Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.wartracebaptist.org/sermons/60251/missionary-trip-to-taiwan-by-robert-sugg-iii-iv/.

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[0:00] Well, good evening, guys. I would say we'll go ahead and get started, but I told Thomas that I wasn't going to start until he finished his dessert, so I'm waiting on Thomas. Last week, he made me wait until he finished his dessert, so as soon as Thomas comes in, we are joking and saying, is he finishing up at the moment?

[0:21] There he is. There's Thomas. He's in the room. We were joking because last week I didn't know it was on the live stream that I said that, but they had already started filming, so we're thinking that somebody out there thinks Thomas has a lot of pull in the church, and so we're just going to keep that going because he's going to make sure. Well, it's an honor to see you tonight. Let's open up a word of prayer, and then I'm going to let you brothers come on up and just share with us as the Lord leads. I know our kids will come in here in just a minute, so if you see like a train, I think the Awana group's going to come in here in just a moment, too, so let's pray, and then let you guys come share as the Lord lays on your heart. Lord, thank you so much for this day. God, I'm so thankful that we have the opportunity to come together as brothers and sisters in Christ, and Lord, to fellowship one with another and to share a meal with one another, but Lord, I also am so thankful that we have an opportunity to hear about the work you're doing, not only here, but around the world and how you're using your people for your glory. So Lord, tonight as we listen, we pray that you would give us eyes to see and hearts and minds to carry a concern for. Lord, right here, even at the beginning, we do pray for another of our number. We pray for Brother Jamie Simmons as he's on his way to serve you on the other side of the world, and Lord, just wanting to be used by you. So Lord, bless the efforts here. Bless all that's going on through each and every one of us as War Trace

[1:43] Baptists that you be glorified and honored. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Brothers? Let's go with the words. Let's go with the words.

[1:54] Let's go with the words. Let's go with the words. Let's go with the words. Dear brothers and sisters, I'm so happy that you're here with me today.

[2:06] My name is Song Zhao Le Pei, this is my beautiful child. I appreciate you all appreciate him. You going to translate?

[2:24] So that was Mandarin Chinese, which is the main language that's spoken in Taiwan. First off, thank you. Thank you so much for commissioning us, for sending us out, for praying for us, for supporting us.

[2:43] We really, really felt the prayers, and we felt the impact of the prayers while we were there on the field. It was really, really amazing. We saw the fruits of it. I apologize for reading off a script tonight, but if I don't do this, we'll be here till midnight.

[2:59] So I'm going to just go with what we've got right here. We're all familiar with the scripture of Acts 1.8. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

[3:16] And that's been a real focus of the church, to have that witness here locally, a really, really strong witness here locally, expand that witness further out beyond these walls, and then go to the ends of the earth.

[3:29] And so this trip was one of those ends of the earth trips. There's all different types of mission trips. On one, you may be putting a roof on a church.

[3:40] On another one, you may be where Jamie Simmons is right now, presenting beautiful and worshipful music to people who are ministering in a very hard place, letting them know that God has not forgotten them, and that they're doing what he has called them to do, to help encourage their hearts and strengthen their hands to do what they're doing, and also to draw others in.

[4:07] So there's all different types of mission trips. They all have amazing value. This one was really about sowing seed. It was about telling people about Jesus. So let me give you some background.

[4:20] My parents were IMB missionaries, career missionaries. I grew up in Taiwan. I grew up on the mission field in Taiwan. And they started out as church planters.

[4:31] My father did a study for the Southern Baptists on the efficacy of the work that was done in Taiwan, and really kind of shaped the future of the IMB work in Taiwan.

[4:47] And when he left the field, he left as the director of the Taiwan Baptist Mission, directing the works that they were doing there. So I have a lot of context, a lot of history there.

[4:59] Let me tell you a little bit about Taiwan, the spiritual nature of Taiwan. Taiwan, it's nominally Taoist, Buddhist, and Confucianist, but it looks more like what Paul saw in his travels.

[5:13] There's many, many different gods being worshipped, and there's gods for everything in Taiwan. There's household gods. There's neighborhood gods, national gods, gods in heaven, gods on earth, and everywhere.

[5:28] There are demons and ghosts that must be carefully warded off or appeased. As Americans, we think that anyone who believes these things has just got to be a little bit less than intelligent, because how could you believe in an idol that is just made of rock or stone or wood?

[5:48] But when we know that Satan is real, and when he is given free reign to wreak havoc among a population, this is what you get.

[6:01] You get this blatant idol worship like was seen in ancient Israel and is seen today in lots of different parts of the world. Family worship is very important in Taiwan.

[6:16] It's the responsibility of the living to provide for the dead. One of the things they'll do is they will, for their ancestors, they will buy spirit money.

