Missions Update #2

We spent all of June still under Level 3 lockdown. Case numbers have vastly improved since last month, so there is more hope that Level 3 will change on July 12.

There are many long time leaders who are transitioning out of the ministry. One of the families (The Siemens) has been called to start a new missions site in Ukraine. They have been in Taiwan for a while and will be greatly missed. Another couple (The Conklins) will be returning to the United States for 6 months for their home assignment. However, they will be coming back to the southern part of Taiwan to work with a different site. The only Americans at the Taipei site will be me and the head pastor’s family. The few remaining staff are locals.

As a result, I am suddenly now in charge of anything English-related. I have been trying to coordinate with the volunteers for our Friday night “Coffee Talks”. These volunteers are native English speakers who give up their Friday nights to lead conversation practice time at the cafe. Because of the lock down, we have not had any sessions. However, starting in August, there will be a great need for volunteers.  I have been continually teaching the sessions online while the cafe is closed.

Over the past month, I’ve also been figuring out more audio/visual related skills to add to our worship team’s ministry. I’ve been able to play with some of the video cameras available and to experiment in music production with Ableton. There is still a lot for me to learn and figure out. We plan on publishing some videos on the church YouTube page, and to pre-record some songs for our online services.  Here’s a link to one of the videos.  This particular song is one of the more popular Chinese worship songs.

I personally have been most happy with the internal process improvements I’ve been able to help implement. There used to be countless documents that repeated a lot of information. I was able to consolidate the data into just a few documents. Spreadsheets are really an easy way to communicate lots of information clearly. The accountability and  sense of ownership by the staff has improved. This new reporting helps with the reporting to other stakeholders.

God is still working in the midst of all the changes and uncertainty. Attendance to online church service has dramatically increased. Sometimes there’s more people online than there were in person. We’ve been able to maintain and expand our online presence as well. God is still definitely at work. All of your prayers and support are a real part of the story here in Taipei.  I wouldn’t be able to do anything without it.

 

Please continue to pray for:

-language learning and conversation practice in Mandarin. It is continually frustrating for me to not be able to read/speak/write much Mandarin. The learning process has been immensely difficult.

-my emotional and spiritual health. All of the changes and frustrations definitely take a toll on me. Also, the enemy knows that God is using me, so I have definitely experienced spiritual warfare in new ways.

-all of the transitions within the staff.  There is a lot of uncertainty.

-the people of Taiwan. While better contact tracing and preventative measures have helped bring down the case numbers, vaccines will be a more long term solution.