Thursday July 25
Not much has been said about the food here at Huei Ming School except the great fruits. The food is well balanced, lots of different kinds of fresh vegetables and enough protein from the meat and tofu. But... the blind school cooks for the handicapped children who eat before us, so everything we eat is lukewarm (or lukecold), all the dishes - rice, meat, veggie, even soup. If there is anything I miss, it is a bowl of rice still steaming from the cook pot, or hot soup, or anything freshly cooked - but this is also part of a missions trip, giving up food we prefer and being thankful we have food to eat, and nutritious food at that.
Everyone from Vision is at the school today, even though Gabbie is achy (but no fever) with a sore throat and Bethany still has a bad sore throat and Charmaine has some throat soreness and has quite a bit of mucous. Assembly took a bit longer because five team members performed a very effective mime skit (not unlike previous Vision skits about God creating man, man falling into sin, and Jesus sacrificing Himself to redeem man). In the classes, various members of the teaching team shared their personal testimonies, the good news was presented using the multi-colored bracelet or beads and an invitation was given. Since many of the eighth and ninth grade class students at Da-An had received Christ in previous years, there were not many responses. Among the seventh grade class, one accepted the Lord in one class, two or three in the second class and twelve of the sixteen students in the third class raised their hand as shown in the photo. New Testaments were given to all the students who requested one and we encouraged them to start reading a bit everyday. As we drove to Sha-Lu, where the last three days we ate lunch in stifling heat and humidity, someone came up with the brilliant suggestion to bring our box lunches and eat in the air conditioned comfort of the bus! So that's what we did, and refreshed, we started our afternoon program. We received very mixed results when the invitation was given; some classes responded with everyone raising their hands while some other classes, only 1 or 2 or even none responded, but we give thanks for each of these decisions. We are only the vehicles, the messengers, and the Holy Spirit is the one to convict and draw people to Him. To Him be the glory!
Photo captions: Top: Charmaine's team's class at Da-An responding to invitation (Terry is standing next to Charmaine's co-leader)
Bottom: Gabbie's team teaching at Sha-Lu
At worship tonight, Gabbie, Bethany, Rachel and Charmaine led worship after dinner and Vision sang Majesty and Glory. The principal of a school the Taiwan team will be teaching in next week joined us and he and his wife blessed us with 3 songs. During debriefing tonight, we heard an exciting story about Terry, one of the music students from last week who had not yet received the Lord. When Marshall asked him this morning why he has not accepted the Lord, he said he would except for his family. Marshall just challenged him to consider what is true, his parent's religion or the claims of Christ. He helps out in the class Charmaine teaches and later that morning, he voluntarily shared with the students in his class the Vision devotion from John 20 about Jesus calling Mary. Later, in the afternoon class, he said he himself is not a Christian but challenged the students by saying accepting Jesus is a decision you have to make yourself, not blindly accepting your parents religion. It is incredible that God would use a non-believer to preach his Word to cause several kids to receive the Lord. Our wonderful God works in mysterious ways. Pray that we will have the joy of seeing Terry accept the Lord before we leave Saturday morning for Taipei
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