July 26 Muffins with Mark and Sunday Service

On Sunday, we had a bit of time to rest in the morning. We had a "Guam-style" brunch at the requests of our hosts. Many of the Aroma leaders came and enjoyed the fried rice and Kosrae biscuits we had made. The brunch was also a farewell for our hosts, the Bennetts, as tomorrow they are going to Canada for awhile.

But later on we regrouped with our friends and translators (Mark, Nadia, Nancy, Skye, Kinsey,Annie) and headed out to the streets of Ximen with muffins and cookies from the coffee shop. We were able to not only sell all of the baked goods that we took but also had great interactions with the people we met. We felt it was successful in that many people were curious about the Aroma and were willing to stop and talk to us for extended periods of time.

In the evening, we were able to attend the Aroma's church service. Shelter had also been asked to do Children's Church with the 3 children Aroma has along with our translator friend, Harris. She used the same curriculum that we use with our Youth Group elementary students. The children seemed to like it and the curriculum is being considered.

The service was preached by one of the Taiwanese Aroma leaders named Cloud who wants to become a preacher. He preached on Romans 12. There was also great worship in both Mandarin and English.


After the service, we invited some people we had just met in the service and a big group of us went to a night market.

Some of our group

*July 23 Bonus Video*

Here is footage of one of the many temples here in Taipei. The Lonely Planet travel website states,"With 15,000 and counting, there is a temple for every god and even one for a dog*."With a temple at almost every corner of Taipei, it is saddening to see and brings Taiwan's situation into perspective.

 *http://www.lonelyplanet.com/taiwan/things-to-do/taiwan-s-top-temples#ixzz3hBC8HGJQ

*July 22 Bonus Video*

As promised, here is a bonus video for being late to post. This is one of the fun things we do with our friends. ;) Enjoy!

July 25: So Fun, Jiufen (九份)

Today we were able to go on a fun outing to reconnect with some of our new and old friends. One friend, Vivian, we had met last year at the CoffeeTalk and we were able to reconnect with this year as well. She is not a believer but likes to come to CoffeeTalk to practice her English. She brought along her friend, Larry , who surprisingly enough she had met at CoffeeTalk and has become good friends with. Our other new friend, Howard, also came along. Howard has been coming to The Aroma for about a year. He likes to hang around with the Aroma people and have fun but has a hard time believing that all the stories in the Bible are true. He is struggling to make sense of the Bible and always asks good questions which is great. We all try to help him as much as we can. Just recently too, he has been willing to be a translator with us and we hope that his interaction with us and other Aroma people will help him.

Some of our Aroma friends went along as well- Sam, Skye, and Irene.We went to an old gold mining town called Jiu Fen 九份. The Taipei Visitors' website explains, 



"Founded during the Qing Dynasty, this small town was a relatively isolated village until the discovery of gold during the Japanese occupation in 1893, quickly developing the town due to a gold rush. Many buildings in the town remain unchanged to this day, reflecting the Japanese influence on both architecture and culture on the island."*

 There were many alleys and food shops and even a cinema museum. We tried even more new foods which had our friends laughing and some even disgusted. We were able to have good conversations in the car and while going around Jiufen.

 

Then when we got back, the Aroma was having a music night, like a mini-concert. So we helped set up for it. After some dinner, we went and helped with the Action for Jesus street ministry. This is something we had done last year. Action for Jesus is where people from Aroma and whoever wants to help go,pray with, and give food and some necessities to any of the homeless people they can find on the street.  There have been many interesting relationships made through this ministry.

Prayer Requests:
-For our friends, Howard, Vivian, and Larry to allow their hearts to be open to the Holy Spirit
-Action for Jesus ministry: safety for volunteers, more volunteers






Praise:
-Thank the Lord for providing a volunteer who faithfully drops off huge amounts of food leftover from his delivery job
-The time we spent with new friends, both Christians and Not
-Safe travel to Jiufen and back to Taipei




*https://guidetotaipei.com/visit/jiufen-%E4%B9%9D%E4%BB%BD

July 22 continuation (對不起) - Free Hugs and Fun Friends

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First of all, we will start off with a common phrase we use:

對不起
Dui bu qi. (I'm sorry.)

We realize we haven't been posting for the last 3 days as we have been arriving at home near midnight and are out all day. We sincerely apologize and have come with a plan. For every day we postpone, we will make it up to you all by adding a bonus post with a video.

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JULY 23 CONTINUATION

 After our prayer walk to Longshan Temple, we did a very fun and yet challenging street outreach that we had done in summer 2014. We did our Free Hugs & Prayers outreach! ^_^ We stood in a busy section of Ximen and with our signs and voices we announced in Mandarin and English, "Free hugs and prayers!" We did this in order to let people know about the Aroma and also just to share God's love with others. We had many Taiwanese laughing at our antics and attempts at Mandarin BUT many more also did come up for hugs and prayers. We were able to pray for another church group here for sports evangelism, 2 Mormon missionaries, many test-takers, and various other people. One of our Taiwanese translators explained to us that these free prayers work well in Taipei because most people will not refuse a prayer and will be touched to see genuine interest and compassion from strangers. Through the hugs and prayers, we were also able to let more people know about and be aware of The Aroma as not only a coffee shop but also a church. More importantly, we were able to pray for them in the name of Jesus and let them know about Him.(By the way, Beth was totally getting most of the hugs.)

