Recent Holidays

I hope everybody enjoyed their holidays. During December and January we had an outreach team here. The team did a wonderful job. They especially loved doing evangelism in the city through basketball, soccer, ultimate frisbee, and at our Rock Cafe.  They were a sports focus outreach and made some great contacts so we are trying to do further follow up with the people they met.  Also during this time, Magan's mom was here visiting with us.  It was nice to be able to celebrate the holidays with her.

In February the Taiwanese celebrate Chinese New Year and also a local holiday known as the "Bombing of Master Han Dan". During Chinese New Year a lot of restaurants close but also, since it is a government holiday, most people have off from work and school, so during that time, tourism increases quite a bit here in our city.  We don't really leave the house much because most of our friends are busy and everyone is on holiday. During Chinese New Year there are a lot of firecrackers, even late at night. A few weeks later is the local Taitung holiday, and during that holiday, most of the temples in Taitung are involved in it. There are parades and firecrackers all over the city for 3 days and it is hard to drive around. At night there is a big event and they actually throw firecrackers at a certain volunteer. He is standing on a stand with a small idol and they carry him around while others throw firecrackers at him.  The videos we posted here show what happens in the streets during this time.  They will block off a street and parade the idol in front of businesses to "bless" those businesses while setting off firecrackers to scare "ghosts" away from those businesses.  Magan was working at our office and heard this going on outside, so she went out to video it.  They are doing their rituals in front of a tea shop across from the Rock Cafe.

The kids are doing well in school. The boys had 3 weeks off from school during Chinese New Year. This was a welcome break, because the Taiwanese don't get off from school for Christmas.  We always use the Chinese New Year break for some much needed family time.  Over this holiday, the Taiwanese spend time with family and friends and eat lots of good food.  We were invited to a friend's home for a delicious traditional Chinese New Year meal.  Instead of exchanging gifts, they exchange red envelopes with money inside. 

After the new school semester started, Elliot joined a violin class offered at his school.  So far, he is very excited about it and we hope he will enjoy learning this beautiful instrument.  Although listening to the process may not be very beautiful.  :)

What's in the near future?

April:  hosting an outreach team from South Africa

May:  YWAM's national staff conference/ celebrating both boys' birthdays

June-August : We will be in America for furlough.  We hope to see many of you this summer and catch up!

Summer 2017

BBQ with neighbors

Hello everyone, it is unbelievable that it has been a year since we saw most of you last. This past year has gone by so fast. Since our last update we have hosted a few outreach teams from different parts of the world and a God did a lot of cool things. It is really encouraging to see young people praying and seeking God, then walking in faith and obedience to do what they believe God is telling them. We saw healings, people saved and encouraged, and some returning back to the Lord after years away. God is good and faithful!

I will share a few of those stories.

BBQ with neighbors

One of the outreach teams were walking around to do evangelism and prayed for God to provide a translator for them. Within 5 minutes a local friend of ours drove by, saw them, and stopped to ask what they were doing. They told him they were doing evangelism and he offered to accompany them and translate. Shortly after, they met a homeless man with an injured leg. They talked to him and prayed for healing. He stood up and was able to move his leg again and walk. The homeless man said he used to go to church, but has not gone in a long time. He praised God and said he would return back to church that week. The man left them and they were talking to our friend that was translating for them. He then said, "Wow, I also need to return to church. I think God is wanting me to change."

A different team was also asking God who He wanted them to share with. Nearby the Rock Cafe there are some karaoke shops that are actually used for prostitution. Some girls on this team, felt like God was asking them to go into one of these businesses and talk to the women there. One of our Taiwanese church friends was willing to go with them and translate. After going there a few times and talking with the women, they found out that the owners , two women from mainland China, would like to get out of this business. They would like to move to Europe and start a restaurant, but in order to do this, they need to learn English. The girls on this team formed  relationship with these women shortly before the team left Taiwan. Now Magan and some other local missionary women are in the process to start an English class for them and hopefully help them get out of this business. Please pray that they will be able to build relationship with these women and that they will all come to know Jesus in the process. Pray for protection for Magan and everyone helping and also for the women involved in this business.

One night at the Rock, Magan was able to lead a girl named Zoe to the Lord!  Magan had never actually talked to her before, but she was an English teacher at one of the high schools in our city.  One of our teams had met her several months earlier and she had invited them into her English classes to practice with her students. They had hung out with her and shared the gospel with her. She came back to the Rock to talk with us because she was planning to move to another city nearby.  As she and Magan were talking, she started sharing about her time with the team and how, since the team had left, she'd started praying to God and she really felt like He'd been answering her prayers.  Magan was able to share more with her and pray for her to receive Jesus! The following Sunday she came to church with us and was worshipping her new Savior freely with hands in the air and tears in her eyes! It was really cool to see God working in her life. He is so faithful!

