When I enter that beautiful city,
And the saved all around me appear,
I hope that someone will tell me,
"It was you who invited me here."
"...there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
Luke 15:10
This was the trip that set my heart on the things of Him and gave me an enormous desire to bring little ones to the Savior. I (Madelyn) was beyond blessed to embark on a quite amazing mission trip to various cities in Taiwan and Hong Kong China for four weeks in 2011. I was introduced to a different culture, exquisite food, elaborate villages and sincere people, but most important I was drawn to the hope and everlasting faith that I had in my Savior. I was beyond delighted to teach all the different little children that we encountered. In each city we taught the children through small groups, skits, Bible stories, crafts, character teaching, the Armor of God, Commands of Christ, personal testimonies, and much more. We learned to teach with amazing interpreters that translated everything into Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese. It was an amazing experience for me picking up some of the language! :)
We traveled to a new city every week meeting new children and families at each stop. Out of the 5 cities we traveled to, Hualien in Taiwan was my favorite village. It was bitter cold that week. Sleeping on the tile floor in a school room and taking showers on a concrete slab outside made it a memorable experience. But, the children there were the most tender and broken. They came from abusive families and their distraught faces were rough and bitter, they were precious to me. I loved all those little children. Slowly throughout the time that we were there, God mercifully brought them to Him. All of us teachers were amazed at how many accepted Christ as their Savior! I was in awe of God's work. And I was very encouraged at God's grace on us, after being extremely exhausted from lack of sleep, stress, and teaching every day.
Hualien had a day for their "god worship". They would bring their statue god down the village streets and worship him. We were praying on our knees the whole night that the one true God's glory would be shone. All night long we heard shouting and fire works to their false god. It was a harsh reality of what people actually worship and what they are missing. It made me wonder, is that any different than people who put their status, money, physical beauty, etc. before our God? The next morning, after we prayed and cried out to the Lord most of the night, around 15 children came to know Christ (there were 27 total from the entire trip that we know of)!
Those days spent in Asia were absolutely amazing. I just fell in love with the culture and the people. God is so amazing! Mango pearl boba tea, the be-in dong "take-outs", spring onion pancakes, seaweed potato chips, wasabi chocolate bars, and fish granola bars were definitely on the top of my list of favorite foods that I experienced. We didn't have much time for sight seeing, but we were able to go to the top of the Taipei 101 building, visit the gorgeous mountains and beaches, and the Hong Kong bridge.
Enjoy the picture slideshow below! The song is all of us singing "Ye sui ai nei", a Chinese Jesus Loves You song. Remember, the pictures are a bit old. :)
In Christs love and mine ~ Da ling je
No comments:
Post a Comment