Day 1 in Taiwan!

Hello Everybody!!

We're finally in Taiwan, as you can see from our previous posts! Things are going pretty smoothly. We landed safely at the TaoYuan airport, met up with Jenny Ah Yi and Shih-Lien Shu Shu before getting aboard our bus and making the trek down to BaoZhong.

While on the bus, the team bonded over group games. We played several rounds of Resistance and contact, some of our new favorite games we've been playing on the trip.

The trip from TaoYuan airport to BaoZhong is five hours, but we stopped in SanYi, a friendly tourist spot known for its woodworking. The people were very friendly and let us take pictures of them working the wood.

The bus ride was very roomy. Many of us spread out on whole rows and napped, catching up on lost sleep and trying to correct jet lag.

After SanYi, we continued towards BaoZhong, stopping just once for lunch. The food was delicious and really cheap. Many of us got a dish similar to a rice bowl for about $3. 

After lunch, we continued to our destination, BaoZhong. Arriving at the church, we were allowed several hours to rest from our travels. We got much needed relaxation time in a nice air conditioned room away from the tyranny of the humidity.

At four PM Taiwan time, some of the Taiwan team members arrived. We met Peter, Irene, and Raymond. After they arrived, we cleaned all three floors of the church building by dusting and mopping. After we finished, we took the ten minute walk to the local middle and elementary school.

When we arrived, we found some kids hanging around after classes and challenged them to a friendly game of basketball.

In the heat of the day, we sweat a ton, but it was fun! We will most likely see many of these kids during the camp next week.

Afterwards, we returned home, washed up, and had a delicious home cooked dinner of rice, curry, clam soup, onions and chicken. After dinner, we  hung around until our prayer meeting, led by the taiwanese coworkers and leaders of the church.

Now we are all washed up and ready for bed. Hopefully we all sleep well and get a good night's rest so we are prepared, strengthened, and have the energy for tomorrow.

Prayer Requests:

1) The language barrier is very real. Most of our Chinese is rusty at best. The expectations of the coworkers seems to be greater than we expected. Hopefully we are still able to be used by God. Pray for humility and trust that God can use us no matter what. 

2) Energy and Strength. During the prayer meeting, we were all feeling the jet lag. Heavy eyelids abounded. Hopefully we all get the rest we need for tomorrow to be able to serve to the best of our ability.

3) The upcoming camp in BaoZhong. We are worried about the age-appropriateness of our teaching materials and music lessons. Most of our materials seem targeted for younger audiences. We have also heard that the kids are known to be quiet and very shy. Pray them to warm up quickly to us and learn and enjoy our teachings.

4) Health! Mosquito bites have already shown up. Thankfully no digestion problems yet. Pray for health in general and continued protection for all our team members. 

That's all for now. Thank you so much for all your prayers and support. We miss all of you very much, but we're excited for the work God is preparing us for. Please continue to keep us in your prayers and we will continue to update you here. 

Your brothers and sisters in Christ,

CEC's 2014 Taiwan Short Term Mission Team

Nathan, Hannah, Doris, Angelica, Timothy, Johnny, Ben, Arthur, Andrew, Phillip, and Pastor Caleb Lin