

For the VBS program, both for the team and all the other missionaries running it

For the whole team, as they reflect on what they have learnt/experienced recently, especially hanging out with individual missionaries today.

~Lachlan

Non-English-speaking church + house church in a park + "Wedding Banquet Restuaurant" = Sunday.

Da jia hao :) (Hello everybody, literally "big house good")

So today we woke up "early" - I refuse to forego the quotation marks, we only had to leave the gospel centre at 9am - to experience local church. Half the team went to a Mandarin service, half to Taiwanese.

I ended up at the Taiwanese "Evangel Presbyterian" service. In a sense we felt we knew how the service was running; a very helpful order of service was handed to us with music notes for songs, the sermon in bold, and the bible verses (we guessed which books, we had no idea until the long-term missionaries translated for us) used numbers. The church had a robed choir, which is apparently quite usual for services here. The preacher was a guest speaker. It was strange only knowing the main points of the sermon (on Psalm 46, topic: God is our Helper) which were translated for us. Definitely less hectic than two Sundays ago with church in 3 languages…

Then we walked/bicycled/scootered over to the park we had the carnival yesterday. (Wow it feels a lot further than just a day ago..)

"What is house church?" I hear you say.. Glad you asked :D Well today it meant praising God in word, then in song, reading about and discussing the Last Supper (Mark 14:22-26), plus communion with turkey rice and soup. We learnt a new Chinese song (well… kind of. I forget some of the words..) In English it's "Jesus loves me, I love you too, it's that simple."

Ooh, and only a few hours ago we went to dinner with a couple of musicians - one's a Christian, he invited us after the park carnival.. We ate at "Wedding Banquet Restaurant." (Where they sometimes perform; the boss of the restaurant is their drummer.) EVERYTHING was pink. Including watermelon juice. Delicious. The rest of the food wasn't pink, but it was even more delicious. Pineapple prawn. Scallops. Pineapple juice. Bbq pork rib. Squid. Tofu stuff. Creamy salad. Red bean ice stuff. Yum yum yum yum yum. The vocalist sang "You raise me up." Amazing. The guy who had invited us - who plays the piano by ear - told us his testimony. God has provided for him, and although it sounds like he is the only Christian in his band, the vocalist will remind him to pray before every performance if he forgets!

So another great day of seeing God at work in Taiwan.

By the way, it's been really encouraging to get feedback about how things are in Australia, with credo's mid year evangelism stuff, random emails and skypings. We need to pray for God's work in Australia more often, for sure.

With love,

Steph

PS: There's a new word that needs to be added to the dictionary.. Fonged (one syllable, rhymes with sponged): Facebook hacked/ email hacked / generally owned. Named after Elizabeth Fong, who seems to be especially good at "Fonge-ing" all the other dumplings. Especially those who forget to log out of various internet accounts.

Great is his majesty

So as we yell and over act How Great Is Our God at the top of our lungs it brings us to the end of another day on Taiwan mission. I think the joy and fun of singing together helps us to get through the tiredness and expel some of the sillyness we are maybe feeling. It's been an exhausting week prayer walking in the hot sun in the markets and many of us (yes even the asians) are suffering from a bit of sun burn - well maybe it's just Jono who squeals when tapped on the shoulder.

But it's a good time for us. Today we had the Park Carnival - the outreach event we have been working towards all week - and I think the success that God blessed us with today has really put us on a bit of a high =].

Tomorrow we have a chance to experience the local churches as well as church in the park - so we are really interested to find out what church is like over here. But let me give a bit of a recap of the past two days:

Friday we finished announcing and giving out invitations to the Park Carnival by walking through the markets with loud speakers in a kind of a procession. It was much better on the Friday than it had been the day before because we had much more of a response to the announcements. It's really interesting to see the reception of people - in Sydney, people avoid 'leaflet-ers' like the plague (hey I do it too) - but here people are so open and curious, some of them stopping us on the street to ask for leaflets. Hey maybe it's just cause I'm white and they're like what the heck...? who knows =P.

Friday arvo we were feeling the pressure in preparing for the carnival as well as cooking for youth group. We were tired from being in the sun, but praise God because by Friday night we were all ready to go for both the carnival and youth group =] Woo =].