[6:28] It's these little packs of money that are stamped with either gold foil or even gold leaf or stamped with temple stamps, and they'll burn these in sacrifices.

[6:38] They think that this spirit money will either go as offerings to their dead ancestors or to gods or demons that they're trying to appease. And their ancestors, if they give their ancestors enough spirit money, then their ancestors will be rich.

[6:54] And since they're rubbing shoulders with all the gods, they can kind of bribe the gods to look out for them and take good care of their descendants while they're down there on earth. One thing you'll see that if something like a natural disaster has happened, like earthquakes, which do happen in Taiwan, or typhoons, something like that, they'll bring the whole community together.

[7:19] They'll bring their god processions out into the street. They'll bring all the idols out and march down the streets with them and do a whole lot of sacrifices. So it's integrated into every little aspect of their society.

[7:35] Go one more. So this is a common scene in temples that you would see in Taiwan. This is how people pray and worship. They would burn incense in their prayers, and then they would just repeat the same prayers over and over.

[7:51] Oh, here's some of the paper money. Microphone, sorry. Here's the paper money being burned. And this is something that Robert and I saw, you know, on the streets while we were there when we went by temples.

[8:05] You see them burning the spirit money, ghost money, or paper money as it's called. The responsibility for carrying on the worship falls to the oldest son as the leader of the house, and he must continue to make offerings for all of his ancestors to provide for them.

[8:25] As a result of a lot of the different deities and traditions, it gets a little bit muddled. It gets a little bit mixed up. And we saw this while we were there in Taiwan in very, very stark character.

[8:39] So this is a Taoist temple. This is a very traditional Taoist temple. But out in the front, you see that guy in the brown robes? Zoom in a little bit there, Cole. That guy right there?

[8:51] Zoom in a little bit more. That's a Buddhist monk. That's a Buddhist monk who's out begging in front of the Taoist temple. That's like the Methodists passing the offering plate at the Pentecostal church.

[9:04] It's like, it's so confusing. But I guess it's only fair, though, because inside that temple, they did have a Buddhist bodhisattva and a Hindu Krishna.

[9:17] So I guess all's fair. Go ahead. To accept Christ in Taiwan is to reject all of that.

[9:33] And so to reject all of that, you're not just rejecting all the bad things, but you're rejecting family worship times. Because they have like feasts and festivals that come every month, every six months, every season, every year.

[9:50] So to turn your back on that, you're turning your back on a lot. As a result, making converts in Taiwan is very, very difficult. When I lived in Taiwan as a child, less than 1% of the population was Christian.

[10:07] That has grown to about 3% in the past 40 years, which doesn't sound like a whole lot, from 1% to 3%. But the sheer number of Christians has over-tripled in that time span.

[10:22] So progress is being made. One interesting thing that our translator told us as we were traveling around, she was pointing out churches. And she said, you notice there are a lot more churches here than there were when you were here.

[10:37] I said, yes, there are. I'm really amazed. She said, that's because the work of your parents and the other missionaries that were here. Now we actually have all these churches. And it was really amazing to see.

[10:50] So it's not a fast-growing church, but it is growing. Give me one more. This is an outreach at a church that my parents started in Taiwan.

[11:03] I remember when there were five people coming on Sunday morning, and that was including my two parents. And so now it's grown to where this church has started other churches, and they're now sending out missionaries to other countries.

[11:17] And it's really a phenomenal thing to be a part of. And I want Robert to come and give you a little bit of background on how God led us to go on this mission trip.

[11:29] That's really a story in itself. Thank you. Many people want to know what God's will is for their life.

[11:44] I think it's one of the biggest questions that, especially at my age, I've asked myself, you know, what's God's will for my life? And during college, I had an opportunity to go on a summer abroad, on a summer abroad trip.

[12:02] And my siblings had done it, so I knew that I was going to do it. And I was getting excited to go to another country for the first time. And I began to pray about it, but I didn't have peace.

[12:16] And I felt like God was telling me no for some reason. And so I was like, huh, that's really weird. And so I decided not to go. And not really knowing why I could guess.

[12:30] But then one or two days later, I walked into the BCM on the Motlow campus. And the director, Mr. Nathan Dorrell, he came up to me and he said, are you doing anything this summer?

[12:43] I said, well, no, I'm not. And long story short, he said, would you like to go to Taiwan? There's two slots left. And then I realized I was not going on a summer abroad because I was going to Taiwan and I was taking daddy with me.

[12:56] Now, because of this, I learned that it's really important to stay close to the Lord and to really stay attuned to the voice that he has.

[13:09] And to keep an ear out just like a sheep. And I do this by having my quiet time twice a day. I read my Bible and I pray. And I write down my prayers.

[13:21] And I also reread my prayers. And I make notes when they're answered. And it's kind of freaky once you see how many of your prayers God answers once you actually start recording them.

