The Third Day at Neli.

this is the midday of our week here at neli elementary. we just finished with the story of David & Goliath yesterday and are now starting to teach the story of Daniel. please continue to pray for the health of the missions team as its hot and humid here in taiwan. please pray that we have the confidence, strength, wisdom, love, compassion to be God's light in this city. may we continue to rely on God's strength alone, for on our own, we will surely fail. may God continue to work in the hearts of the children and their families as we continue to serve in His glorious name. also, praise God jacqueline was able to make it safely from america to taiwan and has now joined our ranks. thanks!

team member's thoughts:

norman & marissa:

Marissa Liu: Day three aka hump day [as in get up and over the top of the hill day]. Compare to day two, today was a lot better. It may be because Pastor Josh was observing our room but their behaviors were a lot better. Norman and I tried the clapping method to get their attention and it actually worked [yay!]. We had a second visitation today and it went well. We stayed longer than I expected but it was totally worth it. I enjoyed talking to Peggy’s family and learning more about where she came from. Thank you everyone for your prayers but please do not stop because we need it.

norman ai: praise God for today. pastor josh was sitting in on our class today, so many of the students seemed much more obedient and well behaved. haha. i definitely felt God's strength, patience, and love today in my life, as i know i could not of gone through this day without him. i was extremely glad for the opportunity today after class to talk to one of my kids for 10-15 minutes. andy was waiting for his elder sister's class to be dismissed, so i walked over to where started to talk to him. somehow, somewhat miraculously, the topic of church came up and i was able to share my own reasons why i wanted to come to taiwan to teach english, why i was so burdened this summer to come and give up 3 weeks of my time to teach. it feels good to so freely share my beliefs and my faith in my God. God is so good. please continue to pray for the kids and their families, that God would open their hearts to the seed of his gospel. after going on a couple of house visitations this week, i feel God really touched my heart with this burden. i really enjoy teaching english, talking to the kids, and conversing with their families. missions takes time. and often our timeline is quite different from God's timeline for us. i often wonder if i will be back again next summer, or if i will be off somewhere else at an internship for architecture. i wonder if i will ever see these kids again. i wonder if they will ever hear of the gospel again. please pray that God gives me the calmness of the heart and the trust in knowing that no matter what happens in the future, he has these kids in his hands and he loves them even more than i could ever love them.

chris & esther:

Chris Sung:Today's class was pretty good. My class won in a giant combined class game of da feng chui(?) [big wind blows] against Shing/Si and Norman/Marissa's class. I am tired. God is good. That is all.

Esther Wong: The kids like making crafts, and Chris has to take a class picture every day. They're all willing to participate in class, more or less, but some of them seem a little bored with the difficulty. Chris and I make new lesson plans every night, and each day seems to be a little better than the day before. No one wants us to visit their houses, so please pray that we can still make an impact spiritually.

shing & si:

shing chow: i can definitely see God at work here in neli. my second home visit was a pretty amazing time despite the fact that i was ridiculously tired. one of our helpers had the chance to share his testimony with the family we were visiting. they have recently been going to church here and there but haven't really started to build a relationship with Jesus, but based on their questions and though process, i really think the testimony hit home with them (as did with me). they even prayed with us at the end of our visit. it is great to see that they already are seeking God on their own through various avenues, despite the fact that they really had no need to (for instance, they were quite wealthy...probably one of the nicer homes i've been in). i'm also ecstatic because i made it through the whole evening actually understanding most of what was going on even with my extremely poor/non-existant mandarin.

in the classroom during the day, things have gone pretty smoothly. it is a lot of fun teaching despite the occasional hiccup. the kids english skills are pretty good and there are definitely some very quick learners. i am also wishing that schools back in columbus would serve the food they do here for lunch! i think even with all the sweating and walking, i might be gaining weight with all the delicious food i'm eating. but however, i'm not quite sure how the kids are receiving the message though because of the lack of direct, unlike the feedback you can get from the conversations you have during home visitations. but i hope either way, we can still be a great example and at least start sowing the seeds.

lastly, if you all can keep praying for me it would be wonderful. it has been quite hot and humid (as evidenced by the leather dye seeping from my belt today due to my sweatiness) and i've started to develop some sort of rash on my arm/underarm area. it is bothersome with it's location since i keep rubbing against it every time i move my arm. also, i am in need of some patience...to be honest, i'm sick of living with everyone already, and to imagine that we have 3 more weeks!