Last Video Update for the trip :)

Soon to leave

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick update.

Today, Ping is arriving from Shanghai to spend the last week in Taiwan with us. He will be here in YuChih for 5 days before heading back to Taipei with us on Sunday night. (We come back on Wed night).

Lots of people want to see Ping so lots of meals planned with different people. Some visits to the school - we were able to go to some classes yesterday to say bye to students and tell them how blessed we've been and to invite them to Church this Saturday for our last weekend here.

Saturday will be a busy day for us -we are running the youth in the morning with some games, a song perhaps and sharing time - testimonies and encouragement. Then the afternoon will be our last bible study with the senior high school students. Then those students will be cooking us dinner that night at Jasmine's house.

Then that's basically last of our events here in YuChih. In the meantime, we have lots of letters and cards to write (in both English and Chinese) and there will be lots of tears and hugs as we say goodbye. We will continue to be seeing students from the junior high school often each day - usually after school. So please keep praying for them and for our witnessing to them.

Please pray for our health - we've both recovered from our colds but still coughing and a bit of congestion - feel a LOT better though. Ping we hear is sick though.

Please pray for Saturday's activities. Pray for translation - I think we as well as Ping will be speaking a lot of Chinese that morning.

Please pray for our bible study group on Saturday arvo and for their commitment to the Church here.

We've been so encouraged and greatly touched by so many people here. God has really blessed us. We've had a couple of people even share with us how they want to step up more and do more and they want to help after we leave. So that is an encouragement for sure.

We can only trust God that He will continue to grow His Church and His people.

Thanks everyone for your loving support.

- Mikey

Blessed to be a blessing

We had a really good time studying the Bible together this afternoon. Praise God we had 12 students come along to learn. We talked about why we go to Church and a lot about encouragement (Heb 10:24-25). It was so good to see so many faces there and for them even though they were a bit quiet and tired, to share with them our experiences and we fully encouraged them and used this opportunity to I guess tell them that they are the older students in the Church, we are passing on the responsibility of evangelism and discipleship to them - that it is them that has to set an example to the younger ones and to invite their friends to come to Church. I always get excited when leading Bible studies so I talked a fair bit (in chinese too) but I got the message across and we can only pray that they'll go away thinking about it, praying, encouraging one another and take on the responsibility of serving YuChih Church.

Please keep praying for this group of young people - they are a very cool bunch and some of our closest friends here in YuChih - we can only pray that God will really convict them and change them, that they'll want to serve God wholeheartedly and His kingdom. We were encouraged this morning by hearing a lot of the older students speak about that they are Christians and in their classes at school they are the only ones so it's hard for them to share the Gospel or invite ppl to church but just to hear that they think about it and share in front of others that they trust Jesus was really something to praise God about.

We basically have one more week left in YuChih then our mission will be basically over.

Thanks everyone for your continuous support and prayer - we hope and pray that God will use us even more this last week especially with Ping arriving on Wednesday.

YuChih Village/Town

Thought we'd give you a birds eye view on how big the village is we're staying in. If you zoom in, you'll see a shopping trolley in the middle of the town - that's 7eleven - we are about a block away from there I think.

Quick Prayer Requests

Due to unforeseen circumstances, a few people at our church (including Mikey and myself) have fallen ill to the common flu. Please pray for our quick recovery!

Thanks!

Only a few more days to go!

In sickness and in health.

Ivan is sick again with a bit of a cold.

Please pray for his health (and that I won't get sick too)!

Janice and Lily

So Janice and Lily invited us out to dinner tonight. This church is so blessed to have them. These two women are missionaries who started this Church in YuChih 15 years ago. They are originally from Taipei. They have now moved on (Janice is teaching at a Bible College and Lily will be moving away from YuChih soon too) but Janice came down to visit for the weekend and they invited us out to dinner to talk about stuff.

We talked a lot about how things are in the Church and other issues that the Church is currently facing. Lots to pray about with leadership and unity in the Church. We spent time praying for them afterwards and for the Church here as well. We have really become another member and seen as a church worker here - our other family and second home. We will really miss this place and the people.

