Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! The holidays are always a busy time for us in Taiwan. American holidays can be a great reason to draw people in for special events to hear the Gospel, so L___ B___ C___ in Yilan celebrated both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thank you to those of you who were praying. We definitely saw the Lord working in response to all of us praying together.
We spent November and December passing out flyers for both events and were able to collectively pass out over 5,000 of them. Christmas is usually the biggest event for drawing in people who are curious, so we were surprised when we had a greater turnout for our Thanksgiving service than our Christmas one. Since our Thanksgiving service, we have had a new family that has been attending every week and staying all day for both of our services: D___, W___, and their daughter S___.
I have seen some of the difference in the Taiwanese people to the Chinese people since coming to work here in Taiwan. While in China, many people were open to the Gospel and seemed to be more ready to accept it when they heard it. In Taiwan, I have seen that building relationships and presenting the Gospel multiple times is normal before a person will get saved. D___ and his family are not saved yet, but they are faithful to church and asking the right questions. We believe it is only a matter of time before they get saved, and we are praying that God will continue to work on them. Please pray for their family and for all of those who heard the Gospel when they came to our holiday services.
Language Learning
My wife and I have been hard at work learning the language well enough to share the Gospel without a translator. I’m thankful for our progress and the positive feedback we get as we go out to meet people. Within the next six months, the missionary family we are working with is planning to go on furlough, leaving us the only missionaries here in the new church plant. We are glad to be here to help the church since it is always difficult on a church when its missionary needs to return to the States. Please continue to pray for us as we study; pray that we can continue the work and minister to the people here with the Chinese language.
Blessings
With the new year, I am emboldened to take on ever-new challenges, and I remember how God has helped us. We are serving the Lord in Taiwan, which was a prayer for us for a long time. This is possible because of your giving and your prayers. God has been good to us, as I trust He has been good to you. Praise the Lord for this year, and we thank you as well. Thank you for your faithfulness, for your kind words, for your support, and for loving the Taiwanese people through us. God bless!
Here for Him,
Missionary #6013
