Day 2 - 6/29/2019 Bible Stories, Potstickers, and Friends

Hello, everyone! It's Amy here. I am currently writing this blog post with my eyes half-open and a smile on my face because today has been a very tiring, yet joyful day. Praise God!

I was woken up this morning by Nicole and Angela's beautiful faces, after having passed out for seven hours straight upon our arrival here last night. We started off our day by walking to a local breakfast vendor and eating some traditional Taiwanese breakfast foods together. And, oh my goodness, I had almost forgotten how amazing the food in Taiwan is! This was definitely one of my most favorite breakfasts ever.

After eating, we went to the church together where we met up with all of the other youth. There were lots of hugs and laughs as we reunited with old friends and met some new ones. Observing how readily we all bonded with each other was quite a sight. I am thankful for the connection that we share as brothers and sisters in Christ and as eager laborers in this year's CCA VBS. As he has faithfully done in the past, I pray that God will again send his spirit to enliven and unite our team in an awesome way.

Philippians 2:2 "Then make my joy complete by being of one mind, having the same love, being united in spirit and purpose."

Left to right: Angela, Penny, and Nicole

We spent the morning doing introductions, going over some schedules and other logistical information, and meeting up with our different partners for the VBS. Each of us was paired with two Taiwanese youth to lead a team of ten or so kids throughout the week. We were also paired with another Taiwanese youth to teach the Bible lesson with. This year, instead of teaching about American culture, we will be teaching Bible stories to the children and incorporating English along the way. Each of the teams will also be performing a play based on one of the Bible stories at the end of the week. Cherry and I worked on editing the script for our team's performance of Joseph.

Jonathan, Kevin, Amy, Cherry

For lunch (I love talking about food hehe), we had potstickers and a special mango tea.

鍋貼 😋  

Then in the afternoon, the Taiwanese and American youth split off to work. Our team huddled together in the nursery and practiced our dance for the final performance.

Although most of us were still full from our big lunch, all of us headed to a shopping mall to stroll around and eat dinner together. We had a fun time trying all of the different food samples in the mall and buying matching socks :) . For dinner, we went to a fancy seafood/meat buffet place. New and old team members grouped together at small tables to share food and chat about life.

Amy, Evangeline, Gina, Dorothy

Isaac, Matt, Joshua, David

After leaving the restaurant, most of us departed to our respective sleeping locations. Before bed, Cherry showed me some hilarious videos by Taiwanese youtubers and we also shared about friends and college. It's crazy how much has happened to all of us since this time last year, yet its clear that God is guiding us in mysterious and marvelous ways, through our relationships, vocation, and church. I am grateful and excited to be able to share this missions experience with the amazing people here. May it be another small, yet beautiful piece in the stories that God is writing through all of our lives. 

What a great first day to ease into our missions trip with! 

Prayer requests:

• unity in the team (both US and Taiwan)
• for us to bring all of our anxieties about this week to God and have peace
• for the children who will be coming to VBS this week, that they may truly experience God's presence and love here
• energy and health