These two women are so inspirational coz they use their singleness and their gifts and pour it all into God's Church. They both can speak English from studying in the States and it was Janice who was my first contact 4 years ago and allowed us to come and do work here. What a blessing for us, receiving so much grace from God over the years that both sides, us and the Church in Yuchih, can have this relationship and encourage one another.

Please pray for issues the future of this Church and also pray that we will all trust God with whatever happens because it is ultimately His Church and He will take care of it.

Mikey

Bible Study 5 - Prayer

So encouraging to see these senior high kids wanting to study the Bible with us. So our 'English bible studies' have been going well and today's was about prayer. After 5 weeks a lot of these kids are still attending and participating and it's encouraging to see their willingness to learn - albeit quiet at times. Praise God though. Studies have been going well - hopefully they've been learning a lot and have the desire to want to apply it in their life. Something to pray about :)

ps. we saw Taiwan's President in YuChih today. Cool hey.

Fear of Earthquake

We have been told to run out of the building if there is an earthquake tonight.

We had two earthquakes already today - one around 5:30pm, and another around 8pm. They were both of about 5 magnitude. The first was the biggest Taiwan has had since the huge gigantic one in 99 that destroyed so many cities and took so many lives (but that magnitude was about double the size).

At 5:30pm - I was in the bedroom lying down while Ivan was out in the streets.

Ivan's experience: "I was with some kids. I saw the bus shaking. I also saw the lamp post shaking. Then we laughed"

My experience: "Everything was shaking under my butt, I thought Ivan was trying to come through the door but then realised noone was there and it wasn't just the door shaking, it was the walls as well. I waited for about 7 seconds, then thought to myself, I should get up and get out of the building before the roof falls on me. But then, as I was JUST about to get up, the shaking subsided. "Meh" I thought. Last time there was an earthquake I slept through it - it can't be that much of a big deal."

Now tonight we sleep in paranoia.

Video Update #3

Sorry didn't realise I rambled on for 5mins30secs...

Imagine how much I could type.

3 weeks left!!!

Enjoy :)

- Mikey

A big weekend.

We haven't updated you guys for a while. But things have been quite busy for myself in the past week. Once again praise God that Ivan's visa extension was granted!

The weekend was a busy one. The youth threw a small surprise birthday thing for me on Saturday morning (I was so touched - they were so sweet), we had our bible study in the afternoon with the older kids, we went out to dinner with Church people that night and Sunday morning I was preaching.

I actually fell very ill in the middle of the night at 2am on Sunday. It was very very bad. I wanted to go to the toilet but nothing came out but then I vomited up a little bit as well. It was the most horrible feeling. I took some buscopan pills and felt a bit better but the feeling was still there in the morning. I took some more in the morning and prayed and rested before the service started. I felt a lot better by the time I had to go on stage.

The sermon went well - the message was translated well too. Problems I faced though:

1) Old people only speak the native language Taiwanese. So even though translated into Mandarin - most of the old people were falling asleep.

2) The sermon itself only went for about 25 mins right. But because of translation it went for double the time at least. So I know a fair few ppl were dozing off - youth don't usually come on Sunday mornings.

3) Not many youth came - probably too shy to come into Church or just piked out. The senior high school kids came to listen to the message though. So that was encouraging.

Not sure about conviction or if challenged - but overall, people were attentive and understood the message. I can't say much else except that I leave the work up to God. It was a good morning, and I thank God He provided healing for me.

For a more detailed weekend summary you can read my own personal blogsite:

http://doj-y.blogspot.com/2009/11/gods-goodness.html

Praise God though for all those who did attend the Sunday morning service and pray that they will go away thinking about what they heard and about the choice they need to make for eternal life.

Pray also for the students we do bible study with - they enjoy the time together but Saturday arvo's are quite tiring coz they also attend the youth in the morning as well - so it's a long day for them. Pray that they will want to follow Jesus with their whole lives.

