河 The River

Day 37.

Tuesday nights are evangelism nights.  This week, instead of going to the university, we went down by the river.  The river is a really popular place for people to hang out, it's basically like a carnival that runs 24/7.  They have corn dogs.

So I was in a group with Sandra and Yusuke and the first woman we approached was a very old woman taking a rest on a bench.  We said, "Hello, how are you this evening?"  Her response was, "You guys are Christians."  She went on to tell us that she is also a Christian and she could feel the Holy Spirit in us.  SO COOL.  So we talked with her for a little while and then started walking around looking for other people who looked like they were taking a break.  Yusuke began expressing how he didn't feel like he had a gift for evangelism.  I assured him that I was feeling the same kind of thing, but I think it's because of the language barrier, because neither of us can speak Chinese very well, it's hard for us to effectively communicate the gospel.  (That, and every time we start talking to someone over the age of 40, they believe it's their duty to convince foreigners of the beauty of Taiwan and tell us their entire history.  It's extremely time-consuming.)  After Yusuke said this, I pointed out a couple of girls who were chatting on a bench.  We approached them and Sandra began speaking.  They couldn't understand what she was saying.  They were Japanese!  Yusuke took over and totally owned it.  He shared his testimony and told them the gospel.  It was awesome!  After that, I was convinced we were going to find a person who spoke English as their native tongue.  It didn't happen.  Instead, the last man that we talked to held the exact same views as the man we had climbed the mountain with on Monday! It was so great because we already knew all of the flaws in his belief system and we were prepared for the questions he asked us.  Thank goodness we had climbed that mountain.

On a totally different note, the final deadline to bring in school fees was on Monday.  And everyone can stay!  The staff talked and prayed about it and they found that they have enough money to cover all of the travel costs for outreach, and even though we're still technically short $2500, they really wanted everyone to be able to stay through the rest of the school.  So the new final deadline is June 9th, the day we all leave for outreach.  If by that time they still have not gotten the remainder of their fees, they cannot go on outreach.  But the family is still together. :D