Hi, this Ben here. Thanks to all those who prayed for our Taiwan mission trip! Man, where do I start? (Frankly, I hate to write, much less blog, but here goes!) Well, our 10 Taiwan missionaries there (hereafter called "the Taiwan team"), including our very own Allen Chen, were really really glad to see us. They're doing alright there, but imagine going from having hundreds of people in your church to having just ten, it's just, well, different. Like Kevan wrote about, we spent a lot of time trying to meet students: in the DCs there (some of them have really good meals for $1.75, to boot!), at English Clubs, playing sports... A quick note about the sports culture there: each department has a team for each sport--basketball, volleyball, soccer, tennis, etc--and they have interdepartmental competitions. (I think it's worth noting that the CS dept puts out the best basketball team on campus... find that ironic? ha.) And it seems that everyone is out at night playing till the lights go off at 11pm. It's at one of these sports times that Justin and I met the Physics tennis team and a senior named Lenny, the subject of Justin's Life at Gracepoint entry...
Christmas Celebration (our mini-GLive) was awesome--I'll post the pictures once I get them--it's a good thing we brought over the 100 extra chairs, because each of them was filled with Taiwanese students for whom this was the first time they got full explanations of Christianity and the true origins of Christmas. Almost all of us had some kind of "really good" conversation with the students, and overall they expressed such openness to relationship and surprising amount of spiritual hunger.
The most meaningful part of this trip for me, however, was when we were back at our living quarters spending time with the Taiwan team there. We ate fresh yo-tyao with warm soy milk together, we shared stories about how Dan Hoang almost ate two whole banana splits at Fenton's, they told stories about how they get penalized if they use Gracepoint-specific lingo ("hurting," "devastating," "butter," "solid"), we played king-kong shower w/ street fighter moves, we had devotion sharing times with them, and finally, we had extended times of prayer for them. I came away with such a burden to pray for our team, given the spiritually hungry climate on the Taiwanese campuses, and the kind of impact that they will make in that country if they are truly "the church" displaying God's love. It's tough for them out there but w/ a clear sense of mission and our prayers they can be really effective in reaching the emerging leaders of that country...
June photos are finally up! It was one PACKED month. At the beginning of the month, we were still with the Gracepoint Berkeley Taiwan team and going to Tainan with them. The rest of the month I was saying farewell to my NCTU Chinese classmates, taking my Chinese finals and proficiency test, and cheering on the NTHU/NCTU students with care packages for their finals! June was also the month where we witnessed our first Taiwanese friend become Christian!! It was almost unbelievable that this was happening so soon, but PTL! I am sure many of your prayers had to do with her decision to accept Christ... We also experienced our first NCTU and NTHU graduations. The graduations here are so different from the ones in America. Definitely more quiet and solemn. Not so hyped up. Actually, we had many students whose parents didn't come to see their graduation. Those students were very happy that we were there to cheer them on and act as their "family". One more thing we did for the first time was going to the theaters! We finally got the chance to go watch Prince Caspian together after FNP. Everyone loved it, but I must say - the book is MUCH better. By the end of the month, our Taiwan team exploded to 19 people as we welcome our new team members + Joy from Davis. God is good!!
Let's keep praying for Caroline and the whole team plus their friends in Taiwan!
