The time has passed so quickly!  Every night I think to myself, I should post to the missions blog… but then I’m exhausted and can’t think about what to write because there’s just so much to digest.  The other day, though I was smart and wrote some things down.  We’ll start from there.

Pastor Chuang, when he talked to us about coming and talking to the youth group about evangelism, mentioned wanting us to talk to them about stuff we’ve done at school, etc.  Listening to a couple girls the other day, though, really impressed me about what they had done at their school.  I was encouraged by their boldness in sharing the Gospel.  This is good news and they wanted to share it with people!  I know that often when we have events at school, and people ask why we’re doing something, it’s easy (at least for me) to be nervous about telling them the true reason.  I would sometimes just leave it as, “we just want to show the campus our love.”  Although this is true, I should not be afraid to tell them why we love them.  They are not afraid to show that they truly believe God is working on their campus.

I also love how they approach a lot of things.  Instead of starting off with booklets containing the four spiritual laws and telling the people they’re sinners (although this definitely comes up later, if the person is interested), they start off by asking how they can pray for them, and praying for them on the spot.  Literally translated, these are “prayers of blessings.” I think this is absolutely wonderful.

I think if there’s one thing I’ve learned (and be sure, there are definitely more than one) it’s the power of prayer and how the Holy Spirit moves.  I didn’t used to think that the culture in Taiwan was that different from the US.  I mean sure there’s more good food and people dress a little differently… and then there are the things we learned in Chinese class about families and tradition and stuff.  But I mean honestly… it’s not that different, right?  Wrong.  I’ve begun to see how much of a need there is here.  A lot of people here are truly seeking for something.  Buddhism is extremely prevalent here, to the extent that it’s incredibly ingrained in the whole culture.  The seventh month of the lunar calendar is called (literally translated) “ghost month” to Buddhists and as a result the whole economy actually goes down because people don’t want to build houses, buy cars, get married, basically do anything important that can be affected by these ghosts.  During this month (which is now) people have been burning an incredible amount of incense and I can see that the people here indeed have a sincere fear of these ghosts.  I want to tell them about the God who has conquered all and can rescue you from all things (like the ultimate ghostbuster?).  Anyway this is more motivation to learn to speak Chinese better.  I keep wanting to share the Gospel with my family but it seems that that is the hardest part.

God has indeed been moving in Taiwan.  Over the past two weeks, He has definitely been moving in us, revealing a lot of things about ourselves we may not have known before.  I’m excited to continue to get to know these wonderful people.

To you, thanks for your prayers and support!  Please continue to pray for focus for our team.  It’s lots of fun here!  We’ve been so blessed by the people here in hosting us.  I hardly know if I deserve any of it.  =)  But we want to remember that we’re here to love God’s people in Taiwan and not to stop serving.  Also pray for me as I share my testimony with the whole congregation today… all three services… eek!  May God give me the strength… and take away my nervousness… to deliver the message for Him!

“This is my prayer in the battle
When triumph is still on its way
I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ
So firm on His promise I’ll stand.”

About half an hour before it was my turn to share my testimony with the students, I realized that I had almost nothing prepared. I mean, I did “think” about it between worrying about what to teach that day and where I was going to find dinner. But now all I had were two words on the page, “Pride/Competitiveness,” the main theme of my testimony, and a few ideas for stories to share. When I found myself unprepared like this, I began to pray desperately. After a few minutes, the whole prayer pretty much boiled down to, “God, please don’t let my words be filled with pride.” I chose three short stories for my testimony. The first was the story of playing videogames and competing so hard that in the end, I messed up my relationship with the very friends I played with. The second story was the story of how I had cheated once on a test and ended up being lonely (because of the consequences). The third was the story of how I had big plans for getting into some college. I had back-up plan after back-up plan to make sure I didn’t lose out even if I didn’t make it into my top choices. In each of these cases, it was pride that kept me from doing right and seeing God’s plan. In the first story, I put myself over my friends thinking I was better than they were. In the second, I was too proud to admit that I may not know all the answers on the test and get a worse grade than others, so I cheated. In the third, I put my plans above God’s plan for my college career. However, God never left me in each of those situations. In each, He showed me how to be humble; He showed me grace, and He showed me that His plan is greater than mine. In the first situation, God let me become lonely so that I would go to Him and realize my pride. I could then admit it and begin to think of others as better than myself. In doing so, I regained friendships, and even more, a sense of how things should be in my life. In the second, God showed me the grace of being caught and reminding me that I am accountable for my actions. He humbled me by showing me that His plan was greater than mine. If I hadn’t been caught, I would not be where I am today and most likely, I would not have the fellowship of some great brothers and sisters that taught me how to follow Jesus. In the third, it was by God’s grace that I am at CMU. He humbled my thinking that my plan for my college career was better than His. I ended by saying that we as CMU students are not here to tell them how to get into college or act as if we’re “better” than them. We are here to share our lives with them. These were some battles in my past. This was my testimony to the students.