Pray also for our health - Saturday night's episode was very scary - dont know if I want to conclude it was a spiritual attack but it came out of nowhere. I woke Ivan up at the time and I was like "Ivan...this is killing me..I feel like I'm dying." But that's probably coz I'm a drama queen. (it was REALLY painful though) Both Lily and Grace believe it to be so, especially being in Taiwan and doing God's work - there is lots of spiritual warfare in this area.

Thanks everyone for your continuous support and prayers. We appreciate it :)

Visa Extended

Praise God! My visa finally got extended.. for free too! Thank you for all your prayers. Once again God really was looking after us throughout this ordeal.Many thanks to Jasmine who went into the trouble of calling up the place before hand and confirming the documents I needed. I no longer need to do a visa run to Hong Kong. We had a great conversation during our time over in nantou city and it was really a worthwhile time overall. I can now put this worry behind me and focus on the second half of the mission. On another note, please pray for the workers ( A Xiang and Grace) who have had health problems recently. Pray that they will get the rest they need to do the Lord's work. We really hope they won't burn out!

Adios

- Ivan

Video Update 2

Spontaneous video update after lunch.

The wall behind us was painted by us. It's a light green. Yep - Ivan chose it. It looks 80's.

Wednesday

Ok just a quick one.

Internet connection in Taipei is very weak and non-existent. So gotta keep this short.

Today is Wed and no typhoon. Chance of rain for the rest of the week. Everytime we hear of a typhoon alert it doesn't end up coming. God's taking care of it. Although we spent a lot going out to buy a kettle and a pot and 2 minute noodles to survive if the typhoon came. We'll just have to eat it all I guess.

Visa problems. Ivan couldn't get extension coz it was too early to apply and not enough documentation of proof to show there is good reason to stay in Taiwan. We were quite frustrated but there is still another option of getting Church member to come and show that we're helping out at Church and need extension. So coming to Taipei seemed a bit of a waste but it's a good break and I've had good time to do sermon preparation and just rest - coz we both need it. The Visa application has to be done in Nantou county - we don't know where yet. Please pray that Ivan can get his visa extended otherwise he might have to take a few days trip to Hong Kong or something...

All is well. Trust God it will work out either way. He has been so good and faithful to us.

19th October...

Typhoon coming to Taipei on Wednesday.

Ivan wasnt allowed to apply for extension visa in Taipei - so frustrating. We'll be back in YuChih on the weekend. So next week we'll have to go to the immigration office in Nantou County - and trouble someone from the Church to drive us there. We feel bad about that.

They said stuff about it being too early to apply and also we need more documents and evidence about stuff...Really complicated.

We'll be spending the next five days doing some prep and taking a break in Taipei. We're also attending a Missions Conference on Saturday in Taipei and some Church members will be there too.

Please pray for our preparation this week - I am preaching a sermon on the 1st of Nov and we are also doing some testimony sharing and running the youth one morning in November too. Also our Bible studies are still running each Saturday but this week is off because we're in Taipei.

Please also pray that the Typhoon won't come because...it is very damaging. It also means we can't go out and get food - there is no fridge or microwave or kettle or anything in our Taipei apartment.

Ok BYE

Mikey

19th/10

We're going to be in Taipei for this week because Ivan's visa needs to be extended. Please pray that there'll be no problems with extending his visa to 90 days instead of just 60 days. We're here in Taiwan for a total of 75 days. If the visa is rejected...well. We'll let you know what happens. Our net usage is limited in Taipei so we'll update again in a week's time. Thanks everyone.

Dinnertime and a few nice words :)

A few words from the ladies at Church...want me to translate?

Don't remind me - I know I need a haircut.

Walking alters

Yesterday there was a big event in the streets of YuChih and this huge procession of people and alters and costumes were dancing down our street. We filmed this from the 4th floor of our Church and we had to delay our Bible Study coz it was sooo noisy with firecrackers going off every second and loud drumming. They carried around alters and nearly every house was burning incense outside and had fruit laid out. The house next door burnt heaps of 'hell money' for them and the dragons, lions, and the costume ppl danced. It was pretty crazy....

