Katie's week at camp

This past week has been a great week. We met some amazing people, people that can change your life. The kids helped me stay up through out the long hot days. I was the photographer for the week, thanks to Dave for trusting me in using his camera. I was having fun playing with the different lenses and settings. Now, I know I really do want to do be a photographer. It was great seeing all the kids and another seeing them smile as they saw the picture of themselves smiling. The best pictures taking moments was when they were playing sports. Soccer was the best sport to take picture of and to teach. :) It was fun teaching them how to stop, kick, dribble, and shot the ball; seeing them grow was incredible. I wish we had more time to teach them even more. It was a little hard teaching them when they could hardly speak English, but they learned little at a time. After lunch they had English class. It was nice to see people who don't speak English learning English. I hope we helped them learn. Then was free time. Most of my free time was spent playing soccer. Then was dinner, after dinner was our main advent. We had some great speakers, including Josh. The last night was the best one of them all; we talked about the cross and the what it means to God, Jesus, the world, and to you. It was a moving speech. We had about 17 kids who gave there life to Christ but only 8 were able to be baptized. Some families here do not believe in Christ and are very strong in there owe faith and want there kids to follow. More then half of the camp were not christians, now there are about 85 people who understand and who would like to know more, 9 who understand/gave their lives to Christ, and 8 who joined us in our walk with Jesus. Sadly, today was the last day at camp. It was sad seeing everyone leave, but we made some great friends. Thanks to facebook we will be able to keep in touch with some of the kids. After camp we came back to the apartment to rest with a side of an earthquake(very small one). Then, a night out on the town. We went to a KTV(Karaoke place) with Kim's and Lance's and two of there friends and now our new friends, Ring and Micah. We had so much fun. I actually was singing by myself. haha. Tomorrow (your tonight) is going to be nice; Kim and I are going to get our hair washed after church then maybe we'll go shopping. haha. Well, I miss everyone and we can't wait to see everyones faces. Love y'all!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Sports and English camp is in the final full day (Friday morning here, Thursday evening in the US). Just over 24 hours from now everyone will head home. It's kind of a bummer. We have had an amazing week of camp! It's been a lot of fun building relationships with these kids. My small group has been a lot of fun and we have grown really close.

We had a breakthrough in English class on Thursday. These kids are really nervous about speaking English a lot of the time. They have grown up in a culture that really expects them to listen, but don't speak out when in class. In the US, we're taught to discuss and let that do much of the teaching. So, when I would ask questions in my group, most of the time I would hear complete silence. Yesterday, things changed. I'm not sure what lead to it, but most everyone started talking and we had a pretty good discussion. I'm praying that this is an indication that God is plowing and sowing some fertile ground in their hearts. Will you join me in praying this as well?

Sometimes I feel like I am on information overload. Learning names, culture, a wee bit of Chinese, etc has got my brain fried. But I won't give up and neither will anyone else on our team. Like I said earlier, we are on the home stretch. Will you join me in praying that God will work? We need prayer for campers to make decisions for Christ. Also, please pray that God would protect us from the evil one and his desire to destroy this incredible week of camp.

Thanks for caring and praying!

Josh

Tuesday and Wednesday, July 13-14, 2010

Sorry that we did not post anything yesterday. We have been so busy with everything at camp. We are having a blast! And at the same time we are dragging a little bit. But God continues to show us how great He is.

All the major areas of our service here (worship - Andrew, Photography - Katie, Sports, English classes, leading a small group and organizing the dodgeball tourney [A HUGE HIT]) are going well. As the team leader, I can't tell you how proud I am of Andrew and Katie. They have done an amazing job. Each time we have any free time, I always see Andrew and Katie out talking or playing with the campers. It is so great to see their hearts are open for the campers to see (this is the best way to share Christ with these young people) and that they are allowing God to use them every moment that they have here.

The weather is extremely warm. The temperature only gets up to 88 - 90, but because of the humidity the heat index rises to 104-106. We have been careful to drink plenty of water so to keep healthy. We have also experienced a couple of thunderstorms this week, but they do little to cool things off.

Building relationships with these campers has been amazing. It's so fun to see how God connects our hearts even though we are from different cultures and speak different languages. God is so GOOD! Here are a couple of pictures of campers that we have gotten to know. Enjoy. Keep praying!!!