Now that you know a little bit about my story, I want to share a battle that our team has gone through these past few days. After a meeting last thursday, we (the brothers) got together and prayed. We really felt the Spirit move in us; we were so convicted of our pride. It is out of this pride that each of us had disobeyed God in various parts of our life before. We saw that our pride ran so deep that it was only the Spirit that could bring us to our knees. We saw our own hypocritical hearts that judged every person around us from the families that fed us to the church that we thought was “too charismatic,” from each other to strangers that we passed by on the street. We loved to judge them instead of just loving them. As in the stories, this pride brought out sins that were in each of us. Each sin stemmed from thinking that we were better than others, better than God. But also as before, God never leaves His children in darkness. He broke us down together so that He could build us up again. He also reminded us that though we may experience Him greatly on one day, there are other days to come where He would slowly and steadily mold us. In this time of prayer, we saw the triumph ahead when we would become like Christ, but we also saw that our battle against our pride was just beginning. We cannot love with pride, and yet that’s what we are full of. One thing was for sure though: The only reason we could even begin to love the students we taught, our families, the people around us, and strangers is that Jesus loved us while we were still wretched.

“I will bring praise, I will bring praise
No weapon formed against me shall remain
I will rejoice, I will declare
God is my victory and He is here”

So English camp took place just this past week.  It was three days, starting from tuesday and ending thursday, with a extension into Friday, sorta, not really.  But no matter the time, we went into the camp knowing that God had great plans for us.  What we did not know, however, was that what God was going to do in these three days would change people for a lifetime.

Brendan and I were the “Lao Shi”s or teachers for the Advanced English Class.  Our class consisted of about 25 students plus or minus five depending on the time and day.  What God did with these three days together was far beyond learning English or for us, teaching English.  Soon we found out that the students were not the only people about to learn some new things.

From the beginning we saw that the group of students was rather large.  Twenty five is a pretty big number for two new teachers to handle in a language that neither of us to could speak very well.  It was also hard enough to remember their names, moreover build personal relationships with them?! I thought to myself after the first 10 minutes of class…. God why do you ask so much? But, may your will be done.  Each day we started with an English ice breaker, do an informal Q and A where students were allowed to ask me or Brendan any question they wanted, tell a Bible story, and then interpret the Bible story with a skit.

And so we began.  One Hour Past. I figured out a few of their names as well as all the TA’s names.  One Day Past. We had some good laughes.  I had actually been asked “What color is your underwear?” and “Do you have a girlfriend?” (three times), so I figured they actually wanted to know me on a pretty personal level. =) Praise God for helping us take that first step!!  Day Two. Some more laughes, more learned names, and the word “AWESOME!”  Yes, the students taught me the real meaning of “awesome.”  God is truly Awesome in every sense the kids meant it.  Day Three. This was when we completely stopped “teaching” and started learning.  Sure we told them a Bible story and helped them out with some English, but they were indeed teaching us how to be open, how to love, and how to smile.  Their interpretational skits, even with limited English, showed both of us the Word in ways we had never seen before.

Only in three days and a few pictures later, God has truly helped us build some incredible relationships with the students that were in our class.  We have a list of nearly 30 students’ names and MSN’s!!! That means 30+ new friends!! Interestingly enough, I have actually skyped with a few of them in this past week! Praise God, yes Praise be to his precious and Holy name.

- I thank you Father God for YOUR plans that exceed and go far beyond my plans.  May your power and glor reign forever and ever.”How can I repay you for your awesomeness?… There is NO price for awesomeness!” -Amen

-Brian Luong

So what is this whole trip going to be about?  Some details and thoughts below, as an excerpt from a support letter.

From August 2-19, 2008, four other college students from ACF and I will be in Taipei, Taiwan, working with the Glory Church (台北榮耀堂) in holding two weeks of camp for the high school and college students of the city.  Our first week will be a “special interest camp” as is popular in Taiwan.  We are proficient in English, and this gives us something to offer to the students there, which in the process will open up an opportunity to share with them about this person named Jesus and how he has changed our lives.  We will do this through teaching Bible stories in the morning of the first week.  In the afternoon, we will hold the “special interest” part of the camp, where we will hold workshops pertaining to whatever skills we have between our team from the States and our Taiwanese coworkers, such as ultimate frisbee, dance and music.  Through these two parts of the camp, we hope to build relationships with the students there and show them what it means to love as Christ loved us.  We have no idea who will be there or what kind of people we will encounter, but we trust that there’s a God who loves them immensely and who has every detail of our trip planned out.  

Our second week of camp will be a “leader’s retreat” type conference for the leaders within the Glory Church, namely student leaders.  Having come from a background of rigorous coursework at CMU, all of the members on the team have also learned to balance schoolwork with investing time in ACF.  With such experiences, we hope to share what we’ve learned with the student leaders in Taiwan and encourage them to keep spending time doing God’s work all the while keeping up their schoolwork.  Academic pressure is almost unbearably high in the Taiwanese school system, and finding time for anything else is a real challenge.

Despite all this, I’m pretty sure that in our attempt to pour life into others, we will end up being the ones humbled by what God is doing in the lives of those around the world.  So we pray earnestly for God to move and work, and that we might be able to have a little part in what He is doing.

Welcome to the ACF Missions website.  Check here soon for information about the ACF Taiwan Missions 2008.