Please pray for this village. It's enshrouded in spirtual darkness and superstition. Even youth that we invite to church say that can't come coz their parents dont allow them and a lot come from families that follow these traditions.

Faith

I've been enormously humbled by today and how God has worked. I personally was a bit worried about how things would turn out but things ended up being fantastic. Praise God.

Today was a busier day than usual. We had youth in the morning, then bible study with the senior high school kids in the afternoon and then went to another Church tonight to share my testimony but also share a bit about our Church back home and to encourage them to evangelise and keep growing. This other Church is in Puli and the youth we shared to was only about 25-30 ppl but a lot of ppl were missing apparently. Last time we went the youth were about 40 - but because of studying in other cities a lot of them couldn't make it back for the weekend.

So this afternoon, we had our second bible study on 'faith in God's grace'. Our studies are basically both an english learning and bible learning activity. They learn more English, and they also get a better understanding of what it means to be a Christian. So encouraged by the attendance today with 7 kids, because last time we only had 5. I think the kids are really learning lots in these Bible studies so praise God. Keep praying for them that they'll want to apply what they learn - may God's Spirit really convict them.

Tonight, we went to this other Church in Puli - the neighbouring town and we've been there in past years too to do outreach with the youth there in teams. This is the 3rd time Ivan and I have gone so I shared my testimony but also really spent a lot of time talking about how important it is to evangelise and to keep growing for God and encouraging them to go out and share the Gospel. Feedback was that they were really encouraged and the Pastor lady there who gave us the opportunity was so good to us and has always welcomed us each year we go. She is a real blessing to that Church and to us. God is spoiling us. The biggest worry of tonight was not having a translator because she only prepared one today, and he hadn't even read our scripts yet and I used heaps of big words like sanctification and regeneration. God smacked me in the face because He really provided for us tonight. Thank you God!! We ended up having a guy who lived in Singapore for about 10 yrs and is now living in Puli and attending that Church to be our translator. I was soooo thankful. Me of little faith. Ah, God is good.
(please also refer to below's video post for latest prayer/praise points!)

Video Update

(was also meant to add that I haven't been getting good sleep coz I can't sleep at night. I have so many thoughts goin through my head of things back in Australia and things over here. there's a whirlwind of thoughts goin thru my mind and it isn't good for my sleep)

Teaching at School

We were at the school today for a 45min period with the grade 8 kids teaching them 'introductions'. Quite a simple class and some kids had better English than others. With these kids, they either know it or they don't. So it's hard to cater for everyone. For some it was too simple, for others, they had no idea. Some of their handwriting though, it's like...so much neater than the handwriting I've seen in Brisbane.

We also were so encouraged today because we received in the mail cards from CCCB's Sunday School!!! It was sooo sweet of them!

Schedule this week

Just a quick update to ask for prayer this week:

Tuesday afternoon, Thursday afternoon, Friday morning we will be going into the school for one hour periods to teach English. Saturday afternoon we have our bible study with the teens. Saturday night we are going to the other Church in Puli to share with them our testimony and why we're in Taiwan (for about 40mins!). Sunday after service we are painting the Church hall.

So please pray for the week ahead :) We are busier than normal...

Typhoon has passed us so we're going to be fine :) (Although we were looking forward to experiencing it...)

Update 4/10

Sorry guys didn't realise we haven't been updating you all on stuff.

Just quickly:

Tuesday: went to the school to play a few 5 minute icebreaker games with Vincent (Preacher's husband) - he gets a one period block (45mins) with grade 7 kids at the junior high school. It's a study period for them but he is allowed to go in and just teach em stuff about Jesus. We went to 2 other classes which had other teachers doing the same thing.

Thursday: we have our own 45 minute period with grade 8 kids where we go in and teach them conversational English as well as share a little about Jesus because we're christians. Pray that we can share more through these classes about our great God :) Next week we have both Thursday and Friday - so two blocks next week of english classes.

