An urgency to share

Hey guys! It is Nathan"s and Hannah's (present writer) turn to write today, hooray! :D Or really not too much of a hooray...because it means staying up later than most people and we're already pretty tired... But we're excited to show what God is doing here in Baozhong (:

So Nathan is eating wheat thins right now and is about to brush his teeth, so I'm just going to be typing for now haha. 

This is the 2nd to last day of camp and honestly I was much less anxious and tired today, having started to really get to know the kids. We started off by waking everyone up. In case you haven't noticed a theme yet among the posts, Peter has tasked us with wake up call. Anyways, we had a delicious breakfast of shui jian bao and milk tea. The milk tea is seriously one of the best things about getting up in the morning. I brought 16 tea bags (one for each morning we were going to be here) and haven't used a single one of them yet. Around 8:30 we began walking to the school. You can see it's pretty rural from this nice rice patty. 

Nathan here... Each morning, we begin class with some activity time. Several of the classes have taken to playing group games like ninja, watermelon, and other name games, while others learn the funky chicken and such. It's usually a pretty awesome warm-up/ice breaker for the day. Hannah would like to add that her boys like ninja and watermelon so much that they play by themselves during free time. I can safely say that BaoZhong now knows ninja and watermelon. Anyway, this next picture is also from the morning warm up time. Two of the girls in my class took everyone's order for beverages and called in to have them delivered! I got a mango shaved ice that was too sweet, but good. Hannah was surprised by her group when they also bought her a drink.

In my class, there's a girl who named herself Kim. Kim didn't like talking in class. The first few days, she would only ever nod or shake her head and excluded herself from a lot of the games. Jamin, one of my group members took to Kim and accompanied her a lot of the time. He played catch with a baseball for several hours to get just a few words out of Kim. However, today, Jamin shared just how much Kim has opened up, coming up to play watermelon with the other girls, leaning on Jamin with her elbow and overall being much more interactive. It's been a blessing seeing the progress she and the rest of the girls have made in terms of opening up to us!

 After group workshop/activities, it was lunchtime and then skit time! The skit went reallyat s well! We did a spin off of cinderella and changed a few things last minute to make the story more believable. Hannah again! I would just like to add that the kids really loved it. They laughed at all our jokes, and I think it's also because they're really gotten to know us. I suppose it's a good sign when they're comfortable enough to laugh at us? But really, it was quite fun to see them enjoy it so much (:

Oh yeah! Sometimes Peter or Rebecca will just bring us tea (: it is quite nice of them and a reprieve from the hot day.

Prop box

Angel, waiting in the "wings" haha, see what I did there? (;

"Cinderella" selling matches to the kids

Okay, so here is when the Taiwanese coworkers did a skit of their own. As you may notice....none of us are paying attention -__- I feel kind of bad... I couldn't understand it (obviously) but the girls were  also just on their phones, and they asked me to be their friend on Facebook :D This was kind of the first time I really tried to have a conversation (mainly because there was nowhere to run and be embarrassed that I couldn't understand them and there was no one to translate) with the kids other than just playing games or joking around. But it was really cool because even with just knowing really, really, really, really (and I mean really really really really really -_-) simple Chinese I was able to ask a bit about her family, about her dog, and what music she liked. Quit amazingly, there are quite a few kids who will go out of their way to talk to me a lot even though know I can't speak Chinese. Funny thing is, it's not in English...so I end up doing a lot of head nodding and shi-ing/hao-ing. 

back in the classroom, we played some more watermelon with punishments before getting into the lessons for the day. Today's lessons were meant to teach them about bad choices/decisions and what to do about them. For the end of the lesson, the CEC STM team members all shared their testimonies. Despite mixed reactions, it generally seemed like the students were listening to what we were sharing. Hopefully they heard some things that will change their hearts.

We were back in the auditorium for final announcements and end of the day festivities. As we entered and sat down, one of the fans violently imploded on itself. It was a scary situation, but thankfully no one was hurt. "It was a sad situation... fan down." Hannah.

After the camp ends many of the kids still want to hang out. It's pretty nice to know they want to stick around us and hear what we have to say beyond what they have to. They even invited us to go with them to the night market. Although, I have to say all our boys are quite popular with the students -_-. They're almost like celebrities as they take turns taking pictures with each of them. This went on for a good 15-20 minutes before we finally began to head back to drop off stuff before going to the night market with them.

