Reflection: Sharon Lin -STM

 

 

After five days of camp I’ve definitely learned a lot about God’s movement in His people, through His people.

The first few days I was going crazy-my kids were wild and completely out of control. Every class was a battle. The kids made fun of each other, and all the teachers. I went to into each class excited to teach and was defeated within minutes of stepping into the classroom by the kids’ vicious words. So many times I felt like I wanted to give up; But each time God provided a TA, STM, SGL, or co-worker to help me. As I hit brick walls, God crumbled them for me. Through this, I began to understand the truth behind Matthew 6:33, But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. When I chose to serve Him, the Lord provided. Furthermore I was able to truly experience 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

Through something as basic as learning the camp dances, God also worked to increase my faith in Him and my understanding of his love. Let me start with a fact; I cannot dance and I have terrible memory for choreography. Through this, however,God used my weaknesses to reveal Himself to me. It was through my weakness that I was able to see His great strength overcome my humanity. I had joyfully thought that God provided for my weakness when I assumed I had song 8 (flag dance, no dancing) in the beginning of camp, but after we reselected songs I was ironically stuck with song 7, which was rumored to be the most difficult dance out of all the songs. I was in despair. I knew that on my own I’d never be able to learn the dance before I had to teach my students. However, God knew what I needed better was better than what I thought I needed. By giving me the hardest song, God humbled me and then proceeded to show me love beyond anything I’ve ever experienced in a church body before. My teaching group patiently worked with me for hours for the two remaining days, and showed me 1 Corinthians 13 love. What humbled me the most was that my team consisted of sisters and a brother that was younger than me. In my mind, I should have been the one taking care of and showing love to them, but instead they cared for me and showed me what love from God truly looked like. He humbled me to allow my group to really bond and create a better teaching team for the students that He would transform. Aside from my teaching team, I was also extremely humbled by the unconditional and unending love from the other STMs, co-workers, worship team, and DV team. It was encouraging to see everyone working to be the hands and feet of Christ, loving our students, the TAs, and each other.

The heart and passion for worship and praise to the Lord in each person overflowed into the camp and was infectious. Seeing the passion that the Christians in Taiwan have for evangelism and the gospel leaves me with great hope that Taiwan is beginning to see a revolution for Christ. As AEF continues, year after  year, to plant seeds in the hearts of more and more youth in Taiwan, I am eager to see the fruit that is bore when the youth step up and lead, and through leadership, bring about the next generation. Looking at AEF from previous years and seeing the leadership in AEF now, it is evident that God word has really been moving through AEF, and it’s crazy exciting!! 🙂

Read Full Post »

Reflection: Tiffany Tam- STM

How I’ve changed at AEF camp? I have been reassured of God’s presence during this camp. I went into this missions trip not really knowing what to expect at all and I was especially nervous since my Mandarin skills are very much less than proficient. The strange thing is that when it came time for meeting the other Taiwanese peoples and campers, everything just felt right.

I realized that when you rely on God, like really depend and lift everything up to Him…He will provide and He’s got our back. He provided a group with more than helpful TAs, and supportive helpers that comforted me and helped me get through the week in a place where I only understood 5% of what was going on.

It was really great seeing everyone working together from such diverse backgrounds. I really enjoyed building relationships with the TAs, the other STMers and the Taiwanese Aborigines. The friendships I made inTaiwanfelt so real because we all struggled and worked hard together for a common mission, to spread the love of God to others.

The week went by a lot faster than expected and I wasn’t sure if I made enough of an impact on the kids. I connected a lot more with the girls in my class so I tried talking to them more about the gospel and sharing my testimony before I put them to bed. Being 9 and 10 years old and extremely giddy, I’m not sure if any of it got through to them… but on the last day of the last large group gathering, they played “He Knows My Name” and something unexpected happened. The girls whom I spent most of my time with came toward to hug me with tears in their eyes, and of course tears down my face followed quickly after. That moment made my week more than worth it.

I felt such joy when I saw the happiness in the kids, I love everyone in my group. But I especially hope that the kids and the TAs were touched by God’s presence during the camp. I pray that they will become more curious about his works and may want to accept the great gift. I learned that God is truly great, dependable, powerful, and most of all…LOVING!