Friday: the Church committee about 10 of us, went to a small cheap resort near Sun Moon Lake to have a 'retreat' and relax. We had a couple of devotions and a sermon preached to us. Great fellowship and an edifying time together. We played this neverending board game called "the Appreciation Game" where you go around and you pick up cards and which are 'getting to know you' questions. E.g. Ivan got a card saying "If you came home and your house was trashed, what would you do?" I got a card saying, "what would you want your kids profession to be?" Random hey? The retreat went overnight so it was a good break with fellow Church workers.

Saturday: Had a barbecue at night with the youth. It was at one of their houses and it was very 'ghetto'. I have a video but I'll have to show you it some other time. It wasn't the most exciting bbq I must admit, but just good to spend time with young ppl and take silly photos. Nothing serious.

SO that's about it. There was an earthquake last night at about 1.30am but we both woke up and went back to sleep because we thought it was a dream. haha. After Church service today our friend Nalita, her mum and her brother took us to Taichung to play. We are so blessed to have them look after us and spoil us. They want to drive us everywhere around Taiwan! God is really taking care of us, providing, and giving us more than we could expect or ask for.

So praise God for a great week :) my health has improved a lot but my sleep is still so irregular. I think too much and therefore can't sleep for hours sometimes.

A prayer point is to pray for our safety for this week. Typhoon is coming on monday or tuesday they say. But we'll see how it goes. My mum says, "don't go out to get food. make sure you have enough in the church. if you go out you might get hit by a sign or something". I love my mum.

PS. the picture attached is a picture of Grace - the preacher/pastor here at the Church. She's our boss basically. Her and her husband Vincent run the show here and have taken over leadership now that Janice and Lily have moved on. They are a blessing to this place and treat us very well :)

Taiwan's needs

http://www.omf.org/omf/taiwan/resources/articles__1/taiwan_or_china

A very interesting article on the situation in Taiwan that we wanted to share with you all. Something we are able to relate to as we've been working in this local village Church who see the needs to reach out to the unreached (working class and indigenous population).

Phil Nicholson was the previous Taiwan director for OMF.

Devotion

Just want to share with you all an encouraging devotion we had on a section from the book "Let the Nations be Glad" by J. Piper.

"The frontline work of missions is the preaching of the Word of God, the gospel. If this public act is displaced by prayer, the supremacy of Christ in the mission of the Church will be compromised. Where Jesus and his saving work are not proclaimed, there is no truth for the Holy Spirit to empower and no knowledge of Christ for him to exalt. (John 16:13-14) The proclamation of the gospel is 'the work of missions'. It is the weapon that God designed to use in penetrating thek ingdom of darkness and gathering the children of light from all the nations. Throughout Acts we can see the word of God continuing to go forth and the number of disciples increased and multiplied.

If the proclamation of the Word aborts, the purposes of God fail.

Not only has God made the accomplishment of his purposes hang on the preaching of the Word, but he has also made the success of that preaching hang on prayer. God's goal to be glorified will not succeed without the pwoerful proclamation of the gospel. And that gospel will not be proclaimed in power to all the nations without the prevailing earenest faith-filled prayers of God's people. The purpose won't happen without prayer. (2 Thess 3:1 - pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored)"

So to all our supporters back home in Aus, we thank you for praying for us. We are here to study the bible with students, so they too can hear the voice of God, understand and live out the foundations of the Christian faith, and most of all to bring light to this village of darkness.

We hope that the students we lead will too be inspired to lead others with the great truths learnt from the Word. Please keep praying for that!

First Bible Study Done

Thank God for a busy but very fulfilling day where it began with the middle school students watching 1/2 of "the passion of Christ". Despite the gory and explicit scenes, I felt that a lot of the kids were genuinely affected by the film. When the film finished, Vincent (the head preacher's husband) finished off the session with a reflection song.

