New Hope’s previous pastor, Joel H. Linton, felt God calling him to a ministry in rural Taiwan. Last fall Joel and his family left for a year-long furlough in the United States. When they came back they would be living outside Taipei. Our church group’s ruling elders and other men had been preaching the sermons since then. During that time we asked Daniel if he’d consider coming to Taiwan earlier than he expected and serve as New Hope’s interim pastor. He agreed and has been at it for about a month now.

Emily and I have been excited to see God work. God has been so good providing direction for Joel and the Linton family. He also has been so good in giving us that time in between pastors for the ruling elders and other men to preach. During that time it was so cool to see different things brought up as each man had his unique perspective to share from.

And God is also good in leading Daniel to serve as the interim pastor. A few weeks ago Daniel began preaching from John. I have been so interested and encouraged by how much Daniel’s sermons point to Christ. How, he points out time and time again, everything in the Bible and about Christianity points to Jesus and confirms His divinity and rightful place as our Head.

Yesterday the sermon was on John 1:35-51. Daniel pointed out something I had never really gotten before. He pointed out Andrew, right after learning where Jesus was staying, immediately went and got his brother Simon and brought him to meet Jesus. Daniel explained how that is what evangelism is all about. It’s not about ideas or arguments or proving points. Evangelism is about bringing people to meet Jesus.

It makes so much sense. When people ask me to explain one of Christianity’s obtuse concepts or whatever I should instead bring them to meet Christ. I shouldn’t be wasting time trying to explain about head coverings but instead just show them where Jesus lives.

Since we’re on the subject of religious revelation I had another one recently. I need to be wary of living for myself without hurting other people. My goal should not be to do what I want to do without hurting other people. I need to be living for Jesus, full stop. My mother-in-law shared the JOY acronym with me recently and I really liked it. It’s cutesy and it’s true: Jesus first, Others second, You last. True joy can only be found living this way. Thank you MommaMuffett and thank You Jesus.

Last Saturday we took advantage of the hot weather and went with some friends to Fulong Beach. We rented a surfboard and had a great day! You know that question people ask you about weather you’re a beach person or a mountain person? I think I’m a beach person.

Last Sunday was a big day as well. Our first Sunday back we were asked if we’d like to lead worship sometime and we said sure. Later that week, Thursday to be precise, we got a call asking if we wanted to lead the coming Sunday. After a 15 second hesitation I said sure why not. I’m from a big Irish family so embarrassment is just another part of life anyways. It actually turned out great too! I played guitar and our pastor’s wife played piano. Emily and I sang together on the English parts and she sang alone on the Chinese parts with me getting in a word here and there. We sang “Create In Me A Clean Heart,” “This Is My Father’s World,” “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” and “Because He Lives.” I really enjoyed it to be honest. They have put us on the rotation too so if you’re ever in Taiwan and you want to see me stumble my way through a song in Chinese make sure you are here on a Sunday.

There really has been quite a lot going on. Thanks to Emily I picked up another tutoring gig. Emily’s student’s boyfriend is now my student and he’s a pretty cool guy! I’m also excited to be doing some Chinese classes as well a few evenings a week in addition to my normal classes.

A few days ago on the stairs at school I ran into my Calculus professor from freshman year, Jennifer Hu. I hadn’t seen her since then but she has been my favorite teacher thus far and we had a nice little chat. She told me that she’s taught over a 1000 students and that I’ve been the most consistent in coming to office hours…thank goodness she offered them because otherwise I wouldn’t have had a prayer in that class!

(SIDE NOTE: Just this second there was a pretty good sized earthquake shaking our house. Don’t worry mom, it didn’t do anything. By good sized I mean it was noticeable.)

Just yesterday I came out of the school gate and ran into a group of Taiwanese Gideons handing out New Testaments. They were bilingual Chinese and English Bibles and they gave me two of them. After walking away a little I decided to see if they’d let me help them hand out the Bibles. At first they weren’t sure if that would be okay but they ended up letting me so for about 20 minutes or so I gave out Bibles to classmates and students who go to MCU. The ones that were most interesting to me were the ones that were interested in whatever was being given out but when they found out what it was they gave a little wide-eyed look and a little ‘no thank-you’ wave of the hand. It was like what I’d expect if a group of people tried to hand out Korans outside an American high school except without the cops being called, the newspaper writing a story about it, and a bunch of angry parents feeling like their children had just been violated. Gets you thinking about your own religion doesn’t it? It does me whenever I remember that my religion isn’t the mainstream or dominant one here. It’s the weird, avant garde (in some people’s eyes) religion. The religion that when someone is converted their family and neighbors wonder what happened to them and why they got so strange.

This semester I think every, single one (or maybe it’s just almost every, single one) of my classes have group project assignments. What is with these group projects? They cannot be as valuable as all that? Enough with the group projects already!!!

This year Emily and I filed our taxes online. It was sort of funny because last year we filed having worked for a half-a-year before leaving for Taiwan. This year has been completely work-free except for a few months in the summer and it showed on line 37. It was weird/cool to look at last year’s return compared to this year’s and realize anew just how sweet God has been to give us these scholarships. His provision is there even though it looks different and can’t be seen in our AGI.

Speaking of working, this summer we are faced with a dilemma. We figured jobs would be scarce so we opted to find airfare money in rows and rows of seed-corn while we are home this summer. My dad was gracious enough to sign us up with a detassling crew but we are still unsure if we’ve been hired because so many people have asked for the same honor, even though its a hot, sticky, dirty, and tiring honor. Hopefully we’ll be selected. If not I don’t know what we’ll do to replenish what we’ve given Malayasia Airline for the chance to ride in their airplane to the USA and back. On the other hand, maybe its just a case of His provision being there but just looking different? So different that I don’t recognize it yet.

Here at Taiwaneers.com we’ve added advertising to our website. You’ll notice in the right-sidebar there are now two ads from Google. They are part of Google’s AdSense program. I really like AdSense’s business model and while having ads isn’t what this website is about I think the way Google places ads that are geared for their audience is a great advancement in advertising. Wouldn’t it be nice if all advertisers would stick to telling us about things that we actually show some interest in? Everytime somone clicks on one of the Google ads on our site we get a little cha-ching. Pretty cool huh? With that in mind please feel free to click away.

Last Sunday Jerry, one of my Taiwanese classmates, came to church with me. He had never been to church before and it was really fun to hear his impressions. You can pray for him. He’s been raised Buddhist but doesn’t really feel like that was his choice and is trying to figure out what is his choice. Tough stuff to deal with while trying to ace exams. He’s a really, really cool guy and definitely a thinker. I’m looking forward to this opportunity to help each other grow.

My computer has been sick. It goes incredibly slow to do any task but when I check the CPU usage its at normal levels. AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! Its getting to the point where I’ve backed everything up and am preparing for drastic measures.

The Nonsense Shirts Store is still lots of fun. We’ve sold five shirts so far and I have to say each sale is exhilerating. Right now we’re adding new inventory and I’ve been talking to folks in the manufacturing process. If things work out we might be able to offer custom shirts and multiple quantities and sizes of each design! Needless to say these developments do not hamper my enthusiasm.