I missTaiwanand AEF a lot and hope to better my Mandarin skills so that I can potentially go back in the future. I also hope to maintain and continue my relationships with the people I met this summer. It was definitely a record-breaking awesome summer. I LOVE AEF!

Read Full Post »

Reflection: Fisher Shen- TA

In the beginning of the camp, because most of our members are 1^st timers in their job/role, it is harder to work together to lead the kids. We also saw many changes in the kids through out the 4 day camp.

Kids that isolate themselves and is silent on the first day tend to open up more an cooperate in learning, serving tables, playing games, and interacting with others.

Discriminating is also another major issue in the camp, not just in our group. Like the U.S. with black and whites, there are racial rejection/discrimination here in Nantou. Even so, kids began to make friends, work together with each other and began to work more like a team of #10.

I feel that the camp is doing really well in spreading God’s love to the people in Nantou. By inviting foreign teachers is a major issue in convincing the kids that God have his plan for everything and everyone.

Read Full Post »

Reflection: Jeff Chang -STM

I am gracious that I came to AEF camp. What I really felt through this camp was God’s love. God’s love breaks barriers of language, culture, and age difference. When I first saw my kids, even though I did not know Chinese, I knew if I just loved them, God’s love would shine. Working with [Shirley], [Nathan] [Esther] [Tiffany] and [Carrie], I learned how humor can bond a group. I also loved that each of us was different and brought a unique quality to the group.

I loved the kids the most. Even though they laughed at me for my bad Chinese, I really saw how love can impact a kids actions and thoughts. My kids were wonderful. They listened, played games, and joked around with me. I hope God can continue to impact their lives and AEF camp is just the beginning of their long journey in Christ. One last thing I hope my little sister Carrie was impacted to get to know Christ. She is awesome and I want her to know the power of God’s love. I will pray for her.

Read Full Post »

Reflection: Sam Shuzawa -TA

 

 

I joined this camp because I was kind of forced to. My mom signed me up before telling me and didn’t tell me we had to dance. Instead of complaining I decided to think on the bright side, at least I get to give out homework  (I later learned I can’t….).

I was surprised when the kids first came. At first they only enjoyable part was playing basketball but the kids made the time fly by. Although they may be hard to take care of, they definitely made this week memorable.

This camp was a clear example of how we should not judge a book by it’s cover. It may seem broing on first sight but down under it is filled with fun. Also I learned a lot more about Christians and what is actually in the Bible.

As a result I enjoyed this camp a lot and really had fun taking care of the kids despite from time to times they misbehave. Even though we had dance (not something I do), I was willing to sleep late just so the kids can have fun. Although I’m not crying in the outside, I really wish they can stay for another week inside.

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Reflection: Ricky Lin-TA

           I came into this camp, shy, but after a few days, I got use to this place and kind of peeked out of my shyness zone. I will only act how I usually act when I see people I know really well. But this time, only after a day or two, I showed myself, dancing, and singing wildly. I personally think it is God who helped me. He helped me grow up and get out of my mask.

God. Pray. I’ve never been touched by God and never prayed so often before. Problems formed which harmed my heart and forced my tears to come out. I prayed. God helped. I stepped one big step to knowing God and being friends with him. I now know why God is important and how he is the best. This is all AEF’s work.

Dancing. Dnace offs during the precamp or the training formed. I stared at them (at even Justine, William…) with amazement. My first step to become a “dancer” is dancing the Christian songs. Now when I look back, I think it’s REAL easy. The second and a huge step is dancing on the stage. With a real song! And with William, Justin, Brian. I am real proud.

THANKS AEF!

