Finishing Up

Hi All,

Thank you for your prayers. We are entering the last day.

These last 4 days have been a completely different experience from week 1 in Puli.

The first 2 days we lacked energy and missions felt like a chore for many of the STMers. They were unable to get excited as they were still feeling the aftereffects of

The first week of camp—many of the STMers spent their energy—mentally, emotionally, and physically. However, we were blessed by an infusion of 5 STMers from Davis church who joined us midway through our 2^nd week. Their presence energized us and gave us a jump start.

Being physically and mentally tired meant we needed to rely on God. Many of the kids in this region are from broken families—drugs and gangs. From the first day of camp, the kids were unresponsive and didn’t participate in many of the activities. Last night, we had our weekly water war which saw STMers and kids throwing water at each other and running around like best friends.

Each day we have had an opportunity for the STMers to share their testimony. It was nice to see the youth as well as others step up to tell the kids how God has changed their lives and how He moves them on a daily basis.

Today we will be having our performance and we are hoping the kids will experience God’s love more and more.

Please pray that the kids will come in the afternoon, there is a large ancestral worship ceremony here in Chiayi. Also, pray for the STMers as they will be leaving immediately following the end of performance to catch our train to Taipei.

See you all soon when we return.

Jeremy

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Chiayi, Here We Come!

Dear All,

We arrived in Chia-yi for the second leg of our missions trip. The Chia-yi team consists of Elder Weng, Jessie Weng, Betty Hsu, Jeremy Lee, Chris Su, Molly Cheng, Stephen Chen, Phoebe Chen, Emmeline Tseng, Terrance Chang, Monica Hsu, Tim Chuang and Leslie Lin.

For me, it was an opportunity to see the youth grow in Christ. Though tired and frustrated with teaching kids, each STMer showed love towards their children making sure that God’s love was the focus.

Praise God for safe travels to this area. The weather here has been rainy and the space isn’t large, but God is using this opportunity to show us what he can do as long as we rely on Him. Each class has roughly ten (10) students. This has enabled us to have a better teacher-student ratio. It is my prayer that through smaller class sizes, the STMers will be able to build a better bond with their kids and create an environment where God’s deep love flourishes.

Today, two students from Class 1 got into an argument over name calling. They are in the 1^st and 3^rd grade. While talking to both the kids, they decided to reconcile with each other and agreed to remove the hurtful comments written in their personal notebooks about the other. Our theme for this week’s camp is reconciliation and these two young children, by themselves, shook hands and made the decision to be nicer to each other.

As the week goes on, please pray for energy as all the STMers are still recovering emotionally and physically from a taxing first week.

God was present throughout the first week of camp in Puli. Please visit our Canaan or AEF Facebook page for some video recaps of the first week of camp.

Thanks for all your prayers and e-mails.

Regards,

Jeremy

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Hectic Day

Dear All,

This is Emmeline! It’s the last night and it has been such a crazy night. Thank you so much for all of your prayers! I appreciate them so much. We’ve been extremely blessed this past week.

We practiced for our performance all day today. It was pretty hectic. Long story short, the kids started to call each other names and it got serious so we ha a talk with them to remember to love one another and to be united as a team. During class time today, we pretty much rehearsed all day and practiced dancing. After our talk, we had them apologize to each other and soon, we were happily dancing again. Our performance consisted of an aboriginese dance and two vbs songs. The children performed so well.

As for anymore prayer requests, Please pray for the children that they would go back to their regular lives feeling encouraged by what happened this week. Please pray for next week for us to have energy as we go to Jia Yi. Lastly, please pray for my mosquito bites. I haven’t ended up in the hospital yet but I got bit many times in the past two days.

Thanks!

Emmeline

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Fighting the Language Barrier

Hello!

This is Monica Hsu emailing from our villa in Puli, Taiwan. First of all, I’d like to thank all of you for your prayers and support! We definitely feel your love all the way here in Taiwan. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts.

Today is our seventh day in Taiwan and our second day of camp. Even though it’s only our second day of camp, I feel like I’ve known these kids for weeks. It’s truly amazing to see how God has provided us with so much love and compassion.

One of my biggest fears coming into this camp was the language barrier. I hate to say it, but my Mandarin really sucks. I was extremely afraid that I would have come all this way to Taiwan, just to not be able to communicate with the kids. However, with the continuous prayers from the missions team and those of you at home, God has broken this barrier. Even though we speak different languages, I have already connected with these kids through God’s love because God’s love has no language! My kids have already given me their bracelets, drawn me pictures, and given me big fat kisses. When I left the classroom today to return to our villa, one of my students came up to the door and said, “I’m going to America with you”. It’s little things like these that remind me why God sent me here.

There have been a few issues throughout this week:

1. Many of our children have become homesick

2. Health issues ( cuts, stomach aches, mosquito bites, headaches, sore throats, etc)

3. Bad behavior within the classroom and many more

Please pray for us as we continue these last two days of our Puli camp. Thank you so much for your support!

From,

Monica Hsu

P.S. I have never sweat this much in my life.

