The start of a new ministry

Moving chaos

Well, we have recently moved to a new location in Taiwan and are starting a new ministry in YWAM.  This is probably the biggest transition that either one of us have ever made in ministry.  We are no longer working with an already established ministry but are now starting everything from scratch.


Saying Goodbye to all of our friends in the Taipei area was difficult for us.  We had our last meals with different friends and were able to say goodbye to our English class that we taught for around four years.  The meal that we had with our Advanced English was the most meaningful for us because we have spent a lot of time with them over the years and they really mean a lot to us.  They each to took a moment to share kind words, special memories, and encouragement with us and even gave us gifts to remember them by.  We were so blessed and we will miss them dearly.

Our English class

A needed coffee after a very long couple days of moving

This last 2 weeks have been a lot of work. We had to change our address on all our bills, pack up our old house, load everything up on 4 rented trucks, drive 7 hours, and then unpack everything in the new location.  Now that we are in our new city, we have had to figure out a lot of little details that we never had to do in our other city. (we always moved into previously rented YWAM apartments.) for example, how to get gas hooked up to our stove, so that we could cook (we just got it today! Praise God).  We still have to figure out where we can buy all the things we like to eat.  We are feeling pretty tired, but are excited to start looking for a location for our English cafe that we plan to start in April.  It will be an extension of the Rock Cafe in Taipei that we have been working at for the last 5 years.

Our boys are doing really well now.  When we first moved, they were not handling the transition well.  They would cry and wake in the middle of the night and ask to go home.  It was hard for everybody, but we worked hard to make them feel more at home, and they have since been able to settle down.

The boys helping to get the house ready

We are currently trying to collect all the pictures that other people took from the moving process.  So we hope to put together a short video of the whole experience.  Many of our YWAM friends helped with the move and we are so grateful.  It was a lot of work and we couldn't have done it alone.

 This week we are hosting a DTS outreach from our home base in Taipei.  They are at the end of their two month outreach.  We feel blessed to have them here with us because they are going to be helping us clean and paint our outreach house.  It is in need of some TLC, and after they are finished it will be in better shape for hosting future teams.  

Quick and Current News (65 second read) :)

Hello everybody,

We are very sorry it has been so long since we updated last and for that we apologize.  Things have been very busy here and it has been hard to do update you on what is going on.

We wanted to update you on three brief things:

1) Keith just finished the School of Frontier Missions.  He really enjoyed this school.  It was a very practical school and he feels like he has an even bigger heart for frontier missions.  We will probably write more about this experience in the future.

2) We bought a car!!!  Unfortunately the car we originally wanted to buy did not work out, but we were able to find another within our budget.  We really want to thank everybody for your generosity.  We would not have been able to buy this car without all of you partnering with us.  We feel very blessed by everyone and are so thankful for this vehicle. The kids have more space and also love the new car. Elliot always asks, "Are we going in the new car?"

3) This week Keith is going along with a few people from our TaiDong team down to TaiDong for 4 days.  They will be taking a film crew from Montana to do interviews and film different places in the area.  They are doing this to put together promotional videos.  Montana has partnered with Taiwan Ministries for the next three years in what they are calling a "Surge"(Please click the link below for more details on what the Surge is).  While Keith is in TaiDong, he will be looking for a house for us to live in.  So if you think of us, please pray for him while he looks for a place and also for safety while traveling.

http://vimeo.com/108255853 

Recent pictures and news

Titus grad

It has been a great couple of months for us here in Taiwan.  In our last post we gave a big push to support our newly trained Bible teachers to be able to go out and equip the church in how to study the Bible inductively.  They have come back with amazing reports and it has been so cool to hear how God used them to be a huge blessing to the nations.  We sent 6 teams to seven different countries in Asia. We heard many stories of people saying that the Bible has come alive for them and how these teachings were so life giving.  Every team said that in their locations they were asked to return and come back longer because the people are hungry for Bible teaching.  They did everything from teaching in youth bible studies, or at universities as part of their accredited course, in churches, at pastor seminars, in YWAM DTSs and even on military bases.  They did whatever was necessary to serve the locals as much as possible.  God is so good and it has been such a blessing to lead this school.

Here is a link to a video that one of the participants had made from footage from all the outreach locations. http://vimeo.com/93127911

In family news, Elliot has recently turned 3 and Ezra 1.  It is amazing how fast these years have gone.  Ezra has started to walk around EVERYWHERE.  The most fun part for us though, as Ezra gets older, is watching the two boys interact and play together.  We pray that they will be best friends as they get older.