As we ate lunch together, there was a family who came and visited ( who previously worked at the church). They came back from their missionary trip in Thailand. The highlight however, was our first English/Chinese bible study. We based the studies off "Just for starters" where today's session we drove home the message of God's grace. Initially we weren't sure how it was going to go but thankfully God was with us all the way. We also had a fellow helper/translator (Steven or Jia Ming) who was kind of enough to review the studies beforehand and translate when necessary. The overall feedback was positive from the students. We finished off the session with some songs which officially put an end to our study.

Although it didn't seem like much, we were exhausted and really thank God that we are able to currently kick back and relax. Our next study will be in two weeks since there is an event next week.

Please pray for this church:

- Pray that the kids attending the Saturday service will be receptive to what is taught.
- Pray that God's message will be passed through despite the language barriers of the English/ Chinese bible study.
- Pray for the leaders, who will be preaching tomorrow and will continue their ministry throughout the week.
- Pray for Mike's sleep as he has been finding it hard to get a regular sleeping pattern.
- Pray for the kids who no longer attend the "winnie the pooh" (children's club) who have stopped coming after they stopped the after the cancellation of after school care.

Praise:

- Praise God for blessing this church with such diligent and committed workers/leaders.
- Praise God for being with us during our bible study session.
- Praise God for bringing a healthy amount of kids to both the morning and afternoon sessions.
- Praise God for bringing kids to the after-school tutoring classes

Inspiring.

Wow. Tonight I was blown away. Preacher Lily shared tonight about her trip to the US recently. Lily and Janice went to the USA for 3 weeks to share at numerous churches along the east coast to talk about this little church in YuChih and encourage the Chinese churches over there with stories.

Background info: Lily and Janice are the two missionaries who started this Church over 15 years ago in this little village. Now Grace and her husband have taken over and Janice has gone to lecture at a Bible College up north and Lily will soon be leaving as well. Janice was my first point of contact and was the reason why I was able to come work in this village 4 years ago and thank God her and Lily could speak English!

She finished the night giving a speech about how although this Church has gone through so many hardships and it's still slowly growing, it has been an immense joy for her to be a part of it. She shared about how it was a blessing that God brought Grace and Vincent (the new couple who run the Church) to YuChih. She shared how some prominent members of the Church like Aunty Axiang and another girl Amy have been with the Church for so long and come to know Christ only through this Church years and years ago. She also mentioned how God brought Australians (us) to this place 4 years ago via an email and a connection through a friend of my mum's in Taipei and how our work has really drawn more young people to this Church. She said that everything that has happened, all the blessings the Church has received, all the workers and missionaries that have come through, and how the Church has grown and is continuing to grow is all ultimately the work of our amazing Lord Jesus Christ. Even though I only understood 75% of it (it was all in chinese), it was sooo touching and encouraging and we can only pray that God will continue to work in this Church and bring light to this spiritually dark village. Praise God for the work Lily and Janice has done in this village and pray that Grace and Vincent will continue to be faithful ministers to this Church!

Sure why not?

Just a quick update.

We went to the junior high school today (in past years we'd go and teach english to the students and the Principal knew us quite well and we'd drink tea and pray with her, however, the principal has changed now) and we had a 10minute slot to intro ourselves to a couple of classrooms and play a game with them. We also talked to one of the teachers to discuss the possibility of teaching a few english classes if there are any spare times/classes so that'll probably eventuate soon. However, we also ran into a Pastor from another Church in Puli - the closest city next to YuChih and we've been there in the past to do evangelism events and she was happy to see us and invited us to her youth group and wants us to prepare something for 40 minutes!!! So looks like we've been given a fair bit of work now. But that's ok we can manage coz we didn't have much before today. (Although it seems like such short notice)

So please pray for preparations this week - we have our first bible study to lead with some of the older students on Saturday arvo and now sharing at Puli Church on Saturday night :)

Will let you know how it goes!

