Wu Lai Hot Springs, Grace Home Church, and Elephant Mountain

Today was a jam-packed day full of lots of walking (more than usual anyway). We started the day pretty early at 6 A.M. in order to meet our new friends, Victoria and Brita, to go hiking to Wu Lai Hot Springs. It takes at least one hour to get there through the Metro (MRT), bus, and walking, but we feel it was totally worth the commute. The area of Wulai Hot Springs we visited is located near the mountains, contains several cement pools filled with natural hot spring water, and is taken care of by the proud Wu Lai citizens. We were told the usual routine by Victoria and directed by several very happy senior citizens. Many senior citizens love to use the Hot Springs. Anyway, the Wu Lai Hot Springs routine is to soak in several hot spring pools, go to pools of increasing temperature, jump into the river, and swim down stream to the other end of the hot springs. Then, rinse and repeat. ;) As you can imagine, this got our blood flowing and we all turned varying degrees of red. However, it was a much needed blessing to our sore muscles after a week of constant "city walking" and tight schedules.

In the afternoon, we headed to The Aroma where we had worship practice for about an hour with two of our Aroma friends, Tiffany and Ariel. We finished a bit early and coincidentally all fell asleep for about a half hour. Ministry work and fun can be tiring. We all went to the Taipei Grace Home Church homeless ministry that evening. According to their brochure, the Grace Home Church has 23 facilities throughout Taiwan and provides food, shelter, goods and resources, medical service, after-school care, tutoring, scholarships (Public school funding ends in middle school.), prayer, and worship. One of their routines is that people who want to eat a free meal must go to the church service beforehand. Today was the Aroma's turn to minister.We were able sing the Chinese song we had prepared, God is So Good, and happily found it to be one in the church's hymnal. Then Greg shared about how God is our perfect loving father because yesterday had been Father's Day here in Taiwan. Our other Aroma friend, Larry, shared his testimony as well. Larry shared how he had had to have some form of brain surgery and it affected his brain so much that he lost his memory for a time and his ability to walk. Someone prayed for him and then he regained his memory. He also encouraged us all by saying he doesn't have to worry so much as he knows that God is in control. Then after some enthusiastic and beautiful Chinese hymns (including God is So Good), we helped pass out dinner. We weren't really able to engage with the people but we did tell them, "Yesu i ni (Jesus loves you)." The people then dispersed fairly quickly.  We headed back to The Aroma around 7PM where several of our young friends invited us to hike up the Elephant Mountain. We made a compromise with our friends to head to a night market and then a hike up the mountain. As a group of 11 members, the whole rowdy bunch of us traveled to the night market and then up Elephant mountain. At the night market, we somewhat quenched our exotic food cravings by trying chicken feet, chicken butt, torched BBQ, stinky tofu (both boiled and fried), pig intestines, lime jelly tea, "British-style milk tea", pig blood, and duck blood. Then we headed up what our Taiwanese friends called a "easy short 1.4 km hike" up the Elephant Mountain. If you have ever been up the "1,000 Steps" hike in Guam then imagine it with many more flights of stairs and heading up a somewhat steep mountain. That is what our hike was like. Two of our girls had slightly more trouble but we all made it to the incredible view of Taipei offered at the top. After some sight seeing, we all headed home which was another adventure in and of itself. We were told that the buses had already stopped running and so we took the MRT to a different route closer to home and to catch the bus there. Once at the bus stop though, the bus did not come and so the girls took a taxi that could fit only 5. Surprisingly, a few drivers didn't want to take us and then our sweet elderly driver wasn't sure of the area of our home. After some directions from other drivers, the girls got safely home. Greg waited and, lo and behold, the bus came just much later than usual. To conclude, today has probably been the most adventurous and physically taxing so far.

The Lord has continued to strengthen and encourage us throughout our stay in Taiwan. Knowing you are out there praying for us also does too. ^_^

 Please pray for:

•  the Grace Home Church and its ministry to a forgotten minority,
• maintenance of good health,
• our remaining days in Taiwan,
• The Aroma's ministry in Ximen,
• and for Taiwan's people to open their hearts to Jesus.

Grace Home Church Website: http://www.good119.org/

Thank you! 谢谢！(Xièxiè!)
[Pictures to be uploaded later today.]

