Day 1: It definitely does not feel like we only arrived yesterday. We had a long day of training today, particularly for me since I had trouble sleeping through the night. But God is good! We spent the morning worshiping and fellowshipping with the local coworkers and spent time preparing skits, games, body worship, and sing-along-songs. It was a pretty typical day of training, and it definitely got harder as the day went along. Many of us are experiencing typical jetlag symptoms: fatigue, tendency to nod off during lectures, and irritability.
At night, we went over small group material, and Pastor Kao led a session on evangelism in Taiwan. We split up in small groups to discuss FAQ that we'll probably have to face soon. We found the following two questions particularly compelling and relevant to our current situation.
1. If my family has other religious beliefs, what should I do? I am afraid of causing conflict with my family.
2. My family practices ancestral worship. What should I do about it? What if my parents want me to do it?
Ancestral and other forms of idol worship are extremely prevalent in Taiwan. Many Christians face a troubling dilemma - should they disrespect or even offend their elders by refusing to offer incense OR should they fall into sin in order to appease their family? Many of our team members too struggle with this, and we found that only one solution stands. We must pray as if our life depended on it. We must trust and fully depend on God, such that we are freed from the fear of man and are able to love like Jesus.
Good thing about having a ridiculously huge team? You have more prayer warriors! We spent time praying today for us, our students, and for Taiwan, that God would deliver us from the spiritual oppression here, and that he would reveal His insurmountable love. We prayed for the annointing of the Spirit over the Church, our team, and the Christians here, that we may be bold witnesses for the gospel.
One of my personal prayers for this trip has been that God would increase my capacity to love, that He would break our hearts for the students and for Taiwan. I found this excerpt from Love Walked Among Us by Paul Miller, quoting C.S. Lewis, screaming the issue I've been struggling with lately.
"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possible broken. If you want to be sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable....The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."
I love Taiwan. Granted, there are still some aspects I'm learning to love- the heat, the mosquitoes, the sweating...most of all, I'm learning that love is hard. My heart broke today for Taiwan. May God continue to change our hearts, that we may be enslaved by HIM so that we can love, even when it hurts.
Samantha
conversely, there was an atheist that once asked "how much do you have to hate someone to not share Christ with them?"
ReplyDeleteSince you are in God's family, may he challenge you this summer, as all good fathers do, to pour out absurd amounts of love (ref. suffering).