*latest news - we've delayed our Puli Church presentation for a couple of weeks because Mikey has developed a bad cough and sore throat...please pray? seems like immune system is broken or something*

Taipei Missionaries

Wow what an encouraging weekend. We didn't have many duties this weekend except helping out here and there. A team from Taipei came (they come nearly once a month for the weekend) from the head church and they ran programs for the youth in the morning (teens) and the children/sunday school in the afternoon on Saturday. It was so encouraging to see a passionate team want to get involved and give up their weekend to come to this village to help out. Some also went to houses to witness to families too throughout the day. Ivan and I went out with this team last nite to have a coffee and debrief the whole day. It was great to hear them all share about their experience and what they did well and what could be improved and even asking us for our opinions too. We spent the weekend basically just working on our relationships with the students we've known over the years and encouraging to keep going to Church. We'll be leading bible studies next weekend.

Prayer: Praise God for this passionate team of Christians who want to serve His kingdom and have encouraged us to focus on our mission and discipleship here.
Praise God for helping us to recover. We are both at about 90% better already.
Pray that we'll keep improving on our Chinese and having more opportunities to talk to kids about God. (Today I had an encouraging talk with a 12 yr old (Angel) about how she's baptised and to read her bible each nite even if for 5 minutes and she tells me how she prays before she eats and before she sleeps each day. She comes from a home where her mum is a drug addict and parents were in jail and she and her younger sister and brother lived with Jasmine for 18 months and Jasmine brought her to know God - please keep praying for Angel!)
Pray that we'll be safe. I just got a call before from a student saying that we make sure we keep a torch close to us because this time of year there are lots of earthquakes!! (Also, there are gigantic mozzies eating us alive at night.)

Mondays are our days off to rest! Yay! But students will be coming to the Church at night for tutoring so we'll see some tomorrow nite.

The First Meeting

So we've arrived in YuChih and now Ivan has come down with a bit of a cold too. The weather is very hot and humid and we've been sweating like crazy. Please pray for our health! This cold has really affected our energy levels.

We've already had a short meeting with the preacher (for some reason, we don't call her Pastor we call her preacher, perhaps because she is female? I forgot to ask) at this Church, her name is Grace and she runs the church with her husband Vincent. These two have just started here at this Church about 18 months now and were here last time we visited. Sadly, a few faces (co-workers) have left this Church since we were last here yet we trust that God is using this couple to grow this small humble Church in this village.

As you all know, we'll be focused mainly on discipling the senior high school kids here and working on leadership skills as well as going through the foundations of their faith. We'll also be helping with English tutoring here and there and participating in other Church groups such as the elderly that congregate on Thursdays. We also asked for Chinese lessons when one of the co-workers/secretary (Jasmine) has time throughout the week. Praise God for Jasmine who has been faithfully serving at this Church and she has always been the friendliest and most helpful and welcoming face everytime we come here. Apparently too, we have to run some games here and there so if you have any ideas for fun games that aren't in difficult English - swing the ideas this way!

It's actually a big surprise that we're coming back and the workers here haven't told any of the kids or teens. We've already run into a couple and they were very surprised to see us. I personally am not looking foward to getting swamped by the kids but I know Ivan loves it. Nevertheless, pray that we'll be a shining light to the kids and show the love of Christ in humility through all that we do here :)

Please also pray for the language barriers - it has already been a bit of a struggle just communicating in our first meeting with the preacher.

Landed safely :)

Just to let you know, we've arrived in Taipei safely and have been spending some time resting (as I've been ill), exploring the city and have plans to meet former members of the Church in Taipei to discuss the current situation in YuChih and for general catchup as well :)

Will be heading down to YuChih later this week!

- Mike

ps. our phone number here is 0955486224. take off the 0 if callin internationally :) i think the area code is 86 too?....

Testing..1,2,3.

Hello friends, family and supporters!

This is our blogsite where we'll be updating regularly on our adventures at the Church, the people we meet, God's work in YuChih, and prayer points for the trip.

For everyone's information, we will be away from 12th of September to the 25th of November.

Currently Mikey has come down with a bit of a cold and needs some prayer for healing and recovery. Please also pray for a safe flight over to Taiwan :) and thank God for our dear friends who are sending us off to the airport on Saturday.