Dear faithful praying friends,
An Evangelical Team From Taipei
In mid-July, we had a team of six from Taipei, including Pastor Peter Hung and his wife, plus another two couples, come to Taitung to help our church to pass out gospel tracts and share the good news to people. We found out these two couples had something in common, both sisters are Korean, one of the brother is a Sri Lankan Chinese whom immigrated to Taiwan for more thirty years. Another brother is a biracial of Taiwanese and Korean. All of them are faithful servants of Christ and focusing the children ministries. The older couple, brother Demian Chai and sister Charissa Kim are volunteers of Awana Children Ministries, they help churches around Taiwan to equip their workers to develop their children programs. As they came, We arranged them to distribute our church gospel tracts at several hot spots such as the Hot Air Balloon Carnival, Taitung City Night Market, and Taitung Railway Art Village. While we passed out tracts, if anyone had interested to listen what we shared the gospel message, we would give out the New Testament Bible to them. Praise God th re had many people willing to received our tracts. On that Sunday we invited Pastor Peter Hung to share the word of God and also their works in Taipei. We also asked brother Demian and sister Charissa to let us know more about Awana Children Ministries in Taiwan. We are so blessed and pray that God could open more doors for us to serve and spread the gospel to those unreached people.
2023 Summer Children VBS
From August 9th to 11th , our church hosted a three-day children’s summer camp. Since we have been gone through three years COVID pandemic, this was the first time we organized this kind of activity for children again. Our theme for this VBS was “Food Carnival”. We used three Bible stories as the main axis alongside with some teachings related to some information about food in everyday program. The first day we talked about Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, we introduced some fruits that were available in Taiwan during the summer and taught them the English names of those fruits; The craftwork we taught was towel apples. The second day we shared the story of Jacob using a bowl of red bean soup to defraud Esau into his birthright. We showed them a diagram of the distribution of the four tastes sensory parts in our tongue, sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. And then let them try to taste some samples with blindfolded. The craft of the day was making the snowy mooncakes, after that they could take them home to share with their families. On the last day, we talked about the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding bnquet in Cana, we introduced them several special drinks in different places, such as Malaysia’s tarik tea, Hong Kong’s hot coke with lemon and ginger, Guangdong’s herbal tea, Taiwan’s pearl milk tea, etc. . Apart from the above events, we also included the daily worksheets and memorized verses to help them understand God’s words more deeply. Thank God, although we had a few children who came to join the VBS, still there were two brothers with intellectual disabilities who lived next door to the church also came to participate. In fact, their IQs are only at the level of elementary school students. We found out that maybe VBS was more suitable for them to learn its best indeed. Praise the Lord for all the blessings we experienced in this VBS.
A Taiwan Baptist Bible Fellowship 70th Anniversay
On September 8th , a special thanksgiving worship service was held in Taipei to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Taiwan Baptist Bible Fellowship. That was also the celebration of The Tabernacle Baptist Church Bible Taipei which was the first church established by TBBF in Taiwan. We are so honored to attend this memorable meeting. During the worship service, they presented some historical pictures of the TBBF to show their ministries, and also at the same time they lifted up to those co-workers who have been faithful to serve our Lord for these past years. Their testimonies, contribution worth everyone stood up to give them a burst of applause and paid homage to them. Because of these pioneers who have been hardworking to build up many churches in different places to preach the gospel to Taiwanese and taught them to observe all things whatsoever Jesus have commanded, so that more Christians answered God’s calling to enter into the field of gospel ministry.
Rev. Dan Freeman, the founder of Asian Baptist Institute, also seized this opportunity to invite missionaries, co-workers in Christ from other countries to participate in this thanksgiving service. At the same time, it also allowed all of them having the opportunity to fellowship again for this precious moment. After the event, a new missionary couple (Rev. Rommei & Mrs. Grelen Arzadon) came to Taitung to attend our church’s Sunday service. They had just committed themselves to becoming missionaries in early June and went to Botswana, Africa, to preach the gospel in the small country in northern South Africa. The pastor shared how God called his family to go to this distant and unheard of country to deliver the good news to the unreached people for the Lord. We were very curious as they had never set foot on this land. I believe that all of this is the arrangement and guidance of God the Father. We hope to be able to help them and start their missionary journey as soon as possible. Please pray for them.
Baptism and Parents-Children Cake Making Workshop
On September 24th apart from our regular Sunday worship service, we have two added special events. The first one was a baptism for our two mentally handicapped brothers in Christ. Before the baptism, we needed to explain to them what the biblical baptism is, and other related issues in a very simple way. In the past, we would rather go to the beach or a pool for baptisms. This time we specially purchased a huge bucket that usually used for water storage, which is big enough for them to be baptized. As both of them were very scared water, I tried very hard to push them completely immersed into the water. Nevertheless, we are so thankful for their willingly to obey the Lord Jesus’ command. Afterwards, we have lunch gathering, their mother who witnessed their baptism also stayed with us and we had a joyous fellowship. Prayed that God could open her mind that one day she would accept as her saviour. And then in the afternoon we organized a parents-children snowy mooncake making workshop . The aim of this event was to invite our neighbors around came and joined us.. However, just only our brothers and sisters have interested to come and learn. Anyway, thank you Lord we had a wonderful fellowship at least. We will continue to hold that kind of activity and pray that God will lead people nearby to come. Please pray for that.
Prayer requests:
- Julie father has been with our Lord Jesus on November 7th. We rushed back to Philippines to help out the funeral. Please specially pray for her family members and relatives as most of them are Catholic. Although her father, sisters and mother are all Christians, some of them followed the Catholic way to do her father funeral. Pray for those unsaved relatives will accept Jesus as their Lord and savior.
- Christmas programs for Schools
- My health problem. Please pray that everything is under control.
- Please pray that God could open more gospel doors for us..
- My wife mandarin speaking, pray that she can speak fluently, for God’s glory
- Thank you for your faithful prayers, encouragement, financial support, and your love. May you continue to extend your gospel rope to send us to helping the lost souls in Taiwan and to the regions beyond..
In Christ we serve,
Bill & Julie Tjia
