Day 8 - 7/7/2017 - A Weary Week

“To whom will you compare me?
    Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.

Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:25, 28-31

This entire week has been a struggle. Without exception, our entire team--us and the Taiwanese youth--has gone through trials of all sorts, and now as the VBS concludes, we sigh a breath of relief from weariness and struggles, yet at the same time we're sad to see it all go. Through it all, the pain and the suffering, our one and only desire as God's beautiful creation remains: to worship and glorify Him in light of the cost. How amazing is our God and so worthy of our praise? Let none of us ever forget this amazing truth: that Christ died for us. For us. We are beyond worthless, full of sin, undeserving of anything, even life. We are destined, doomed for eternity in hell. Yet, God graciously gives us each the inheritance of his entire kingdom. We aren't even worthy to live, yet He still gives us everything we could ever imagine and more, not even withholding his own beloved son for our sake. Our destiny has now been forever rewritten and sealed for us to be co-heirs with Christ. We so often forget this amazing truth in our day to day lives, but God truly does deserve all the glory and honor and praise. Therefore, since we have a God, so worthy of praise, let us return the favor and likewise gladly suffer for His sake.

This has been my only source of energy and strength, going through each day this week: doing everything for the sake of the glory of God. This week was crazy. We faced trial after trial, individually and as a team. To name just a few: dealing with a tough language barrier, finding it challenging to interact with the kids, feeling like we weren't doing enough, being worn out from constantly caring for the kids, facing sickness and poor health, and just encountering a myriad of other problems. Through weaping, stress, and weariness, we fought on with just one hope: to serve the kids. Prayer was huge this trip. Whenever a brother or sister was going through any struggle at all, it was so encouraging to see so many caring hearts surrounding him/her in prayer. We couldn't have gotten through any of this without God's continual renewal of strength and support in response to our pleas. His faithfulness abounded this week, giving us courage in times of fear, strength in weakness, boldness in nervousness, energy in weariness, and most importantly, a desire to serve through the challenges.

Nearing the end of the week, we felt a greater sense of urgency to share the gospel message, so we brought out wordless books to show the children. With 5-color bead keychains to give away, every kid was interested and begged to have one--the perfect opportunity to tell them each the story.



Back to what we actually did today. Emily taught the children about American food. We held a small ceremony for the parents and kids at the end of the day. The kids danced to songs they prepared, and the youth (Taiwan team and our team) choreographed their own dances. All the kids got a backpack and a new testament Bible. Elder Kevin Jiang, his wife, and Kelly also stopped by to say hi and see the whole ceremony.

After we cleaned up the church, we went out to play some badminton at a local gym for two hours. Exhausted, we made our way back to church to have a meal of pizzas with unique toppings, extremely reminiscent of last year's similar meal.

Prayer Requests:
- to provide Emily and Katherine with good health for the remainder of the trip

Prayer Thanks:
- for an amazing, successful VBS
- for all the opportunities we had to share the gospel
- for providing all our needs throughout this entire trip
- for all the relationships we made