Perspective discussion group

For the past 6 months, I have been leading an English discussion group about life perspectives and recently we have been watching through a discipleship video series called “ALPHA”. The hope is that people will start asking more questions about Jesus and hopefully give their lives to Him and last week we had a girl named Rebecca do just that! We were talking about the Holy Spirit and she wanted to repent and experience God in her life. She still doesn’t quite understand what that means and isn’t really sure that she is a Christian yet but she is on the right track and we will continue to walk with her in this. Please pray for her as she is feeling the attacks of the enemy as she feels depressed. Pray also that she will truly grasp in her heart what it means to be loved by God and to make Jesus Lord.

(Part of the discussion group and my English class below)

God’s gifting in art

For anyone who uses Facebook, you may have seen a few pictures of my latest art projects. Since the beginning of this year I discovered a talent God has given me in making string art. I originally started doing this form of art as a way to raise funds for our Chinese course. Then, last week we had a friend come to our place because I was meeting with her to read through an English discipleship book called “forgotten God” to help her understand the difficult sections. While she was visiting, I showed her one of my pieces of art called “Trinity” and she told me that she loved this type of art and she wanted to buy it as a gift for her spiritual father. I was so encouraged that I finally sold my first art piece!
Maybe some day I will be able to start a class/bible study here in Taiwan to teach the Taiwanese how to do this and build relationships that lead to Jesus!

(Below are some pictures of the art projects I have made so far)

New Ministry

One of Amber’s newest ministries has been helping as a teacher’s assistant for one of the English classes at our café. Although She is not the biggest fan of teaching English, This opportunity has opened up many doors for deeper relationships with those who come to our café. We have a mom and her three daughters who have started coming to our English class this semester. Their names are Chun, Han, Yutie and Lin. After class each week, the three daughters and Amber will find a table in our café where they can continue talking. These girls are not Christians yet but we believe God has a lot in store for them in the near future. Please pray for more opportunities to share God’s love with these girls. Their English level is pretty low and our Chinese is still not great so please also pray that language wouldn’t be a hindrance when building relationships and sharing with them.

Amber also spends a couple hours every week with Yutie practicing her Chinese and Yutie practices her English.

(below is a picture of Amber and these girls)

Chinese course

We have now completed five months of our Chinese course! We have gone through one and a half books and learned around 750 Chinese characters. As far as conversational skills go, Amber and I are still struggling a bit. However, when we go out to run errands (paying bills, shopping for groceries, etc.) we find that we are able to communicate less with body language and more with broken Chinese. This alone is a huge breakthrough for us! Anyone who’s learned another language knows that it’s an incredibly exhausting activity both on the mind and body but it’s also one of the most rewarding feelings when you see someone who can’t speak English at all understand what you’re trying to communicate.

There’s always a rollercoaster of emotions going on while learning a new language. Sometimes you feel as high as can be because you had a basic conversation in which you and the other person understood what was being said. Other times you feel like nothing is sticking no matter how much you study. This is one of the reason that Amber and I feel so blessed that we can walk through this season of learning Chinese together. When one of us hits those low points where all we want to do is quit, the other one is there to push and encourage them to keep going.

Please pray for continued endurance while we continue studying for the next year and a half. Please also pray that we won’t get so caught up in the learning aspect that we lose sight of the relationships God is placing in our lives. Relationship is the reason we chose to learn Chinese in the first place. We want to be able to communicate God’s love to those we come in contact with every day. What better way to do that than by showing the people that we are willing to learn their language.

(below is a picture of Amber with one of our Chinese teachers)

​Adopt unreached people groups

At the beginning of the year, our staff team set aside six weeks to get some input from outsides teachers as well as taking time to pray and seek God for the direction of our base. During this time God was showing many of our staff His heart for those around the world who are still unreached with the gospel. When we asked God what our response should be, many of the staff felt that we should “adopt” a people group who is still unreached. After the course of a few months, we now have six focus locations of unreached people groups who we want to see reached with the gospel.

Every couple months, all of our staff and students come together for a time of prayer and fasting. During this time, we come together to worship God and to seek His heart for these new locations. Our last prayer and fasting day was amazing! God is pouring out his heart more and more for these people who don’t know Him and He is calling some of our staff and students to go long term into these nations. The hope is that we will begin to form teams and flood these nations with the hope and love of God. Some of our staff and students just recently returned from one of our focus nations and they saw God work in powerful ways. They even saw many individuals (staff and students at a summer camp) commit their lives to God.

Our goal overall is to be faithful with what we’ve been given so that many more will have the chance to know this amazing truth that we’ve experienced; His name is Jesus! 

Christmas visit this year!

Every 3 years, Amber’s family has a mandatory Christmas that everyone goes to because most of her family lives in different parts of the world on missions. This year is it and we decided that we would come to Victoria for the beginning of the trip to visit our friends, supporters and Lifetree, and then head to Washington for Christmas before heading back to Taiwan!

So….. from Nov 23^rd – December 13^th we will be in Victoria and hope to see as many people as possible while we are visiting!

Please feel free to message me so that we can plan a time to get together as we really want to use the time wisely!

God bless you our friends and family! We love you tons! Thank you for being here for us.

Jacob and Amber President

Our mailing address is:
Jacob and Amber President
5F, No 4, Lane 2, Ying Juan Rd
Danshui District, New Taipei City
Taiwan R.O.C. 251