The Final Week

It was an eventful weekend for the mission team. On Saturday we started off the morning helping out in a weekly art class hosted by the church. It's a great ministry that the church is doing. They hold this art class every Saturday morning, and as they teach art they also teach about God's love. Many of the children are ones that we taught last week, so it was wonderful being able to see them again. Praise the Lord for all the talented members of the mission team. Victor was able to demonstrate some photography lessons, April showed the kids how to draw simple sketches, and Norman used photoshop to create a digital image right before our eyes, a picture of a king and a child with the Chinese words "Jesus Loves You." We printed the image out and gave each child one to take home.

On Saturday night we joined in the church's youth group. We first had a prayer meeting at 4:30, and although there were some slight language difficulties, it was still a blessing to spend time together, Taiwan church and Ohio church, in praying for this city and for the youth group. The main theme of youth group was testimonies, and Isaac, Norman, and Jacqueline all did a fantastic job giving their testimonies in Chinese. The Youth Group said that they were very blessed by what we had to say, and afterwards we helped to lead their small groups and get to know many of the youth members more. We are so happy that we can minister not only to children, but to the church here too. May we continue to pray for the youth here in Wudu, praise God for their dedication to serving their church and their community!



Sunday morning was very hectic. We started off by leading worship for the Sunday service. We played our entire set, the same one we did for Sunday worship back in Ohio. Karen and Elean both gave their testimonies in Chinese before the entire congregation, and Pastor Josh preached about having a thankful heart. Although he preached for nearly an hour, much longer than he normally does, the congregation insisted that the sermon was far too short, and that they wanted to hear more! While all this was going on, Victor, Esther, Vivian, and Deacon Katy went upstairs to help out with the children's Sunday school and each of them also gave a short testimony. What an opportunity each of us has had to tell of what God has done in our lives! Now each team members has given their testimony.

Sunday night we took the train down to Taipei again, and after eating dinner there, we attended a Stream of Praise concert, which was located at the Sun Yat-Sen memorial hall. If you haven't heard of Stream of Praise, just think of it as a Taiwanese version of Hillsong. The church here was kind enough to get us a whole set of tickets (tickets are free, but they are very hard to obtain). It was a huge encouragement to see the entire memorial hall packed with Christians - many of us had no idea that Taiwan even had that many Christians! We were able to worship along with the 3000 other people present, and last night also happened to be a recorded concert, which means that we may be in the Stream of Praise DVD that will be released in a couple months! Hallelujah, it is amazing how we all worship the same God, whether it be in Chinese or English.

Today we had a team meeting about the house visitations that are coming up in the following week, and then made about 100 beaded cross keychains and Gospel bead bracelets to give as gifts during visitations and street evangelism. Today was also our first VBS, from 3-5pm. There were about 45 kids present, and we were able to share with them the Gospel message through the Gospel bead bracelets that we made together. By the way, happy birthday to Jacqueline, who turns 19 today!

As you can see, the mission team has a very full schedule! This is our final week here, and we need your continued prayer to support us through! May we scatter many seeds during this week and continue to encourage everyone that we meet here. God bless!