Sunday July 15
We ate a quick breakfast of Chinese egg burger and soy milk and headed off at 8 AM to Agape Church, Albert's church, for service where are to sing for 30 minutes. Josh shared his testimony (in Mandarin) and we listened to Elder Albert give the message, based on John 10, "listening to the Shepherd's voice". What an amazing "coincidence" for that is also our theme this year, but with our sovereign Lord, nothing is a coincidence. For those of us who understands Mandarin, we were blessed and challenged. We were treated to a delicious lunch at a restaurant located one floor above the church, and left at 1:30. We were joined by Elder Albert and a young lady, Yi Pei and 7 young boys and 1 girl (ages about 8 to 12) who were also going with us Hsinchu, (surprise, apparently they were going to have their own sports camp), so in addition to us, the ten students, Tracy (our SGV missionary who was in Taiwan to train some local teams for the Taichung English teaching) and Tracy also brought Joleen with her from the US, we were to find ourselves bursting at the seams to fit everyone (18 girls plus one little girl, 5 guys and 7 boys, Elder Albert, Mei and Marshall) into the space at the Zoutong Church, 4 large A/C rooms to put rubber mats for sleeping, several toilets scattered, fewer showers stalls, but the local pastor and his wife and four children would open his floor (they lived in the floor between the dorm floor and the sanctuary floor) to give access to more showers). Fortunately, another pastor who lived across the street from the church is on a missions trip and opened his home so it was decided Marshall and Mei would live in their apertment, so they are living in relative luxury compared to everyone else.
We arrived in Zoudong about 3 PM, took a long time to sort out where everyone would sleep, ands was joined by 9 of the 10 students at 3:30. Tracy and Joleen joined us about 7:30, and the tenth student (Mickey, a girl) about 9:30. We spent about half an hour listening to their voice range and testing their vocal memory, and ended up with 3 sopranos, 3 altos, 2 tenors and one bass (Mickey arrived late so we did not test her). We did some vocal warm ups , the basics of posture and breathing, and learned the Valentine song we are going to teach tomorrow at the trade school, "You Are My Sunshine", with modified Vision lyrics because the original verses are depressing and a little of the "Shine on Us". We then did our evening devotions ending before 9 PM and tried to catch up some sleep.
Pray for us, it is difficult not to become irritated with so many people, lack of sleep and facility, and many different opinions and ministry focus, but as in past Vision trips, God is a surprising God. We do praise Him for these ten students who we view as precious ripe fruit we try not to bruise and the love of the local church (who are cooking both breakfast and dinner for all of us and served us a delicious, healthful dinner - not much meat but lots of veggies, fruit and tofu).
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