[13:35] And so through this, even before we had gone to Taiwan, I learned that it was very, very, very important, just even as the beginning of the Taiwan workings were being made, that we could see that it was really important to listen to God.

[13:52] Now, oh, yeah, back to you, daddy. Back to you? Okay, all right, cool. So there we are enjoying some Chinese food on one of our first days there in Taiwan.

[14:11] Go ahead. We had the opportunity to share with a group of students that were mainly international students.

[14:23] At least half of them were Christians, we believe. But then there were a lot that were there just because there were Americans there, because Americans are a big draw in Taiwan. American culture and American people, American movies, everything is really, really popular.

[14:34] So we had the opportunity to speak to them, and we brought up some really difficult topics, some really things that we're going to have to face coming back stateside, even living there in Taiwan.

[14:49] And this all comes back to what Robert was talking about on listening to the voice of God by what he's doing on a daily basis, practicing listening to the voice of God, just in what scripture do I write down today?

[15:03] What do I pray over? What are my prayers? It's like basketball drills. If you don't practice free throws, you're never going to make one in a game. So it's just that drill and that practice over and over that led us to be able to do that.

[15:17] Can you do me a favor? Can you take your watch off and hand it to me? I have no idea where our time is, and I don't want to keep us here until however late. There we go.

[15:28] Awesome. Thank you. So the question then becomes, how did we reach out to the schools in Taiwan?

[15:42] Because in Taiwan, it's technically illegal to share Christianity in the schools. It's not just against school policy. It is against the law to proselytize in the schools, to tell someone about Christianity and ask them to become a Christian.

[15:59] So the great thing about this, though, is that local missionaries and church members said, hey, wouldn't it be great if we brought Americans in to your English classes in your school and taught you, taught the children about a very special American holiday, Easter.

[16:27] We'll bring flashcards. We'll bring PowerPoint. We'll bring it to you next time.

[17:01] Most people heard the story of Jesus from creation through Christ's birth, death, burial, and resurrection for the very first time.

[17:16] It was amazing telling people about Christ for the first time. We told them about creation, about how God created mankind, how sin separated God from man, and how God made a way to forgive sin through the sacrifice of a lamb.

[17:34] The kids listened very closely, but they really began to enjoy the story once we started talking about Jesus. We talked about the different miracles that he did, and they were just so fascinated.

[17:46] We talked about how he loved everyone. Then when I began to talk about the Last Supper, I told them that Jesus knew that he was going to be killed, and so he took some bread, and he told his disciples that that represented his body, and he broke it.

[18:07] And I had a piece of bread as a prop, and I broke it. I was just going along with the story. But at that moment, their jaws would drop, and they would all gasp and go, Oh!

[18:21] Because Jesus, who was perfect, who was the Son of God, they knew something bad was going to happen.

[18:33] And that was so surprising, and it left such an impact on me, because I had never really thought of that, that they had never heard the gospel, that I'd never really computed.

[18:47] I knew that, but I didn't know that. They knew that Jesus was going to be scourged, and, well, we told them that Jesus was going to be scourged and crucified.

[19:01] And from the Last Supper, to Judas' betrayal of Christ, to, again, the scourging and crucifixion, just the impact of them hearing the gospel for the very first time was amazing.

[19:14] It was, for them, it was the very first concept that a loving Savior was horribly killed on a cross. It was very, very moving.

[19:26] Now, at the end of the class, we had a gift for all of them. We would give out a gospel comic book and an English-Chinese translation of John. We were not actually allowed to give them to the students that we could stand by the door, and if they wanted to take one as they passed by, they could.

[19:45] And we also gave out candy, which encouraged them a little bit. The number of students who took a gospel home with them was truly astonishing.

[19:55] We expected that about 15% of the students would take a gospel of John. In fact, about 90% of them took a gospel of John.

[20:08] At one school, we even ran out of Bibles to give out, and the pastor who was with us ran to his church and picked up bilingual New Testaments to hand out instead. It was just another example of how God was watching out for us, and even though something physical didn't seem possible, he provided a way anyway.

[20:35] Give me one more. So the guy you see right here is a man named Jim. Nine years ago, Jim was not a Christian. He was the oldest son, and so he had to carry on the family worship tradition.

[20:53] And it was very important to his family, to his grandparents, to everyone in the extended family. He was the one who held the line in spirit worship.

[21:04] But his wife was a Christian. She became a Christian through the ministry of Grace Baptist Church, had been a Christian for some time, and she was praying for him constantly. Praying for him. And one day, he became ill, and he just kept getting worse and worse.

[21:18] And he became, they said he was going to die. And he realized it was over. His life had ended, and he cried out to God. And God miraculously saved him in a way that he knew it was God that has saved him.

[21:34] And from that moment on, he made 180-degree change. He went to the church. He got baptized. He became a Christian. He's been living full bore for Christ since then.