Celebrating Elliot's birthday

Ezra turned 1!

Elliot doesn't like it when Ezra gets gifts

In other news we will be heading back to the US for our bi-annual furlough.  We really look forward to seeing everybody again and spending quality time with each one of you as we catch up.  We will arrive in Arkansas on June 11 and then will go to Pennsylvania on July 17.

Titus Project 2014

We want to take this time to share about our training program that we are currently leading.  We have spent the last three weeks training up graduates of YWAM's School of Biblical Studies to go out as Bible teachers.  It has been an exciting 3 weeks of lectures as they are preparing to go on outreach.

We are sending out 6 teams!  They are leaving this weekend to teach and preach in nations that are desperate for the word of God. They will be teaching in churches as well as Bible schools.  Many of them will have the opportunity to provide Bible training for pastors that have no other way to receive it.

Magan's Bible Overview model lecture

Here are some shocking  facts that show the need for Bible teaching in our world.  This is why we do what we do.

85% of the 2.2 million evangelical churches worldwide are led by pastors with no training.

90% of Christians will not read through the entire Bible in their lifetime.

It has been projected that 20,000 people become Christians every day in East Asia.  If the average house church gathering can hold 10-20 people, then there is a need for 1000-2000 new pastors every day.

There is a formally trained church leader for ever 230 people in the US.  There is one formally trained church leader for every 450,000 people in the rest of the world.

These statistics are absolutely mind blowing.  The world needs Bible teaching and it is our life mission to not only teach the Bible ourselves, but to train up others to teach and therefore multiply the truth among the nations.

Here are the teams we are sending out this weekend for two months!
a security sensitive country in east Asia
Cambodia
Taiwan/Indonesia (1 month in each)
Phillippines/Taiwan (1 month in each)
Japan
North East India (Nagaland)

I also want to share with you a way that you can be a part of this.  Several of our students are in need of finances before they are able to go on outreach.  Please consider giving to help these teams take truth to the nations.

We want to just highlight one of our students so you can meet them more personally.  This is Tam.  She is Vietnamese and she has a heart to bring Bible teaching to her country.  She came to Taiwan to go to Bible school and we've been blessed to get to know her over the past several months.  If you would like to get to know her more, you can check out her blog http://tamfaithjourney.wordpress.com/.  If you want to partner with any of our students to help them go on outreach, you can donate directly by using our donate button on this page.  They need to leave this weekend so the deadline is Sunday. The overall need of our students is between $6,000 and $7,000.

If you would like to donate and get a tax deductible receipt, please contact us and we will tell you how that is possible.

Please be in prayer for us and for this great need.

Typical Tuesday

We thought for this month's post we'd talk about our everyday life and give you a glimpse of what the typical day in the life of the Lapp family looks like.

We live in a 16 story building on the 11th floor.  We have a beautiful view of Danshui from the balcony outside our living room.  We can see mountains in the background and a view of the Danshui River leading into the ocean.  At least I think it is beautiful. I have come to appreciate concrete buildings and city lights. :)

For Keith on a typical Tuesday, he is working in our Biblical Studies Department office most of the day. He is preparing teachings, organizing for the next Titus Project program that runs in February, or having a meeting with someone. For lunch, he usually is in a meeting.  Then in the evening, one of us goes to our Rock coffee bar for ministry from 7:00 - 11:00pm.

This is some of the youth group that Keith often teaches.  We had them over for chili one night.

For Magan, Tuesdays involve taking care of the kids and cleaning the house with an occasional visitor coming over for coffee and discipleship. Sometimes she can also squeeze in teaching preparation as well.  Of course that is Magan's typical day, every day. :)  She stays very busy and as with most moms, is pretty tired by the time Keith gets home.

Elliot's Tuesday looks pretty much the same everyday.  He stays entertained with cars, trucks, trains, rescue vehicles, and dinosaurs.  He doesn't sit still very often unless it's the best part of the movie he's watching.

Favorite past-time

Ezra's typical Tuesday is very similar to Elliot's, except he cries a lot more and doesn't like to sit by himself very much.  He looks up to his brother a lot and loves to sit and watch whatever Elliot is doing.  He is teething and drools alot.

Making turkey for our YWAM feast. 6 months old  (don't worry Ezra was safe on the table)

The following photos were taken of our family when Ezra was 3 months old.