We got to practice our skit in front of the youth kids which was met by some unintended lols at my wardrobe failure but was really good to practice to an audience and calmed our nerves for the actual performance. The skit was crazy because it was all in Chinese narration - when we uh... don't speak chinese! So we just had to professionally wing it!

Youth Group was great though - they had a good turn out (more than 6 kids) - and it was good to eat and hang with the kids. They didn't do a study though which was a bit of a bummer, but thanks to God for bringing the kids there, many of whom came to the park carnival also!

The Carnival today (Saturday) was a great success! We spent the morning praying pleaaaaaaaaaase God, make it stop raining. And God blessed us today by stopping the rain just as we arrived at the park until we had just finished packing afterward, which was awesomesauce. The activities were great and the Chinese speaking helpers were super awesome. It all came together really well. But the best bit is that the gospel was spoken. The full time missionaries had a great chance to talk to the parents of the kids, and Kerstin, one of the missionaries, shared a short explanation of the skit that we performed, about how God's love is not dependant on our goodness, but is unconditional. The other awesome thing is that I was on the photobooth stall where we took photographs of people at the carnival and they chose a bible verse to attach to it. This is a sample =]

The great thing is that we recorded all the people's names, addresses and phone numbers to deliver the photographs, which is a massive opportunity for the gospel to be explained - what does the verse mean and why would we come from all over the world to put on a carnival in a working class area of Taiwan.

So please pray that those conversations will be clear and fruitful.

Also pray for our sanity haha! We have about one week of mission work left before debrief begins and I know that some of us are missing home, feeling sick and/or tired, and beginning to think each other are a bit nuts =P. So please keep praying that we would rely on God's strength and not ourselves, and most importantly that we would bring glory to God by serving him faithfully.

Miss you guys and thank you sooooooo much for praying for us!

In Christ, Adam.

Prayer walking which involved more sitting than walking

Steph, Liz M, Lachlan and Liz F went prayer walking with Kerstin down 'Orchard Street', a street where she has been prayer walking for the last five years. This is the street where she meets people, gets invested into their lives and shares bible stories with them.

We got to meet some people she has been praying for and meeting with for a long time.

Here they are, under four handy headings.

1. The woman who was a hairdresser!!

She was a hairdresser. This meant that she did things such as cut hair and washing hair, etc.

One thing we noticed was how glad and happy they were to see Kerstin. She was a devout Buddhist but her brother is a devout Christian. Please pray for her and her relationship with Kerstin!!

2. The woman who owned a 'barber shop'.... (aka Brothel)

She and Kerstin met when Kerstin handed out Christmas cookies four years ago. Kerstin meets up with her and tells her Bible stories. Today she invited us into the front of the shop for tea, burning hot towels and water bottles!

The woman who owned the Brothel was 62. The 'workers' in the shop were women who looked quite old too. Kerstin told me this is common, many of the women will have husbands, families, maybe even grand children.

While we were there, Kerstin got to share the Prodigal Son parable (in Taiwanese) which was really cool to see. After the story the woman asked us straight away about Australia, she probably wasn't that impacted by the story, despite having five sons.

Then she said that she'd love to have us all for beef noodle soup the next day - her cooking for the whole team!! We politely said "no thanks, we have other plans," but her hospitality to us four strangers she'd met 20 minutes ago was challenging. In a good way.

Please pray for her!!!!

3. Retired couple who were retired!!!

Steph noticed that they had red dot stickers on everything. She asked why, they said it was for good luck from Chinese New Year and also that it 'just looked nice'. (It did look pretty nice).

They were the 'well-off' working class which we had heard about at ETC. They had many artworks and Chinese sculptures in their living room, and they had travelled around Asia a lot for tourism.

The husband made amazingly delicious tea. When Lachlan asked how to say that the tea was delicate, Kerstin translated as 'tastes good.' Lol. Whether we drank the amazing tea or not, he kept filling up our cups.

Out of all the people we spent time with, we learnt the least about their religious beliefs. They were more similar to Western couples where people don't really talk about that sort of stuff in general conversation.

4. Master idol carver man

Elliot already blogged a bit about him, but there's more!!

Kerstin told us in his shop that she has had the idea that his store would make a great place for a house church! However, in her words, 'he doesn't know that yet', haha.