In the evening, we were able to have some good fun fellowship playing board and video games (Just Dance!) with our translators and a new friend called Ben. Please pray for Ben as he seems to really like the Aroma people and has been coming to the language exchange nights a few times. It's been noted to us that Ben seems to be searching for what exactly makes the Aroma people different. He chooses not to believe in Christ though and told us he feels like his life is just fine. This past week however, he has come to hang out with us to practice his English. Pray for us and the other Aroma workers as we minister to Ben whether it be through conversations or just good fellowship.

Confusion on the Dance Floor

Learning New Games

More Dancing! ^_^ Our new friend, Ben on the right

Prayer Requests:
-Ben to realize how much he needs Jesus
-For the people we connected with on the street to open their hearts to the Holy Spirit and to seek Him. For them to connect with Christians, maybe even The Aroma.

July 24: Home of God's Love and CoffeeTalk

Today was a very touching and fun day for us. We were able to visit a Children's Home where one of our church members was adopted from. We met the wonderful people who head this wonderful home called The Home of God's Love. It is not technically an orphanage as many of the children there are not orphans. Many of the children they take in have a parent(s) who is not able to support their child(ren) for an extended period of time. Some of these situations are temporary while others are not. Their website explains,

"We are a non-profit Christian organization that is sponsored by individuals and independent Christian Churches.  Our main ministry in Taiwan is providing a Christian home for children who for some reason cannot live with their families.  In most cases these children are not available for adoption, but are sponsored by families, individuals, or groups in the United States.  Occasionally a child is available for adoption."

The main people who have been in charge for years are Bev (Mama Bev) and Ted Skiles who are known here as "Shi Mama" and "Shi Baba". They started this home and have been working hard since 1975. If you would like to see more information about the Home of God's Love, feel free to click on the link at the bottom of this post.

We found Shi Mama and Baba to be such deep wells of wisdom and love. We learned so much from them with our short visit. They told us of how amazingly God has provided for the home through others. The daily healthy meals, baby supplies, and clothes are all provided to the home for free on a constant basis.  A new modern building was just built last year as the older 40 year old building was starting to need repair. The amazing aspect of the building is not only its architectural beauty and modern amenities but also the fact that it was built debt-free and able to go through with all the necessary government building permits.

We were so touched to connect with the people who had taken such good care of our church member as a baby and to see how wonderful the ministry and the people are.

The Home of God's Love

[SIDE NOTE: In order to protect and respect the children and their family's privacy, we are not posting any pictures or videos that include any of the children.]


COFFEE TALK!!
So due to some human error, we were notified the day before that we are actually leading this week's language exchange program at The Aroma with a lesson plan and everything. We quickly came up with a game plan last night and decided to present about our favorite topic, GUAM! As aforementioned, Beth and Shelter worked on the food aspect of the presentation while Greg and Sarah put together a slideshow presentation and discussion points. Unfortunately, today Shelter was showing more cold/flu-like symptoms and so my team members graciously let her go on a pharmacy run and take a break during CoffeeTalk. (Thanks!) Shelter was able to take a break with the sweetest Taiwanese friend we know, Polly! She is our good friend who we met last year and has helped us with translating. We were able to do much needed catching up in the basement prayer room. Polly has been showing more and more signs of wanting to be a believer. She is so close.  She has even questioned about baptism which by the way is a HUGE step here in Taiwan. (It's a public declaration of your new life in Christ and shows everyone in your life just how serious you are about your Christian faith.) She also has not been feeling well these past few weeks so please pray that we will be able to have more fellowship time with Polly.

Shelter making Rosketti

 

Greg with some Taiwanese during Coffee Talk

 Prayer Requests:
-Pray for the Home of God's Love: They have asked for prayer for the people of Taiwan to be better educated about local adoptions and for the government to have better adoption practices and laws.
-Pray for the Skiles and all the faithful workers and volunteers
-Pray for the donations to continue to be consistent
-Pray that Larry and Vivian (friends made during Coffee Talk) would come out to church

Praises:
-Praise God in providing so amazingly for all the necessities of the children and the home
-Praise Him in sending people who He knows are just right for His purposes
*http://www.thehomeofgodslove.org/#!

July 23: Reno, Rice, and Rosketti...blocks? ;)

Today we went to the site where on Monday we had not been allowed to paint. Thankfully today we were given the opportunity to roll up our sleeves and put our restoring skills to use. A friend of The Aroma and a fellow believer that we met last year called Abao needed some restoring help in his house as he and his sister are not physically able to do all the upkeep themselves. So we did a major "spring-cleaning" in the house's single bathroom, kitchen, and Abao's bedroom. We also were able to paint Abao's room and include a Bible verse he wanted inscribed on the wall. This project was a major undertaking and took us all day.

Luke 6:20-22

We went back to the Aroma in the evening where Greg had a meeting with an Aroma leader for tomorrow's language exchange program,  CoffeeTalk. Shelter and Beth baked some Rosketti cookies also in preparation for tomorrow's CoffeeTalk theme: GUAM! ^_^



Prayer Requests:
-Abao
-Preparations for CoffeeTalk

Praise:
-Praise God that we were allowed into Abao's house and able to finish the necessary tasks.