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News Update from Puli

Hey guys! This is Stephen Chen, giving you your daily update. :]

So it’s the morning right now, and we just finished our first day of camp yesterday. For some people, the day was pretty hectic with all the kids running around all the time, and for others, filling up time was a difficult thing to do. My guess is that you all have been getting the same prayer requests each and everyday, that being that we remain healthy, avoid bug bites, that we are able to control the kids and be able to reach out to them and spread God’s love to them. I’m trying to think of other things for you guys to pray about, but I think those are the main things to pray about. So, may you all just continue to keep those main goals in prayer. Without those prayers, I bet that we’d be covered in bug bites and infestations, and all of our kid’s would’ve run home, so thanks guys!

We’ve all been having a great time, thus far. We’re exhausted, but I know that through faith, at the end of this week, all the effort we put in to loving these kids will be worth it. There are many naughty kids that fight and don’t listen to the teachers, but I can assure you that they are all good kids, and that they are the children of God, and that they are easy to love. Thanks for all your prayers again!

This is Stephen Chen, signing out!

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Killing Cockroaches!

Hey!

This is Tim Chuang and I would like to thank all of you for keeping the STM team in your prayers. I can tell that it has made a big difference and I see God working around me everyday.

Today we went to church in the morning with all the aborigines and it was very fun. The aborigines are so full of energy during worship, they sing loud, they clap to almost every song, and try to move around as much as they can. It really brought joy to me just watching people worship God with such positive energy. After church everybody got together in their groups for the Nantou or Puli camps and we went to Carrefour (Costco) to buy candy, prizes, and materials we needed to teach the kids in Puli. After all the shopping we drove to Puli and immediately felt it get hotter. We joined our groups and started to set up for camp and clean the classrooms. Inside the classrooms were numerous amounts of dead ants, flies, and cockroaches. After cleaning we all sat together to eat dinner. Shortly after dinner we began to move boxes and desks around to different rooms throughout the school. With no air conditioning and hotter weather energy was very low, and it was easy to tell during our bible study type meeting with all the teachers of the camp, but when worship came the aborigines immediately started to dance and form circles, and they even got us to make a big circle and dance. After the long day the we were driven to a very nice villa to stay at. Again no air conditioning but we’re all thankful for a nice place to sleep at. We’ve already killed two cockroaches and there are tons of other bugs, especially ants. And now we’re resting up preparing for tomorrow. I feel very energetic when I’m with my team here in Puli, and I feel like that our language barrier isn’t even there. I can’t wait for tomorrow.

Some prayer requests as the first day of camp is approaching.

1. Please pray that when the kids come they will have an open heart for learning and having fun.

2. Health among the kids and teachers.

3. Rest

4. Weather

5. Bugs

Thank you all for the prayer support. We all appreciate how supportive you guys are.

Sincerely, Tim Chuang

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Adjusting to Taiwan

Hi,

This is Terrance Chang. It’s the third day of training so far here at Nantou, and it is definitely not easy. However, I feel that we are all getting adjusted to Taiwan, meaning the heat, the bugs, and the squatty potties. We have bonded with our respective teams, and I feel we will be able to work very in sync with each other at the camps. Tomorrow, we leave for Puli, which will be a totally new area for us to adjust to. I ask that you all pray for us that we will be able to connect with the kids and befriend them, and also that we will be able to spread the Gospel to them. Also, pray for our health that none of us fall ill to sickness and that we will be energized throughout the camp.

Thanks!

Sincerely, Terrance

P.S: These songs here are EXTREMELY difficult…but fun nonetheless

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VBS Songs on Steroids

Hello,

This is Phoebe Chen. Thanks so much for all of you who have been praying for our Taiwan Mission Team. Today was our second day of training. We officially met the worship team, which was an aboriginal team. They were all very shy at first, but very friendly once we all sat down for some shaved ice. We also learned the songs that we will be singing and dancing to during missions. They are very intense. Jeremy refers to them as VBS songs on steroids. And that is very much true…also add in the extremely hot weather. The TA’s we have here are so nice. It’s cool to have people here who also speak very fluent English. Today has mostly just been bonding time. We played multiple kinds of ice breaker games.

I’ve been feeling very energized by the amount of unity I’ve been seeing among the TA’s, worship team, Everglow youth, and the leaders. I’m feeling much more comfortable around my coworkers. Yesterday I was extremely homesick. I really miss my parents. How will I ever go to college? But I’m thankful that God has put such a friendly and energetic group together for missions this year.

We will be going to Puli next week for the actual camp. There’s never been an AEF camp in Puli before. My biggest fear is that the kids will be extremely shy and will not want to participate in the games. Unresponsive kids are the worst kind. So if you could all continue to pray that the kids will come with open hearts, that would be really nice. Open hearts mean that the kids will at least think about Jesus and what He did for us. Even if they don’t accept Christ, I hope that they won’t reject it and that they’ll continue to think about it.

Thank you for your prayers and there will be more updates to come!

Sincerely, Phoebe Chen

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We’ve Arrived!

We have arrived safely in Taiwan. We are currently waiting at the airport, getting ready to go on the bus.
The team is healthy and we’re excited to start.
Please pray for our second leg of our travel to Nantou via bus which will be arriving in an hour.

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