She said that she'd shared the gospel clearly before with him, but he said something vague about it 'being a similar story to his other gods'. It's hard for Kerstin to meet up with him regularly as she is a single woman and he is a single guy, she has to wait for company before she can sit down with him for long periods of time.

Mr. Su's mother and sister are Christians, however the church they belong to does not teach the Bible accurately. This, however, has meant that Mr. Su has questions for Kerstin about Christianity.

Please pray for him and his family!!!!!

By Liz Fong & Steph

P.S. Also pray for Kerstin!! She is a Godly woman who has worked patiently and faithfully for many years. It has been a great encouragement and blessing to spend time with her and we are so thankful to God for how he has been using her.

What do you mean we don't have a Makita power drill? Sooo...any chance we can find out if this is level?

The days are counting down towards the Park Carnival (this Saturday) preparation is going well and Steph…well Steph is still counting green beans :P Steph has counted one by one, somewhere above the 8000 mark last time I dared to ask. Thankfully she is past half way. This is going to be one of the activities happening on Saturday. The participant who guesses the closest to the exact amount of green beans wins a prize! (once we find a jar to fit them all in..)

Below you can see that Lachlan and Adam are hard at work carving up some plywood to make a lion for tossing bean bags down its throat.

Working on the lion has made me appreciate the fact that pretty much any Aussie bloke will have his garage full of all the tools you need to make just about anything on this scale. Here, in Taiwan, we were calling on contacts and friends to see if they had any equipment to borrow, scrounging around the OMF centre for some glue or a hammer, getting the guys at the wood shop to help cut our ply sheet and timber strips to size on their homemade circular saw bench (one of the more dangerously scary, but nonetheless impressive feats I've seen).They were also wearing safety sandals...So far we are doing okay without a jigsaw and spirit-level. Here's to hoping we can borrow a power drill tomorrow. Oooh for the want of a nail gun!

Today we spent some time roaming the streets observing all around us asking God to highlight things to our notice so that we could pray for the people around us.

Every face I saw, I could see no sign of happiness. These people, all they ever have on their minds is money, can they ever have enough of it, can they make some more of it (sounds like another country, one that I live in). In many cases they work long hours every day.

I see charms everywhere, lying on the dashboard of a car, hanging off the rearview mirror, jangling in the doorway of shops, flapping in the wind as a scooter goes by as it dangles off the handlebar. There are red signs for good health, fortune and wealth plastered on the door frames and walls on the shops. All these bits of paper, in the hope of safety and getting rich.

We also got to meet an Idol Craftsman (wooden). I hear he's the best in town.

It takes him about 6 months to finish 3 of these working at the same time. So the process goes that first the block of wood gets carved into shape then a cavity is made in the back where precious stones are placed. Then a ritual/ceremony of some sort is performed to pull the essence of a "god" into the chunk of wood to make it an idol. We also got to meet his brother who was working on maintenance at a near by temple. He works with clay/cement.

It saddens me by just watching their futility in thinking that some decorated bits of paper, stone and bits of wood, no matter how intrinsically made, can have power in any way, shape or form. That something dug out of the earth or cut down by man, fashioned and dressed by man, has the supernatural ability to affect man and "gods"?

I pray that God will reveal his truth to these people, that they can have the Joy knowing the one and only true Lord and Creator of the universe, and realising that the relationship so personally close and that everything pales in comparison. God who cannot be captured (or even his likeness) by a useless lump of stone or wood, substances of this world which wear away and constantly need repair. He is almighty and loving, he doesn't need to be goaded or bargained with! He is all powerful that aside from sustaining all of Creation so that the universe keeps on running and the earth keeps spinning, he has time to look after and teach me, and gives my every breath!

Please pray that we would be envious for God's glory and be passionate for the lost. That we would be humble and that God would work mightily.

Kerstin, one of the missionaries, has hopes, that his place/shop may one day become a house church, as she continues to share the gospel with him. He is quite influential in the area, and if he trusts in Christ and calls him Lord, Kerstin also hopes many men will follow.

As time goes by, one painfully obvious change is occurring…our chinglish is getting worse and worse. We've had to take some measures to keep our sanity in check. The following are some of the shots of what we found interesting or amusing in Chiayi

Harry Potter-esque?

...if that really is the motto of the po-po...

a bear on the mona lisa...honestly...