A garden area in our complex

Our living room

The playground in our apartment complex

The boys playing on our bed

In Ezra's room

Went on a little trip

In the last post we said that we would tell you about the last Titus project that finished here in April.  Also, we want to tell you about the little trip we just took.

Titus Project 2013
First we will share about this past Titus. We sent out 7 teams and each team came back with some amazing stories of how God used their teaching.  There were stories of people getting excited about studying the Bible, stories of locals feeling encouraged to continue striving for what God has called them to. There were even stories of restoration.  One story, in particular, happened on the team that went to Japan.  A member on the team was able, through her teaching, to affirm a member of the congregation that she was not cursed by God.  She had misunderstood a teaching by the pastor's wife and therefore held bitterness for many years. The pastor's wife didn't even know.  This woman became honest with her feelings, and they were able to reconcile as well as bring the truth to light...that this woman was not cursed by God.  She is now free from this lie!  It just shows how God's word is life changing when we listen to the Holy Spirit and apply the truths of the Bible.

Also, not only was the Word of God being taught, but there was a team in the Philippines that literally saved the life of a baby.  The team had hiked into a village to teach and discovered an abandoned newborn baby.  There was an older couple in the church that was willing to take it.  The baby was very hungry, and so some team members hiked back to a larger town to buy it formula and bottles.  What an amazing story of God's provision!

Trip in South East Asia

Magan teaching in cultural attire

Public transportation

From August 15- September 9, our family, along with two other girls, traveled to a country in SE Asia to run the Titus Project training for a ministry called Shan Project.  The Shan are an unreached people group located in Myanmar, Laos, Southern China, and Thailand.  If you would like to know more information about Shan Project here is their website:
http://www.shanproject.org/shanproject.org/Home.html 

This was an amazing opportunity to train local people that will go back to their churches and teach God's Word in a very dark and oppressed place.  Our participants were so excited for the training and excited to see how God would use them in the future in their home country.

Family

Elliot was so ready to go home that he forgot his pants

Chilling in my travel bath tub

In family news, the boys are doing really well.  Traveling was not easy for our family as we expected. However, God kept us safe and overall it was a really great time.  Elliot is slowly adjusting to not having all of our attention all the time :).  He is still a little sensitive, but he is slowly adjusting to being a big brother. Ezra is doing well.  The first three months were difficult, because he was not eating well.  He is doing much better now and gaining weight steadily.  He had his 4 month checkup yesterday and he is healthy and strong.  Today he rolled over for the first time.

New life, new wheels, new opportunities, new, new, new

We have been waiting (and procrastinating) to update this blog until we could announce the birth of Charles Ezra Lapp!!  Magan did amazing and her labor was actually really quick.  Whenever we tell her labor story to other mothers they just can't believe how incredible it was, we really praise God for that. One thing is for sure though.  Magan is very glad to not be pregnant anymore.  She really doesn't enjoy that :).  Ezra is doing well.  He is 2 weeks old now and slowly gaining weight.  We really love our two boys.  Elliot wasn't so sure about Ezra at first, but is slowly warming up to him.  The first few days were rough for Elliot because we were in the hospital and he didn't understand what was going on.  However, we have been very blessed to have Magan's mom with us to help with this transition.

In other news, we just realized we never announced that we just got a car!  This has been very exciting for us and has made getting around Taipei a little easier with a family.  Although, finding a parking spot in the city can be difficult, the conveniences far out-weigh the minor inconveniences.  We really want to thank everyone that gave to help us get our first car.  It is a '99 Toyota Tercel.

Ministry Plans - Current and Upcoming

In Current news, Keith is teaching in Taipei City in a youth bible study.  They range from 12 or 13 to 22 years old.  It is a really fun group and most of them are involved in their church in some form or another.  In addition to this, we still have a non-believer Bible study in our home and we are still teaching English at the Rock Coffee Bar.

In August we are going to a country in SE Asia to run a Titus Program for some church planters. We are excited about this opportunity and will talk about this in  upcoming posts.

Recently, we were asked if we would be interested in leading the 2014 February Titus Project in Taiwan.  We prayed about it and felt like this was something we were supposed to do.  We feel like this is a big task, but we believe that God is much bigger than our shortcomings.  Our leaders,  Michael and Amy (Amy is the founder of Titus Project) really have everything so organized that stepping into this role should be a little easier.  Also, they are here to give advice, share their experiences, and train us as leaders.  We feel very blessed to learn from them.

In next month's blog we will share about the Titus Project program that recently finished.  We sent out 7 Bible teaching teams to various countries and saw God do some amazing things in people's lives.