On our way out, a small bird dropped to the floor badly injured ): I should mention that the auditorium is FULL of birds, and they most definitely announce their presence by leaving some presents for us on the ground (haha see what I did there ;) by the the way, all the bad jokes are coming from Hannah...this is a self-confession). Nathan, Jamin, Andrew, and I all got to hold it.

All the kids gathered to go tot he night market with us are pictured below. It really was a lot of them! I think Nathan's almost entire group went! Actually I'll turn things over to him now so he can talk about it a little bit. Hey guys! Nathan here! I was quite lucky to have most of my kids willing to go to the night market with us! 

Back at the Gospel Center even more kids came back to play games with us (: My Totoro cards are being put to good use as I taught them Egyptian Rat Slap (:

Two of the "cool" girls in my group pose with Hannah :D

To get to the night market (which was about a mile or so away), most of the kids rode bikes. Many of them offered to take us on the back of their bikes, so most of us got there by our own private taxi. I, however, needing the exercise, ran. :D

The night market was awesome. We got there just as it opened, but found a shaved ice stand and all got fat from it :D They had tons of different toppings. Among our favorites were the buttery mangos, deliciously carby taro balls, and of course, boba!

Andrew basically had a date with the kid in front of him. Ask him for the pictures. There's proof!

When we came back, we had dinner and got ready for worship. Worship was good today, we led two songs then did our sin chair skit and had a reflection song afterwards.

I'm back (the I being Hannah :))!! After a time of prayer, we had an opportunity to debrief and see how all the groups were doing:

Doris's group: Doris got to share the Gospel with one of her students today!! When she got back to the Gospel Center with her, the girl saw a Bible sitting on the podium and asked her what it was. Doris then had the opportunity to tell her about it, and also join it with her testimony from this morning. The girl had to go home shortly after, but she will hopefully see her tomorrow (:

Timmy and Johnny's group: Timmy got to share his testimony and praise the Lord that one of the kids decided to become a Christian! His name is Alex. Please pray for him as there is a very small support group here in Baozhong.

Ben and Arthur: Ben also had the opportunity to share his testimony today. Rita (a Taiwanese coworker) was able to share with one of the students here and found out he had some problems in his family that he thought God couldn't help him with. Ben heard about this and kind of tailored his testimony for that kid. Later when the kid was asked about the power of prayer, he said that he would start praying.

Hannah and Andrew: Two things happened. First, when they didn't pray together for lunch, one of the kids asked about it and requested that they pray for the food. Additionally, when Hannah shared her testimony, three of the kids (the ones that went to her workshop/activity earlier in the day) paid a lot of attention. Hopefully they got some good things out of it.

Nathan and Phillip: All of the girls in Nathan's group have made a lot of progress since day 1. At first, they were all incredibly shy and unwilling to participate or talk. However, now, they regularly keep up long conversations with us and were willing to sit through both Phillip and my testimony.

Angelica: The girls in Angelica's group are all very close and are open to talk. Hopefully they get the opportunity to share the gospel in the next two days.

During debrief time today, we talked a lot about how we felt a huge burden to reach the kids. We talked about having the urgency to reach out to them and have every conversation be intentional. We prayed hard for the Lord to work and to show up tomorrow and the day after. 

1) Our biggest request is that God would pour out His love to the kids of BaoZhong. We have all grown to know and love these kids so much. Many tears were shed at the debrief because we have so many hopes and wishes for these kids, and because our hearts break for them to not know God. We truly desire for these kids to know God, His love, and His salvation plan for them.

2) Energy! It's the last day of camp so we really need the energy to go out and do His work tomorrow! Please pray for lots of energy, supernatural energy from God as lots of us only get 5-7 hours of sleep.

3) For the kids to want to come to the gospel presentation on Saturday and for guidance on how to best serve God in BaoZhong.

4) Praise for all the work God's done thus far. We have had so many successes and things have gone so smoothly so far. It wouldn't be possible at all if God had not prepared the way in so many different aspects. 

That's all! Please be praying for us and we will update you on how things go tomorrow.

Your brothers and sisters in Christ,

Nathan, Hannah, and the entire CEC STM missions team :D