We saw this in a restaurant that we had dessert at. It was literally all over the walls of the 2nd floor of the shop. Exhibit A of the after effects of cram schooling

...so we added our mark to the walls as well...

I woke up from a siesta and saw this (o.0!)

~Ell

#park carnival #chia yi

Chia Yi Times

Praise God for two days of rest and relaxation after an intense week on the VGM camp. We had our first two days in Chiayi catching up on some sleep and exploring the area. We had the opportunity to hang out with many of the missionaries here, getting to know them a little. We even got to enjoy a great cultural experience of visiting the night markets. Please pray that we will continue to get good rest as many team members are still tired and sick from last week.

Today we were introduced to the work we will be doing this week. Preparations for a Park Carnival on Saturday! The Park Carnival will be held in the centre of a market area where many kids hang out while their parents work in the market. We are working on many activities to entertain the kids including crafts, animal balloons, hair wrapping, bubbles, a photo booth as well as a skit called “Just the way you are” by Max Lucado which we will be performing at the Park Carnival.

Our preparations have been a great way for us to get back into God’s work over here. We are just praying that we get through everything we have to do before Saturday and that we complete everything to the best of our ability.

Something that we would really appreciate prayer for is the weather on Saturday. It has been quite stormy and apparently more bad weather is on the way. They have had to cancel the park carnival in previously due to bad weather but we really don’t want that to happen this year so PLEASE BE PRAYING FOR GOOD WEATHER ON SATURDAY SO THE PARK CARNIVAL CAN GO AHEAD.

We are so blessed to be able to experience another type of ministry that God’s faithful servants are running over here in Taiwan. Let us continue to pray that it will be a great experience for all the people who come along to the carnival that they may consider the message they hear. Also pray that it will be another great learning experience for us as the VGM camp certainly proved to be.

~ Liz

#chia yi #missionaries #park carnival #skit #weather

Our Bible Overview/Gospel Presentation

In his last blog Jono highlighted the privilege God gave us to give a Bible overview/Gospel presentation to the VGM kids on Saturday. For all those wondering what this looked like the following will give you an idea. We used sheets of cardboard and added pictures to them as Angela spoke in Chinese. This helped us present the Bible in story form to fit with the aural culture in Taiwan. Note the following is a summary of what was said.

Creation

Before the world began, there was one holy, eternal God. The Bible says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." He created the air we breathe, the land we live on and the sea we swim in. And within these places he created every creature you can imagine. Big and small, God created them all! Then God created men and women in 'His own image' and put them in a beautiful Garden. The man's name was Adam and the woman's name was Eve. He told them to 'be fruitful' and populate the entire world. The world was perfect. God and Man's relationship was perfect.

Broken

In the garden God gave Adam and Eve freedom to make their own choices. They could choose to follow God and live forever in His wonderful presence OR they could disobey God which leads to death, both physically and in their relationship with God.

One day, Adam and Eve were tempted to disobey God. They were told they could be as smart as God. They were told that disobeying God would not result in death, and they believed it. They chose not to listen to God and follow His commands. As a result Adam's and Eve's relationship with God was broken, they were forced to leave the Garden and could no longer walk in close relationship with the Holy God. And this affected their descendants who grew further and further from God. Now there was pain, anger, selfishness, fighting and death. This made God angry and very sad.

However because God still loved His creation, He had a plan to save it and restore life to a broken world.

Promise

Many generations later, God started His plan to redeem the world by choosing a man named Abraham. God spoke directly to Abraham, told Him to leave his home country and made an amazing promise to Abraham. God told him, "I'm going to make you a great Nation! I will bless you and all the peoples of the world will be blessed through you!"

Not only was God going to bless Abraham, he was also going to bless all nations through Abraham's family. Abraham trusted God, left his country and followed God's leading. As a result God began to grow his family until it was big. But how would this family bless all the people of the world?

Grace

After hundreds of years of waiting, God kept his promise and spoke to one of Abraham's descendants, a young jewish girl named Mary. He told her she would become pregnant by God's Holy Spirit and have a baby. He would be called God's Son and was to be called Jesus.