Read Full Post »

Reflection: Lillian Chan- TA

 

This is a tough week for me. First of all, we don’t really have enough people in group. We only have one STMer, one TA, one SGL, two co-workers, and one workship team. Eve is one of the leaders, and group 10 needs help from her too, I understood, so I’m willing to take this challenge and I think I up to this challenge. Second of all, my group has one girl that very uncooperative with students, teachers, and helpers. I kept my age my secret through the whole camp, because I’m not way older than them, and I wanted them to keep their respect for me. She has always been a problem in class, her looks, her attitude, and her action made her being a outcast, my SGL was dealing with the guys, and my two co-workers didn’t know how to deal with her, so I think this some of the biggest challenge through this week. I’m trying to talk softly to her, sometime I used my teacher character to talk to her, she seems understood first, but however she done something I think is very disrespectful and gone too far. I couldn’t control my temper that time, I yelled at her, my anger was very obvious. After talking to different people I got different point of view for this incident. This definitely made me grow up and I gained more experiment.

This was been a good experiment, although this is completely different from last time I went to AEF, God blessed me.

Read Full Post »

Reflection: Christine Huang- TA

This is my second time here, and I feel that I learned something new and different. Last time, I mostly learned how to just love the kids and bond with them. This time, I gained the ability to discipline and be stern. Because the kids in my group were older, they were less willing to interact with the teachers. Instead, they were more scusy and had a very wise mouths. As a result, class was often disrupted by random people getting up and walk around. In order to discipline them, I had to be stern and be able to get them to understand without undermining their self-confidence. I found this to be very challenging and often felt the urge to just scream or yell at them. Talking to them nicely proved to be fruitless and as a result, I had to occasionally raise my voice and appear menacing. Through this, I learned to be firm.

Not only did I learn to be stern, I learned to communicate with the other TA and STMers better. Previously, I barely knew the others, but this year, I feel that I have been able to become friends with the others and have actual conversations with them.

However, I believe that I could do my role better. My STMer knows Chinese, so I rarely have to translate. As a result, I often have nothing to do. Therefore, I hope that I will think of other ways to help next time.

Read Full Post »

Reflection: Brian Shih- TA

The AEF camp dramatically changed my viewpoint to many things. For the first time in my life, I realized what god really                      means. Although I am not a Christian, the worshiping, praying, and going to church made me feel like everyone in the world is a                  great big family. These spiritual break throughs simply made me a “better” person.

Also, I realized that taking care of helping a person could be a happy thing.

In addition, I found out that the STMs, co-workers, students, etc are all very energetic and passionate. Surrounded by this environment, I felt that I am less shy and happier.

In conclusion, I think this camp is very fun and interesting. I would be more than willing to come again.

Read Full Post »

Reflection: Leslie Lin-STM

It’s been three years since I came to Taiwan and AEF, and serving as a second year STMer I must admit that I was still plague by worries. I felt that I wasn’t as spiritually prepared as I wanted to be; and I was worried over not having a TA to translate for me. However through reading and mediating on Matthew 6:33 “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” I realized my worries were minor and typical and I was reassured that God will always provide for me. Arriving at Nantou, it was amazing and heartwarming to see how God has raised some former students to become SGLs and leaders of this camp. Through God’s timing, it was amazing to see people called from all over the world, not only America and Taiwan, to serve and to be as one unified body for Christ. I saw how this year AEF team, as an army of God, built each other up and formed strong relationships through words and actions of encouragement.

When my kids arrived, I was awestricken because they were the best well-mannered kids I ever met! I didn’t have to deal with emotional fights, rowdy kids, and it was always amusing to see them giving warmhearted greetings and respect to the leaders and adults. Praise the Lord. Although the kids always seem to grin over my rusty Mandarin, I still felt loved when they took the time to understand me. In relevance to this year’s theme of “Culture and Reconciliation”, I saw how cultural and language barrier didn’t stop me from sharing and showing God’s love to these kids. Through my time worshipping to sharing late night Bible stories with the kids, I knew it was all in God’s hand to see the results of my actions. When the Wednesday night alter call rolled around, it was breathtaking to see my kids so spiritually hungry for God. To see all my students’ hands raised, I knew that this was all due to God’s unfathomable love for his people.  By “Seeking first His kingdom”, I felt physically and spiritually stretched and strengthened to see how God has provided me with such a wonderful class and team.  Whenever I think of Taiwan, I always feel an overwhelming and indescribable sense of Christ’s love and joy that I experience from AEF.  From this year, I realized just how much I loved working the kids and the people here at AEF and I cannot wait to come back!

Read Full Post »