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

This is the phrase that’s been bouncing around my head pretty often in the past few days in Taiwan.

The church we’re with here is a lot more charismatic than both my home church RCCC and Pittsburgh Chinese Church.  A lot of things they’ll do and I’ll think “hmm, I’d do that differently.”  For example, there was a “summoning of the Holy Spirit” program that they did with elementary to middle school age students.  I had never seen that before, and questioned whether that was the best thing to do.  I’d have done it differently.

The way the youth ministry is run is quite different.  Theire philosophy is to bring different types of activities into the church as a way for people to step church inside church doors.  For example, there’s a computer cluster inside the church so that kids don’t have to go to an internet cafe to use the internet.  I first heard about that, and their plans to introduce a karaoke machine and coffeeshop as a church expansion, and questioned whether the church was becoming too much like the world.

As I serve alongside my team members from Carnegie Mellon, I notice the way they teach and interact with the kids.  There’ve been a lot of times, especially as we finished off the camp today, that I thought that there was a better way to do certain things.  In a way I’m used to/expecting the way people minister in my home church’s college and youth group, and when there’s something different I don’t know what to do with it.

But over and over God smashes my expectations to bring light to what’s really important.  Just because it’s not the way I’d do it doesn’t mean it’s incorrect.  That’s quite a hard lesson to swallow, especially as being confident and sure of what I’m doing has been something I’ve been cultivated to have.  Once I let go of this mentality of judging based on what I was used to, comfortable with or thought was good, my eyes were opened to see what God’s truly doing in the lives of the people here.  The church may be charismatic, but ultimately isn’t the important thing to worship Jesus as Savior and Lord of our lives?  Everything else goes along with that, and it’s Jesus’ job to decide whether doing a certain thing is really in His will.  I’m in no place to question their specific methods of worship as long as what they believe is based off the Word of God.  And for the youth ministry, I realize how different the culture is in Taiwan, and that by letting go of the arguments I make, I can clearly see what God’s doing through the group of devoted, passionate people here that lead the youth ministry.  They have a heart for the youth, and it’s no place for me to decide whether what they plan is good or not.  That’s God’s job, and it’s completely possible that this is the most effective way to show God’s love to the youth.

And tonight, I’ve truly come to see how my own judging and pride has snuck up on me, slowly breaking down people on our team instead of building them up.  Each person here interacts with God and people in different ways, which probably isn’t the way I do it.  It’s easy to look and see somebody doing something different in and think “oh, they should be doing what I’m doing instead,” especially when you’ve looked at others and wished you had their gifts and talents before.  But their own walk and service to God is between them and God, and our job is to encourage and build them up towards the all-knowing God.

I’m starting to find that many of the things I will do here aren’t “the way I’d do it.”  I’m a control freak by nature, and learning that things are so much better in God’s control has been quite difficult.  Thank God for the patience He has in teaching us, and for the brothers and sisters to point each other in the right direction.

>> Brendan Kiu

“This my prayer in the fire
In weakness or trial or pain
There is a faith proved of more worth than gold
So refine me Lord through the flame.”

-Desert Song by Hillsong Music

“Jesus came to comfort the afflicted, but He also came to afflict the comfortable.”

I remember one time many years ago when Jesus became very real to me, when He showed me how sinful I was and also how much He loved me. That was also the time when I began to realize one of my main weaknesses. As the above quote explains, Jesus came to expose the sins of those that had become so comfortable with it. I was comfortable in my pride. My pride stuck itself in every little portion of my life. As love helps along the other fruits of the Spirit, pride helps along other sins so easily. But thank God that He doesn’t leave us in this state when we follow after Him and have faith that He has much greater plans than the ones we have.

“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”

I write the rest of this from Taiwan. Chengjou and I arrived at around 6AM and God has been working continually on and off the plane. Thank God that there were no problems getting from the US to Taiwan and meeting up with Becca and the other people from Glory Church.

On the plane, the lady sitting next to me was a grandmother from India. She’s a teacher in one of the Catholic schools there and is herself a devout Christian. She encouraged me so much with her wisdom and company on the plane. She shares our passion for following Jesus unfettered by culture, by denomination, by prejudices. Thank God for this encourager that I met on the plane and the conversation we had.

Arriving here in Taiwan, we find ourselves in the midst of brothers and sisters that have taken care of our every need, but also challenge us with the daunting task of building relationships with the students (2/3 of whom are not believers) and sharing our testimony with them in hope of planting seeds. We’re being challenged with the language barrier that seems to be greater as the day goes on. However, at the Stream of Praise concert that me and Becca were able to go to, I found encouragement seeing that there are so many people here passionate for Christ already. God is building the church here. He builds it in places that don’t seem reachable, in places that don’t seem save-able. I also realized again that Jesus is here in Taiwan; He was here before any of us decided to come and serve Him. Thus, it’s His work we’re being a part of. It lifts the heavy burden of “saving people.” We aren’t called to save people, only Jesus can. We are called to witness to them, to love them, to disciple them.

Prayer:

• Praise for Chengjou and I arriving safely
• Pray for Brendan and Brian’s flights
• Praise for God’s work here and that He’s allowed us to be a part of it.
• Pray for our hearts to be prepared to love and witness to the students here.
• Praise for the 50+ students that will be attending the English camp
• Pray for the students’ hearts that God will bring them to Him.