First day of school!

Family:
Ezra just started kindergarten this year and he is really loving it. For a while he has been asking when it was his turn to go to school. Ezra is so extroverted that he was pretty miserable at home before school started. When he arrived back home that first day, he was a totally different person. He was cheerful and he couldn't wait to tell us about all the things he did at school that day. It was really cute.

Elliot with his teacher

Can I go?

One of the things about living in a different culture is there are often things that we misunderstand or may be totally different from what we were expecting. A good example of this happened on Elliot's first day of 1st grade. We received a schedule and it seemed like we would be meeting the teacher and listening to the principal tell us about what to expect at this school. That day Keith was busy because he volunteers at a hospital for visa purposes. That meant Magan would need to take Maelynn to do all these things. It turned out that it was a pretty big deal and there was a big ceremony in front of the whole school for all the kids entering 1st grade. Haha, we have been here many years but are still learning new things.

Elliot is loving first grade and is learning to read in Chinese, which means we struggle to help him with his homework every day!  :) We are coping.










 We started the boys in Taekwondo so that they could get some energy out :)

Exciting things are happening!

Hello from Taiwan!

This is far overdue, but we will recap the last several months.

Jan/Feb
We had a DTS outreach team here for two months. It was the longest amount of time that we have ever hosted an outreach team and they were a huge blessing to our ministry. Because they were here longer, they were able to build deeper relationships with the same people. They had a huge heart for evangelism and because of this, they led 7 people to the Lord! Since they have left we have been plugging these people into Taiwanese churches and getting to do discipleship with them.

March- June
We hosted 3 more teams during this time. They spent the majority of their time doing evangelism out in the city and going into high schools to do English activities. Because of this, many new students are coming to our Rock Cafe to hang out.We've been able to share the gospel with a lot of new people.

In May we attended our yearly YWAM national staff conference.  It was a much needed time of renewal and reconnecting with our mother base that sent us out two years ago.  Unfortunately, on our way home, our van broke down on the highway, due to a tire blowout.  It caused a few extra problems with the van and it was in the shop for two weeks.  We stayed overnight in the city where we broke down and rode the train home the next day.  We were thankful for God's protection during the incident.

As far as our team, one of our members, Biggie from Zambia, returned home to get married. We are excited for him and this new chapter in his life, but we are also sad to see a good friend and co-worker leave. Another member of our team, Erin from New Zealand, also left for home. She grew up in missions because her parents are missionaries and now she is going back to university.  She is excited but the uncertainty of this transition is also hard for her. We are also sad to see her go. Right now we still don't have any hope of new staff joining our team, so that means the responsibility will be falling on Angwar and us. We pray that more help will be coming.

Family
Elliot will graduate kindergarten next week! It's been a challenge learning how the school system works in another country, but we really like his school.  When he started, he didn't know any Chinese at all and it was a tough transition for him. He is now speaking Chinese all the time and loves going to school!  Ezra will start in the same kindergarten in the fall.  He is very excited and wants to start right away.  Maelynn is 19 months old and is mostly very sweet, but she is entering the stage of throwing tantrums when things don't go her way.  She understands almost everything we say to her, although she isn't speaking much.  She uses baby sign language well to communicate.  In May, we celebrated the boys' birthdays with a scooby doo party. They turned 4 and 6.

Easter Sunday

riding the train when our van broke down

special mother's day ceremony at Elliot's school

Elliot and his friend Abigail at the birthday party

Maelynn and her baby doll

Keith took this picture while hiking with an outreach team

Hanging out at the Rock Cafe

What has happened since our return home from our furlough

Tinkerbell, Peter Pan, and Captain Hook enjoying the holidays

For Taiwan, this summer/fall has been an eventful one.   Around June- October is typhoon season.  This year has been especially bad because they had experienced multiple storms that were some of the worst in its history.  After we returned, we experienced a few typhoons, but none hit our city directly and as badly, as the storm that hit while we were on furlough in the US this past summer. Our city had a lot of damage.  Not long after we returned late August, we found out our landlord had put our house up for sale and 3 days after learning that, it was sold.  So we started packing up our house and looking for a new place.  We had started packing in September and in the beginning of October we had another tropical storm (It is a tropical storm  just before it becomes a typhoon, the weakest typhoon being a category 1).  During this storm, it had rained a LOT.  That day, Elliot was in school, Maelynn was taking a nap, and Magan and I had just gotten off of skype.  Ezra was running around the house playing when suddenly Ezra says, "There's water!".  Magan and I assumed he had spilled a cup of water and had gotten up to see what kind of mess he had made.  We quickly realized that water was rushing in from outside.  Our house sat just below street level and since the drains had gotten blocked, the water on the streets had no where to go.  So the water came into our place and all of our neighbor's houses.  The water just kept coming and coming in and there was no way to stop it.