Josh

-Melissa

-Ephram

Monday - July 12, 2010

We are fully into the swing of things now at camp. We have made it through everything in our schedule once, so it's now routine. The first day of sports went well. Andrew is helping with baseball, Katie is assisting with soccer and I am helping to lead one of the three basketball clinics. Another first today was English class. It was so cool, because we are feeding the campers' desire to learn English by reading and discussing the Bible. I pray that God does some incredible things through the reading and discussing of "the truth"!

Remember when I wrote that 3 out of every 4 campers here and 95% of all Taiwan citizens are not Christians. Well, I want you to know that worship here at camp always gets to me. Check out this picture.

In the song, "Made to Worship", the lyrics say, "So we raise up holy hands to praise the Holy One Who was and is and is to come." All of these campers are singing out praises to God and raising up their hands to Him. Deep within themselves, I really believe that they all get it and believe, but they would have to put aside their family and their religious beliefs to be His followers. Please pray with me that God will capture their hearts and these campers will choose to be His followers for the rest of their lives.

Thanks for caring and praying!!!

Josh

Correction!

If you don't already know this, I have a hard time hearing people because I was born with significant hearing loss. I wear hearing aids to help, but there are some sounds and tones that are difficult. I especially struggle with the "s" sound. Sometimes I miss the "s" sound all together!!!

With all this said, we have had quite a laugh with Lance, Kimberly, Katie and Andrew about my entry telling the world about "GOATS MONEY". Well, it's not really "GOATS MONEY", it's supposed to be "GHOST MONEY". It makes a lot more sense now... people burning "GHOST MONEY" for the GHOSTS of their dead ancestors. I hope you will get a good chuckle out of this, because we sure have. It'll probably be one of several running jokes all week!

Your deaf friend,

Josh

Sunday - July 11, 2010

Another beautiful, yet extremely sticky day! We had a great time participating in worship at Come Christian Church in Taichung today. Andrew was able to help lead worship by playing guitar with Lance. It was so cool to be able to worship one God in two languages. It was an incredible experience. We also really enjoyed meeting all the folks of the church. There is something beautiful about people (especially from different cultures, languages, etc.) who have a connection because of Jesus Christ. I can't think of anyone or anything else that really brings people together like Jesus.

Camp started today. 125 middle and high school kids are here. 75% have no relationship with Christ. It was so cool to help them feel welcomed during registration. Andrew was helping with guiding kids to the right line for registration. Katie was taking pictures and doing some video work. She is the official photographer for the week of camp... so cool how God uses our passions for His glory. I was helping lead the boys to the gym to get there beds in order.

We got to know our small groups a little and did some ice-breaker games, including the dreadful dizzy bat game. One girl fell and broke off a tooth (or two not completely sure). Please be praying for her. I think her name is Vicky.

We also had our first worship time last night. Andrew played bass, because the band was having a lot of issues with the sound equipment. Worship was amazing. Please pray that Satan won't use sound equipment issues to distract us from helping these kids really connect with Christ.

I know that we're all really loving our experience so far. It's an honor to be here and to be used to connect kids with Christ. Pray for tomorrow, our first full day. We'll be leading sports clinics and English groups as well as small groups. Please pray that all of this is use to reflect well on our God!

Josh

Saturday - July 10, 2010

It's been a great day. Katie and I had a little issue sleeping last night... still adjusting to being 12 hours ahead of home. But we're doing good. Everyone is ready to hit the sack soon. The heat and humidity here really zaps the energy out of us.

One of the sad, but really interesting things that we are learning is that the religious background of most folks here in Taiwan is Budism and Taoism (90% of the population). Both have strong beliefs that we have to appease gods and ancestors living in the afterlife, in order to be successful in all of life. Lance and Kimberly were telling us all about this last night and today. They even showed us in there neighborhood a store devoted to selling gods or items to please gods and ancestors. One really common practice is to burn "goats money" to please the gods and their ancestors. "Goats money" is really nothing more than a yellow piece of paper with red print on them.

-"goats money"

-barrel to burn goats money

We spent much of today preparing with all the missionaries and other groups today. A lot of this afternoon we were in meetings and times of prayer. We also spent a lot of time pumping up 200 air mattresses for everyone to sleep on.

Andrew using a foot pump!

Thanks for all your prayers! The campers all arrive tomorrow. Please keep on praying.

Josh