Amazing...

This last week, I was so blessed to have the opportunity to head to the east of the island to a place called Taitung.  It was extremely hot the entire time, and I am pretty sure that I didn't stop sweating for 5 days straight.  It's a record somewhere, I'm sure. 

God used our team to share the Gospel with around 65 students and many of their parents.  It was definitely one of the hardest weeks in my life.  I was completely overwhelmed, um, 95% of the time.  I was humbled constantly by my need of interpreters, and many of those interpreters being much younger than me.  It was really hard to not be able to adequately communicate with the kids.  I used my broken Chinese, but most of the time no one understood me.  And they spoke so fast and quietly, I didn't understand ANY of their Chinese.  I don't think I have ever felt so useless at times.  I was thrown out of my comfort zone, and was challenged more probably than I have ever been before.  Above, Sady was a sweet little girl that I connected with.


Our team was blessed to see 7 new brothers and sisters join the family through baptism.

 We shared the Gospel in so many different and unique ways.  This is a technique where you fold a sheet of paper and rip down the middle.  Once you unfold the paper, you find a cross and scraps.  Without using the cross, the scraps spell "hell." With the cross added it spells "life." 

One of the nights, we were taken to Taimalie, where a typhoon caused a huge mudslide last August.  The amount of devastation is still unknown.  There was an entire village of more than 600 people that was completely wiped away.  These people lost EVERYTHING.  Luckily, the government built temporary housing that is available for all the survivors for 2 years.  Our group did VBS for the kids in Taimalie in 2008. 

 Above - this is where a village used to be.  The entire thing was swept away and buried.  The village is buried several feet below the mud.