Cleaning after the flood in our home 

 Since we were in the middle of moving we had boxes stacked all over our house so we quickly grabbed boxes and rushed them up to the second floor.  The water got as high as 7 inches, and around an hour later, it all started to drain back out of the house (Praise God!).  Since we had so much water in our house Ezra thought it was a great time to practice his back stroke and freestyle swimming.  He had so much fun while mom and dad were stressed out and trying to move things as quickly as possible.  Someone unplugged the drains and plus the rain had finally slowed down (after 2 days of pouring down rain) so the water started to subside.  Some of our friends in the city came to help us dry the floor and clean it so that it wouldn't mould as quickly. We lost some cheap book cases, the legs to our dining table are pealing, and we spent a lot of time repacking boxes and drying out the books we wanted to save.

Everything that was lost (not too bad)

 Overall we felt rather blessed it wasn't worse. Since all of that happened, we were eager to move into our new house, but we had to wait another week for it to be ready for us to move in.  We luckily had an outreach team here during our move and were able to move the majority of our stuff within 2 days.  So now we have mostly settled into our new place. We have been in the new house for almost two months.  In our next post we hope to put pictures of our new place.

In the month of November we celebrated Maelynn's first birthday and she started walking about a week before she turned one!  She's growing too fast.  :)

Playing Candy Land with their toys

Maelynn having some breakfast amidst the move

We returned back home

Thanks for lending a hand

Since our last post we saw a lot of you back in the US while we were on furlough.  We were really blessed and enjoyed spending time with everybody.  We wish we could have been there longer to see even more people and spend more time with you guys, but unfortunately time just wasn't enough :(.

We returned back to Taiwan a few weeks ago and while we were on our drive home from Taipei Elliot's school called us.  They said, "Did you know that Elliot first day of school is tomorrow?".  Haha, poor Elliot, but I guess school was a good way to help him stay awake and get over jetlag.  Last year Elliot only went to school for half the day, but this year we decided to send him for the whole day.  So now he goes Monday-Friday 7:50-4:00.  He seems to be enjoying school even better than last year.  When we pick him up, he is usually in a really good mood and seems to have had a good day.  We decided to send him the whole day for a couple reasons: We wanted to allow him to get used to going all day. He will get more exposure to Chinese.  We hope he will feel better prepared for 1st grade next year.

Elliot's first day of school

While we were in the US, Taitung had the biggest typhoon hit it directly in the last 100 years!  There was a lot of damage and the Taiwan government even sent in the army to help with cleanup and rescue.  Just recently another super typhoon barely missed the southern tip of Taiwan.  The eye was a few miles off the coast, but we still experienced very strong wind and heavy rain.  Everything was okay, very little rain found its way into our house.

Soon after returning home, we discovered that our landlord put our house on the market.  Within days of finding that out, it was sold.  So now, we will need to move out of our house by December.  We are a little disappointed and overwhelmed about the upcoming move, but we trust God that He has something else prepared for us.  We are now searching for a new house to rent.

On a ministry side of things we started preparations for the September 2017 DTS here in Taitung!  We are very excited to be starting this process.  We can't wait to see everything God is going to do.  We are excited to watch Him bring more staff for the school and we can't wait to meet the students that he will bring here to learn more about Him while blessing our city with evangelism in the process!

Thats it for now. We love and miss you all.

A lot to update on

Hey everybody,

It has been a while.  Just wanted to let you know we are still here :-).  There has been a lot that has happened since our last post 7 months ago (Wow, really 7 months? How is that possible?).  Well here is a video that we made to show what all has happened this past year.  We hope you enjoy!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLAvrKinZzE

Busy Summer

Hello everyone,

Our summer here has been very busy.  We have had 3 YWAM outreach teams come here to help back to back in the month of July.  Thanks to the help of the outreach teams, we were able to run 2 different kids camps for 2 different churches.  The outreach teams also helped a lot by advertising for our Rock Cafe.  They would go around to different parts of the city and hand out flyers advertising for us.

Here is a link that a friend from one of the churches made from the English camp.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDA1ZvbMr7Y

English camp the Kona team ran

Outreach teams help draw a lot of people to our Rock Cafe

We had all the kids come to the Rock Cafe for the afternoon

Down to the last two in musical chairs

This is how the outreach teams get around the city

Nap time for the kids :)

It is really nice having somebody lead worship for us

Family News:
Next time we update this blog, we will be able to share with you about Elliot's first day of school!  It seems so crazy that he will be starting school on August 31.  He still seems too little :) Please pray for his transition, since he doesn't speak Chinese yet.  Also, it has been confirmed by our doctor that the baby inside Magan's belly is in fact a girl :) YAY!  We are very excited and can't wait till she gets here in November!