Jesus grew up and began to preach about God's Kingdom. He made the lame walk, caused the blind to see, cast out demons and even brought the dead back to life. He taught with great authority, telling people to repent and turn back to God. He claimed to have the power to forgive them for their sins. He told his followers he must die and rise again, for this was the will of his father in heaven. Many Jews did not believe him and wanted to kill him because he claimed to be from God. So they took Jesus, a perfect man, God's son, and crucified Jesus on a cross. After Jesus was dead they took his body and put it in a tomb.

Was God's plan destroyed? Was God's Son really dead? What about God's promise to bless the world through Abraham's Family?

After three days, some women came to the tomb. To their great surprise an Angel spoke to them, "Why are you searching for a living man among the dead? Jesus is not here! He has risen from the dead!" They were in shock. His disciples couldn't believe it! But when Jesus appeared to them and showed them his scars, they believed. Jesus had risen from the dead as he said he would! Jesus was ALIVE!

After His resurrection, Jesus spent 40 more days with his disciples. As he prepared to return to heaven, he told his disciples to "Go into all the nations and teach people to follow God. Tell the world what you have seen...teach them to obey everything I have taught you." He promised that His Spirit, God's Holy Spirit, would live inside everyone who put their trust in Him. With His sacrifice, Jesus paid the price for our sins and made it possible for us to be friends with God if our trust was in Him. This news, this promise was for everyone! God kept His promise to Abraham to bless the world by sending Jesus.

Eternity

You See... God made this world so that we could experience all his glory forever. Because of our sin, the world has become a broken place. Broken marriages, relationships and lives. God sent his perfect son to the World to restore the world to it's original state and destroy the power of evil and sin in our lives. Jesus said, "God loved the world so much, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but live forever."

Jesus died to pay the price for our sins. He rose from the dead to prove that he was truly from God and had the power to overcome death. If we trust in Him, God will forgive our sins and we too will have the hope of eternal life with God. We can't earn God's love, God gives it to us freely... Just trust and follow Him.

One day in the future, Jesus will return to judge the world and completely restore all things. Do you long for a new life? One without pain and death? One where you will enjoy a relationship with God forever? Then receive with faith what God offers in Jesus.

David

amazing things are happening.

Hello Everyone!

It has been a very emotionally charged past few days.

Friday was the last day of the VGM camp so the energy levels of the students were high and there was just a vibrant buzz in the camp (not that there hasn't been everyday!). We led them in song and games and had the chance to do a cultural presentation about Australian culture. We taught them the "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi, Oi, Oi!" chant which was lots of fun. As the day started to draw to a close, the realisation that the camp was ending took its effect on the students. A lot of them were balling their eyes out, most evidently in Adam and Fonge's small group where 14 out of 15 students were crying. It made me realise what this camp meant to them: a place where they felt loved and cared for, something which a lot of them probably don't experience. God has worked amazingly in helping the team build relationships with the students in such a short space of time even though there have been obvious communication barriers.

Here is a photo of my wonderful small group!

The entire team has had the opportunity to do house visits of some of the students who attended the camp and this has been very eye opening experience. However, after our official house visit, Elliot and I had the opportunity to visit the homes of two disabled men. One had been severely beaten and the other who had been in a car accident twenty years ago. Both men were unable to talk, unable to walk, unable to eat properly, unable to go to the toilet properly, unable to feel; really just unable to live. To witness their suffering as well as the suffering of their family members who had to take care of them firsthand 很痛苦. We prayed for these men and for their families and left in tears. It was tough to watch and it was a confronting example of the brokenness of our world. But through the devotions that we have been doing each morning, God has reminded me that He is a just God, that in the new creation pain and suffering like this will be no more and we can only trust his judgement and that His mercy would overflow to disabled men such as these.

The gospel presentation on Saturday morning was absolutely amazing. Seventy out of the ninety students who attended the VGM camp turned up to hear the gospel presented clearly and it had a clear affect on the students. Adam and Eva (one of the Taiwanese uni students) shared their testimonies. The affect this all had on the students was indescribable. Just like Friday afternoon, students were crying, crying and crying after hearing about the love of Jesus and how this was evident in the lives of people like Adam, Eva and all the other leaders who all got to share their testimonies in small groups soon after. Saying goodbye and leaving the students has been hard for the entire team because we naturally want to see the fruit of God's work through us. But as a team we have been and constantly need to be reminded that this short-term mission is seed ministry and we praise God for the work that he has done through us so far and that so many students have heard about Jesus. It has been a huge privilege to serve Him in this way. Please pray that these kids would come to know and accept Jesus and that their lives would be transformed because of Him.

