Hello again from Taiwan!

We just wanted to share a bit of an update on our mission in Taiwan 🙂

China/Taiwan tensions

I thought it would be a good idea to clarify some info regarding the situation between China and Taiwan.

We feel that the news in other countries have exaggerated this issue to make it sound like we are about to be in war which is easy to imagine because of all the recent events around war in the world including Russia/Ukraine.
In Taiwan, we also see some of this news but the reality is that Taiwanese have been hearing threats from China for over 20 years and have become a bit numb to the big barking dog next door. Most people that I speak with don’t give a second thought to the potential attacks but instead everything here is fairly relaxed in that regard. 
We realize that this is a potential reality just the same as any other potential reality but we aren’t even considering leaving unless God makes it very clear to do so. We trust that He has us here for a reason and if China did attack, we want to be able to help people as much as possible. For now though, big earthquakes like the one a few months ago are a bigger concern for most people here.

Ministry of Interruption

Over the last few months God has reminded Amber and I multiple times about how our ministry really is a ministry of interruptions. What I mean by that is that it is extremely rare to see someone decide that they are going to make a step by step plan to end up accepting Christ into their life. That’s just not how a relationship with Jesus usually works. People meet Jesus mostly when they aren’t expecting to. Someone shares something with them that maybe moves them to want to know the gospel and then they make a decision either then or later about giving their lives to Jesus.
Jesus met many people on the road and interrupted their lives which led to a complete life transformation and often looked like them leaving everything behind. 
Fear of man is a pretty common thing for many Christians when it comes to sharing the gospel, praying for the sick etc. but I feel that it often is a fear of interrupting someone’s day, someone’s plan, fear of interrupting their comfort.
If not that, it is often the inconvenience of interrupting their own plan or comfort.

For example: we were driving to another city the other day for a family trip and we were counting down the minutes to get there. On the way there (which was on the highway), we drove by a man with a withered and twisted leg and I heard God say to stop and pray for the man’s leg. It was an interruption on our time and our plan, and I had already passed by the man so it was inconvenient to turn around on the highway to go back to find him. God again reminded me though that the ministry He gave us is not about our convenience or our plans, so I told Amber what I was doing and we turned the car around to go find the man because we want to obey what God says. 

Another example: During the kids naps on Saturday we usually like to have a bit of down time to rest and wind down a bit from the previous week but last Saturday a Taiwanese friend wanted to bring her parents over to our house to meet us and they wanted to see the house for ideas on decorating their own house. We could have easily just said maybe another time because we wanted to have that rest but we said sure and they came over for a while longer than expected which led to them asking some questions about the Bible, Gospel etc. and we chatted for some time. 
The point here is that we could easily have justified saying no at that time but because of the interruption, our friend’s parents got to hear the gospel. 

I just want to encourage you to not be afraid of interrupting your own time or someone else’s for the sake of sharing Jesus’ love with them. It’s not easy but it can be eternally worth it. I am sure someone else has written about this idea before but this is just something God is highlighting to us that we wanted to share.

Community nights

Our community nights have been growing steadily and it is getting more exciting for me since people keep inviting their friends who don’t know Jesus and they come multiple times over. We are getting deeper and the questions people are asking are more deep as well. The most recent community night we had someone ask “why did Jesus need to die” and so we spent a couple hours talking about why that was including talking through history etc. It was a quiet room as I shared on this and people seemed to be thinking really hard about what that meant for them. 

We shared how someone could come to accept Jesus and although we didn’t have anyone specifically say that they want to follow Jesus that evening, I do believe that God is working in some of their hearts even now to bring them into His Kingdom. 

I usually mix Chinese and English for the parts of language that I have a hard time with but that evening I had studied all the words for what I was going to share and was able to explain everything in Chinese which was really cool because it helped people engage more and also gave me more confidence using all Chinese in later situations to share the gospel. 

We are having a Christmas event next week so we are excited about that too 🙂

Chinese

On that note, recently I have been working really hard at studying to improve my Chinese ability because of roadblocks in language that I want to get past. Since getting deep into studying, I have met lots of new people and have had plenty more opportunities to share Jesus and just build better friendships with the locals. One person recently even said that I am half Taiwanese haha. 

It is difficult for both Amber and I to study because we still do have 2 young boys that are growing so fast so she has let me be the one to take it on for now.

Christmas

This is our first Christmas since getting married that we won’t have anyone coming to stay at our house so we are just having a quiet one. Hopefully we will be able to take some treats to all the neighbors on our street to be a bit of a blessing to them. Our house is the only house in our neighborhood with decorations and lights so we sort of stand out. We decided that we aren’t doing gifts for each other this year but would just do something small for us and put on an event for the locals to come by and enjoy with us. 

Family and kids

We are all doing great and fairly busy as a young growing family. Hezekiah is so full of life and asking what EVERYTHING means so there have been a ton of teaching moments recently. Malachi just began sleeping through the night finally which means 7:30pm-7am after 5.5 months of working at it. It’s wonderful to be able to sleep an entire night again and also have a date night every so often. 

Amber is getting more energy by the day and has been trying to work at building some deeper relationships with a few local women. It’s super impressive to see because her Chinese isn’t as good as mine yet she still works at it so hard to encourage them and care for them.

We are so thankful for you, our friends and family who love us and support us by your prayers and financially. We are working hard to make what you are doing to help us worth it! We miss you so much and we are excited to be able to go back to see you next summer after many years not being able to. We will give more details later on 🙂

Hugs from us in Taiwan and God bless you!!

Love is the answer, humility is the key, Jesus is the way!

Jacob, Amber, Hezekiah, and Malachi President