Coffee Talk

Friday was a busy day.  Here is a quick run down and you will here more tomorrow.  The day started with worship which led to lunch.  After lunch we did outreach with coupons, free samples and an invite to coffee talk at Aroma.  We ate dinner then had coffee talk which is an English language exchange.  We helped clean up the Aroma then headed home. 

More to follow tomorrow :)

The best way to remember what to say

God Loves you in Mandarin

Chillin at Aroma with Jennifer

Shelter the waitress

Full house for coffee talk

Shelter's group

Sarah's group

Beth's group

On a Treasure Hunt

JSP what a way to start your day!  We picked up breakfast on our way to Aroma.  We had our usual favorite dan bing along with trying a few new things.  I don't know if we mentioned this yet, but here in Taiwan you can walk any direction and almost every block has a 7 11.  We go to 7 11 all the time for drinks and snacks.  We now just call it our favorite store.  Once we picked up breakfast we stopped to grab our drinks at our favorite store.  We ate together then began our worship time.

When worship time ended we did some brain storm on how to make Aroma better.  It is cool to see how far they have come.  Their numbers from one year to the next have been increasing.  In 2013 about 40 people came into the store a day and in total spent NT$4,500 ($150 US).  So far in 2014 they have an average of 65 people come in a day and do NT$8,000 ($267 US).  I am not a business specialist, but this seems really good to me.  We got to see their business plan along with share ideas that we thought would make Aroma better.  

We had a little lunch of dumplings with Mark and the 13 year old boy we like to call our little brother, (Shelter wants to make sure you know his name so here it is even though you may not be able to pronounce it Shao Liang).  Our little brother just met Mark and Nancy the other night when they were playing ultimate frisbee in the park.  They do not know a lot about him right now, but it seems that his parents both died and he may be living with a step mother.  When you see him you can tell he craves attention from the guys.  We don't think he has many guys to look up to or spend time with.  He does the normal things that 13 year old boys do, like pick on the girls and wrestle with the guys.  He knows English, but is shy to share too much.  When you pray today, pray for this little guy and just thank God for him finding friends here at the Aroma.  Pray that his heart will be opened and that he will learn to openly and honestly share with those whom he is closest.

lunch with our little brother

1, 2, 3, 4, I declare thumb war...

We had a little bit of rest time before we made our way onto the treasure hunt.  You may ask what is a treasure hunt (we didn't know either)?  There is a book called "The Ultimate Treasure Hunt" by  Kevin Dedmon, in the book it goes through how to quietly listen for God's voice.  You take some time to list things like name, clothes, medical, location, and other on an already formed sheet.  Whatever comes to mind you right down.  We did this then prayed and went looking for people who fit any of the descriptions on our Treasure sheet.  If we saw some one and had a feeling they needed to prayed for we went to them, stopped them, told them how we are on a treasure hunt and that God wants us to let them know He loves them.  We would spend some time sharing the gospel if they didn't know then asking if we could pray for them.  We were in 3 teams for this.  Team 1 was Shelter, Anna, Sarah, and Greg. Team 2 was Annette, Mark, Jane,  and Zoie.  Team 3 was Beth, Chang, Victoria, and our little brother.  Some teams found all of their treasures, some teams had the different things on their list tied together to form a treasure and others will continue to search for their treasures throughout the rest of our time here. 

We took a brief break then went to the hospital to visit some friends of Aroma.  We started by visiting a lady who is currently homeless and whose kids will not come to visit her or take care of her.  It was really cool, because we got to take her some fresh fruit and eggs, along with getting to pray with her.  We went to visit Eli next.  He has a compromised immune system and had stomach surgery a few weeks before that.  He was in good spirits and was to be released the next day.  He spoke some English so we could speak directly to him and he would respond as best he could.  It was great!  We got to pray with him before we left.

Fruit market

these are smaller than our Guam bananas (about the size of an index finger)

We came back to Aroma and headed to dinner with Cloud.  Cloud is one of the workers here who left his engineering career to follow what he felt God was calling him to do.  He is hoping to go to seminary and come back as the Pastor at Aroma.  We ate delicious rice, fish balls, soups, and greens.  We ended our day a little earlier than usual and managed a little more sleep. 

To eat or to play?!?!

Story of a homeless ministry

We began our day with a little more structure than our previous days.  We started with devos right after we woke up.  We have found that we function better with more structure.  Some need to know more about what is going to happen during the day and cannot manage to function properly without this knowledge.  It seems to have gone more smoothly this way so I guess we will keep it around.