Here is a photo of the team posing in front of the gospel presentation visual stimulus which we created the night before!

So to kind of sum up I'll give a bit of a random team pulse check update. We're all alive and having fun serving God in Taiwan. Some of us are less alive than others with approximately 50% of the team still currently sick to some degree. Praise God that the team has experienced minimal internal conflict (you would kind of expect it with 8 people living with each other for a month!). Please pray that we get good rest. We all need it, even our fearless team leader :)

~ Jono

#vgm #gospel presentation #testimony #suffering

Day 3 of bilingual camp yay (:

What we were asked today:

Q: Where is Australia?

A: Uh.. South of Taiwan.

Plus some we have a chance to answer tomorrow: Is Australia beautiful? Is it safe/policed well? Do you like Lady Gaga? What artists do you like? Do you like Taiwan? Do you love us? What do you think of us? Why are you so tall? Why do you look different to us? Have you eaten 100 yr old eggs? Do you watch A-rated (adult, 21yrs+) movies? Do you have a girlfriend? Are you bored when we talk in Chinese and you don't know what we're saying?

Also... there was this. We lol'ed so much we thought you would too (bwahaha!)

Not really a question...

But anyway.. I feel encouraged by the camp. We're definitely getting closer to the kids each day - today one tried to teach me some Taiwanese, and afterwards said she wanted to talk to me but didn't know English so was embarrassed. Hopefully tomorrow she will be more confident :)

One of the Taiwan uni students shared with us about what they did last year for the gospel presentation - she said that after they had sung a simple song, but all the kids were crying because they'd been moved. She said some of those kids are on the camp this year - please pray that God will use our gospel presentation on Saturday to bring the kids closer to him, that those who were moved last year will remember and step out in faith. Praise him that he is working in Taiwan, awesomely - that what we can be involved in is just a small, small part of his work here.

Bob (Lachlan), Fong, Elliot, Jono and Adam got the opportunity to visit some of the kids' homes with the Taiwan uni students - everyone who went really enjoyed the visits. Pray for the kids' families, that God would save them, and that those who do believe would depending on Him while they wait patiently for his kingdom to come.

On a slightly separate note, one of the Taiwan uni students said (in their testimony) that her brother was the first in her family to become a Christian, and over 8 years the rest of her family also came to Christ. She was the last one. How awesome that God has done this!

So to sum up...

Yes, we are missing people. All the food is yum. God made lots of different-looking people - he's so creative! Yes, we love Chigu, and all the kids on camp.

Also, Jono's still sick - getting better but continue to pray that he would get better. His relatives took him to the Chinese powder medicine man a few days ago - a hilarious story in itself but maybe to be shared later :) They also keep bringing us food and milk tea..

~Steph

HELLO

Hi all.

It has been a really hectic two days of the camp. The kids are freakishly well behaved. Think of the best behaved kids in an Aussie class room and times that by 100 kids. All you have to do it point and then they will all move. All you do is put your finger on your lips and the entire room of 100 kids will be silent and attentive. Such a nice change!

They all really like Spongebob Squarepants and know all the words to the theme song.

Please pray for wisdom for all the leaders about how much they share about Jesus with the kids at school. Technically we're not allowed to share the gospel at the school, we are doing that on Saturday at the church. However, today Adam and Liz Fong got to share their testimony with the kids today.

Right now we are all really tired. Eight hours a night isn't really enough. This camp is a little like doing beach mission from 9-4pm in really, really hot weather and then going back and having to prepare lots for the next day. Please pray for our energy levels and time organisation. Also about half the time we have no idea what's going on as it's all conducted in Chinese!

It is about 10:44pm and we have a big skit to perform tomorrow. It is about racism in the 60s in America and Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech. None of us really want to perform it, we are trying to do it seriously and realistically but it's hard. Most of us have no acting experience and we are trying to get across fear, anger and hurt.

We really appreciate all the comments and prayers you guys have been leaving us, thanks heaps.

Please continue to be praying for us!

- Liz Fong

#taiwan #martin luther king #racism

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