Before we leave for our 2-week church-planting training this weekend, we wanted to share two stories with you. We hope they can give you a better glimpse of life and ministry in Zhongpu and how you can pray.

1) The other day Jennifer was looking for a chair for the apartment and walked into a desolate-looking furniture store. She was greeted by an angry dog and almost left, but ended up talking with Mrs. Hwang, the owner's wife, for a good two hours. The place turned out to be a kind of factory, and Mrs. Hwang turned out to be deeply interested in talking about religion. Her son had attended a church VBS camp about 20 years ago when he was little, so she was proud to say that she knew that "Christians come from Adam and Eve." It was the first time that Jennifer had used Taiwanese to explain religious concepts to a non-Christian in such detail. Mrs. Hwang, a devout Buddhist who volunteers several times a week by leading chanting and meditation, was unusually interested in religious dialogue and helping Jennifer explain things better in a way that locals could understand (she sees herself as a kind of "evangelist" for Buddhism). At one point, she showed us these Buddhist blessing beads she was distributing, which actually bore some resemblance with Gospel beads Jennifer was carrying--so this led to Jennifer sharing the Gospel with her. This came right at a time when Jennifer had began to wonder if people would ever be interested in having deeper conversations. We had just come from a prayer meeting with our teammates, and when Jennifer told Mrs. Hwang that she had just asked God to give her this kind of conversation, Mrs. Hwang went misty-eyed. Ironically, the talk took place in front of some enormous idol shelves they were making and selling. Ashlee slept peacefully throughout the conversation, despite crying in hunger just a few minutes earlier. Though the conversation was incredibly exciting, it reminded us of how much language practice we'll need to explain things clearly, and how much prayer we'll need so that God will completely open the hearts of people like Mrs. Hwang who are deeply imbedded in their own religion.


2) One night Thomas walked a block from our apartment and went fishing at an old warehouse where the inside was turned into a big fishing hole. It turns out the owner of the place is also the cook at the restaurant Thomas frequents and knows that Thomas is a Christian minister from a previous conversation. So the boss announced to all the guys there that the American minister was here to fish. Anyway, Thomas ended up meeting 4 beetle-nut-chewing, cigarette-smoking guys in their mid-20's at the fishing hole and they all ended up fishing together and teaching Thomas how to fish Taiwanese-style. They got to talk and even caught 4 large catfish. When 3 of the guys stepped away for a moment, one guy named "Even" turned to Thomas and explained in Taiwanese how he had been to church before, but left because "it was too boring." But when Thomas inquired further about the church, he found out it was a Mormon "church" in Chiayi city, and that "Even" had been coerced by a Mormon missionary to attend when he was 15 years old. All this to say that Christian cults have become an increasing problem even in Zhongpu. Not only have we seen Mormon missionaries and Jehovah's Witnesses in the area and even knocking on our co-worker's door, but many of the people we're meeting think that Christianity and Mormonism are the same because the Mormon missionaries are telling everyone they are Christians. This makes things much more complicated for us because its hard for people who don't know anything about either religion to make sense of this, especially for more working-class guys, and all the annoying things that the Mormons do are associated with us since we all look the same and we're all from the USA! At any rate, we exchanged phone numbers so that when we return from our church-planting conference we plan to meet up for BBQ and fishing again. Please pray for Thomas' language skills to continue to improve and for more opportunities to talk about Christianity with these young men.