Asia trip June - July 2013
We left for Asia on June 24th. There were three of us who stayed for one month and there were others who came for various lengths of time.
Our first location was in Taichung Taiwan where we spent time with a new Great Commission Church plant. This church is located in an area where there are no known churches in northern Taichung. It is very close to a university campus. So, our team spent time with the leadership church team to build into their lives, we went to the campus to share the Gospel, we prayed over the city, and I had the privilege of sharing at the new church Sunday gathering with communion.
The next week we spent 4 days at the American Life Camp. We helped start this camp many years ago. The camp is designed with the four dynamics of transformation in mind (spiritual dynamic, relational dynamic, experiential dynamic and instructional dynamic). This year we had 60 Taiwanese college students and or graduates. We broke out into 5 households. We lived together for four days like a family with the Taiwanese. During this time we shared how we celebrate Christmas, Easter and the Fourth of July in the States. Each of our “families” lived out each one of these holidays and as we did this we were able to clearly share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We shared our life stories. I shared many Bible stories especially the Prodigal Son story. And asked them who they were in the story. I also asked them why the story ended with out and ending. At the end of our camp I challenged them again with this story and how were they going to finish the story from their own life. Below is a picture of my Taiwanese "family"
One of the members of our household lives is a missionary and lives in Taichung. He has been doing a fantastic job of following up with the Taiwanese students. We are planning a reunion when I go back. (picture of team)
We then went onto other locations. We put on a business/leadership camp. It was a three day camp also designed with the Four Dynamics in mind. We had twenty-four Asians at the camp and broke up into five team/households. Each team designed and opened a restaurant. In the process of defining what kind of restaurant, name, slogan, mission, team building exercises and leadership principles we got to know each member of our team very well. We again shared our life stories and the Gospel through personal conversations. Up to four Asians came to Christ. One of them is named Jessie. She hung out with us the day after the camp. A week after camp we had a lunch provided by the sponsoring church to have as many “campers’s come back for follow through. Ten Asians came back - seven from the camp and three that the campers invited. We had lunch and broke up into another set of five groups where we ate and shared the Gospel for three hours. Two more got saved. One of the newly saved was a friend that Jessie had invited to come and whom she had been sharing Christ with during the week. We shared discipleship themes such as - Assurance, Baptism, Opposition, The Word, Prayer, The Church, The Holy Spirit and Sharing the Faith. It was a God moving experience. (picture)
One of the new Asians that came - Mandy has a music teacher who has been sharing the Gospel with her and I got to share with as well. She is very close to the Kingdom - pray for her. We met her friend, Echo and with three other students the next day close to campus. Once again, we ended up sharing the Gospel in three small groups with these students who were all ears. Their teacher was with us as we shared and he with one of our Asian church partners is following up with these students. This is a picture of the music store and teacher with some of his students that we shared with.
We held another camp in a different location - Hong Kong. It was a leadership camp designed around John 13. The theme was Leadership - Jesus style and it was also build around the Four Dynamics. We partnered with a HK church. We started with their church service. We ate a meal after church and then with ten students the eight of us went to a three day camp in a mountainous region with the sea next to us. We had barbecue in the a thunder storm. We planned on visiting the homeless and ready to give them some clothes, a coupon for a restaurant, a bath and we were planning on asking if we could demonstrate love and dignity for them by washing their feet but we got rained out. Instead we were able to go to the beach next to us and clean up the filthy place. The host church loved the leadership camp idea and want us to come back and grow this with more of the members.
Ching Yu and I went to another location to meet a friend of mine. We were introduced to possible new partners for future camps and future leader trainings. While we were meeting in this location one of our team members, Tami, went back to follow through more with Jessie. She invited Tami to her home. Her parents had never had a foreigner in their home before and were very excited even though they are not followers of Christ. They were not real pleased that their daughter had become a Christian but they still openly welcomed Tami into their home and invited her to come back. I was impressed that Jessie had already shared with her parents that she became a Christian - pray for her.
In summary, the trip was very fruitful and is still bearing fruit. We made many new friends. We made new partnerships with a couple of churches and other ministries. We have three new volunteer representative for e3 Leadership in various places that will help us with logistics, set up and administrative issues.
We are tired but very blessed!
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