Breakfast was at one of the local breakfast shops down the street from Aroma.  We picked up some of our favorite breakfast of dan bing (egg & bacon crepe) along with another type of sweet potato pancake.  We got our meals to go and sat on the floor in the prayer room and shared our meal.  This is a good time for us to talk as some of the Aroma staff can stop in and talk to us while we eat.  After we have a time of prayer.

Prayer time consists of allowing God to move in you.  You are free to worship in song, dance, prayer, Bible reading or any other way you feel you need to express God.  We typically have Chris play the guitar while we sing along, pray aloud, or read a Scripture.

Our outreach challenge for the day was inviting people to come out to Aroma.  We had coupons, signs, samples and some muffins that were for sale.  We were stationed in 2 groups.  One group stayed in front of Aroma the first 30ish mins and gave out coupons and raspberry banana smoothie samples.  The second team went down to Ximen MRT (subway) exit 6 and gave out coupons, samples of muffins and sold muffins.  Both teams were very successful for the first 30 mins so we took a little break then all of us stayed together and went back to exit 6.  By the end of our time reaching out we were almost out of coupons and only had one muffin left.  We sold a total of 27 muffins on our excursion and who knows how many coupons we handed out.  The coupons were designed to be used with smart phones.  When some one got one all they had to do was scan the code on the coupon on their phone and it would send them a coupon for a muffin discount.  To give you an idea of how much muffins are they cost 30NT (new taiwan dollar) which is equivalent to $1 US.  This was a great outreach for us.  We were ready to be out of our comfort zones since we had been pushed to do something similar the day before with our hugs and prayer ministry.

A muffin from Aroma?!?!

selling muffins

Would you like to try a sample?

We had a block of free time then decided to stay at Aroma for lunch.  They have some awesome foods here.  They have a lot of sets.  I had the light combo with spicy tuna and potato soup.  I also bought an osmanthus tea latte.  Osmanthus is a type of flower dried and in honey.  This is a local thing and a specialty drink at Aroma.  I might add that it is one of the tastiest drinks I have had in a while.

I am having a moment and cannot think of the name of the homeless outreach ministry so forgive me, but you know what we were doing.  We had made sandwiches, had some noodles, and some water to take around to meet our homeless friends.  The church does this as a regular outreach so they know the names of a lot of the people that we saw.  We split into 2 teams.  One team went down to the river while the other stayed in Ximen.  The team that went down to the river consisted of 6 people; Greg, Shelter, and Annette along with their translators; Nancy, Mark, and Polly.  The second team consisted of; Sarah, and Beth; along with their translators, Joe, Larry, Tiffany, and Ariel.

Here is the story from the Ximen group homeless outreach.  We prayed then parted ways with the first team.  We head down the street from Aroma and by the first ATM was one of the regular homeless ladies.  We sat with her for a minute and talked to her to find out how she was doing and if she needed food or drink.  She accepted a sandwich and talked briefly to us.  We asked if she had anything she needed prayer for and said no she was good.  After talking with our translators I found out that this lady has warmed up to them, but is still very tight lipped about sharing with us.  We continued down the street where we met one of the guys from church and we stopped to talk to him.  About the time we were leaving him a guy on a bike almost clipped him and knocked him over.  We continued on to the end of the street where we found 3 homeless people sleeping on the benches.  We left them sandwiches for when they woke up and continued on our way.  We wrapped around the block back toward Aroma.  As we made our second lap by the ATM another woman was there who did want to talk to us.  She invited us to sit with her.  Ariel and Tiffany began talking with her and she got very deep very fast.  She was talking about her job and her life which led to her belief that as long as you are a good person you are okay.  She believed that religion didn't matter as long as you were this so called good person.  Ariel went into a the conversation with her and shared about Christ.  She listened intently, but did not understand.  She said I here what you are saying, but I do not understand what the difference is.  About that time that same guy that almost took our friend out with the bike, pulled up and parked his bike.  He was wearing running shorts and a running sleeveless top.  He got off almost falling over, then proceeded to take his shoes off on the sidewalk.  This was happening during this deep conversation.  The woman we had been talking too stopped her conversation with us to yell at the man about not wearing shoes and not enough clothes.  They bantered back and forth some in Mandarin some on Taiwanese.  They stopped, but the man continued doing awkward things like digging through the basket on his bike and shaking out plastic bags.  The lady continued talking with us.  Not long after this the other lady by the ATM quick got up and left.  Tiffany asked where she was going.  This led to another loud argument between the man and the woman debating where she may have gone.  The whole time the man is arguing he looks unstable standing and more than likely he was drunk.  They got them calmed down enough that we could pray.  As the prayer ended the man asked for $1000.  They said no.  He asked for $100 and again we said no.  They offered him food and he got angry and gave it back.  He said Christians are hypocrites and they are the ones killing the Chinese in Tibet.  He said just leave I need a drink.

Team 1 by the river

It was quite a day of interesting events. 

Scavenger Hunt!

Today was our day to explore the city through an awesome scavenger hunt made by the amazing Jamie!
 :)    We were split into two competing teams. Team GAS (Greg, Annette, Sarah) and the other team, (Beth and Shelter) We traveled all over. We were privileged to even try some delicious street food!

rooster comb

One of the places we stopped at was an enormous Buddhist temple with many different sights, (and smells) The burning of incense and bowing of young and old. It saddened us to see so many people so lost. Worshiping gods who don't know and love them, like Jesus does so very much.

worshiping at Longshang Temple

One of our new favorite hangouts is the 7-Elevens on every corner. ( literally, we practically live there ;P ) That's where we met two of our new friends at separate times. Amber and Gina. We talked with and got to know Gina a little bit. She actually volunteered herself, to take us 5 blocks to show us a little bit of northern Taipei and to get some tea from a tea shop. We got to talk with her about what we were doing in Ximen and at the Aroma coffee shop, and invited her over,(if she still liked us after our swarms of questions) we also gave her a Jesus film in Chinese. Please pray that she will come to the coffee shop sometime, and get more exposure to Christ. And that she will watch the Jesus film!

Picture with Gina

...And the long day

We started our morning at church around 3am.  We proceeded to the airport with our families once we had all arrived and had a send off prayer.  We had been informed the night before that the flight was delayed until 7am.  We did not know until we arrived that it had been delayed even longer.  Now our departure time was 750am.  We ate some breakfast, did some devos and sat around playing bananagrams.  Around 730am they started boarding the plane.  By a little after 8am we were off on our adventure. 

When we arrived in Taipei we were greeted with a nice long walk to customs then a much shorter one to our bags.  We didn't have too much trouble at customs.  We got our bags which were somehow some of the first and last off of the plane.  We proceeded out through a no declaration area where they didn't even bother to check your bags.  We met Mark and Chris on the other side.  We exchanged our monies then proceeded on to a 45min bus ride, then a 15min taxi ride.  All culminating in us arriving at the house we would stay in. We got about 20min to put our stuff down and see the house then we were off and running.

Our first trip was to have lunch with some of the missionaries (Alexa, Van, Sarah, Jamie) of the Aroma (the coffee shop outreach/church). We had a traditional simple lunch of dumplings and bubble tea.  We took the time to get to know each others names and favorite places we had travelled.  Afterwards we learned about the mission here and what they hope to add in the future.  

Mark took us on a tour to Ximen to see the city where we will be doing most of our ministry.  We finished up then had some free time to wander around and try different foods and do a little shopping.  When we finished up at 630pm it was time to go help set up Aroma for the worship service. 

Squid balls and oyster mushrooms (mmm mmm good)

Ximen

Fun in Ximen

Worship was different and awesome.  We started out singing, then we had what was called testimony time.  I want to clarify testimony time for you, because it was done unlike anything that I had seen.  I always think of someone's personal testimony when I hear the word.  However, when they say testimony it is a testimony of how God is currently moving in their lives.  There was a lot of different people who shared.  It was really neat, because they were so open and honest.  One person shared a story of how she didn't really want to share about God at that point in time and that conversation ended up in an argument with the other person.  Afterward she realized that she needed to apologize to God for not wanting to share about Him.  So about 5 minutes after she asked for forgiveness she received a phone call from that friend apologizing.  We then had a sermon and some more singing.  We had a send off for one of the guys who will head back to the states for college.  After we wrapped everything up it was about 10pm.  We had to wait for someone to take us home on the bus.  We probably got back around 1030pm.  We all needed showers, because believe it or not the middle of the day here is more hot and humid than Guam.  We debriefed from our long day, then it was time for bed. 

Greg sharing a testimony through a translator

Prayer Requests for the day:

• That we won't get lost
• We have the stamina to last all day
• Make more friends and develop relationships

We Arrived

We made it we are safe...more to follow when we haven't been awake for 24+ hours.