[21:44] This man right here, it was our ticket into the Yingla vocational schools, where he had, he's a chemistry and biology teacher, but he got us into these English classes through partnering with these other teachers.

[21:57] There's a new principal that's come to the school. And the principal has said, look, man, I know what you're doing. I know that this is an English class in name only, and you're really teaching about Christianity, and this has got to stop.

[22:12] And Jim has said, nope, I'm going to keep doing it. And the man has put his job on the line. He has got a wife and seven children.

[22:23] He's put his life and his livelihood on the line because of how important he feels this is to continue going on. Go ahead.

[22:38] I had a real brief time to speak with Ben Hoskins, his director of the IMB East Asia Group. They cover Taiwan, the Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, other countries.

[22:50] He started an organization called Huayu, where they train Taiwanese believers, and they send them out as missionaries. They partner with IMB personnel.

[23:01] So these are people who go through two-year training. They're lay people that go through two years' worth of training, and then they go out to partner with IMB personnel in places like North Africa, the Middle East, places that are difficult for Americans to minister sometimes.

[23:19] And I wish I had longer. We only had a short time to speak together, but we were just asking questions to one another, and I was so interested in what he was doing. And he said, Now, I understand your parents used to work here.

[23:33] I said, Yeah, they lived in Tainan. He's like, Really? I just came from Tainan. What church? And I said, Living Water Church. And he got this shocked look on his face.

[23:43] He said, The last missionary we just commissioned was from that church. So the last missionary that he commissioned was from the church that my parents had started.

[23:54] He said, A few days ago, I was sitting with this missionary and praying with him and sending him out, and now here I am talking to you, and it was your father that started that church 20-some-odd years ago.

[24:07] So it was really an amazing moment. Go ahead. I'm not sure where I am on my slides.

[24:19] Keep going. Oh, yeah. That's some of the work they're doing there. And, okay, let's stop here.

[24:33] Some of the things we witnessed there were simply remarkable, and we can see how God is working. When you understand the moving of the Spirit, and you see these things that happen, you're like, oh, yeah, that's got to be God. We spent two days at Yongji Elementary School teaching classes there, and our contact at Yongji is not even a Christian, but a school administrator who believes that bringing Americans into their school to talk about American culture will help motivate them to study more and score higher on their English placement exams.

[25:05] We taught in a school where we met Lucy, who was one of the teachers, and she's a Taiwanese teacher that has, this is the second year she's had groups come to her school, and when she, the first year they were there, they even gave her a Bible.

[25:22] She's not a Christian. She's not a believer at all. She received the Bible graciously, and then while we were there, the principal and five other administrators came into the school, came into the classroom, and they all were present while we gave the gospel presentation.

[25:41] At the end of our time there, the lead, the team leader, offered to take the PowerPoint off of her computer for her so that she could, you know, have her desk space free, and she said, oh, no, no, keep it.

[25:55] I'm going to go over this with my students so they can memorize it. A non-Christian is sharing the gospel with all of her students and helping them to memorize it.

[26:12] How great is God? Go ahead. Give me one more. One afternoon we had the opportunity to go and visit a temple.

[26:27] Robert had never seen one, of course, and it is quite interesting. If it wasn't so demonic, it would be beautiful. Stone dragons writhe around the pillars and layers of intricate carvings adorn every surface.

[26:44] There's a tall threshold to step over as it is believed this help keeps the demons out. This is kind of a medium-large temple, and there were many idols here to many different gods, so people can worship whichever one they want.

[26:58] One interesting thing is that... Go back. Yeah, go back one. Sorry. Yeah. The large idol up here is surrounded by lots of other little idols.

[27:12] So the large idol is the idol that belongs to this temple. And the little idols are for... They're either household gods or they come from little local shrines, and they bring them in and set them up around.

[27:27] Can anyone think of why they might do that? It's not so he can have an audience. It's so they can recharge. So they can recharge their little idols.

[27:38] They're obviously not Duracell, copper top idols. I don't think they're even Energizer. They're... That dollar general... The Rayovac. These are Rayovac idols.

[27:49] That's what they are. That's what they are. Go ahead. In front of these banks of idols, worshipers prayed, burned incense, and used divination or fortune-telling blocks to try to get answers to the questions of life that faced them.

[28:07] And it was really sad to see we know these answers, and we know where these answers are to be had, and they just didn't. It's hard to explain, but walking through the temple after a little while, you begin to feel a spirit of heaviness, of spiritual oppression, and it feels something like being underwater, and it's just...

[28:30] It's a bad feeling, and when you leave the temple and get away from it all, it feels like you've come out from underneath the water and you can breathe again. Sometimes it can take a little bit just to kind of shake it off of you, to get clear-headed after you leave.

[28:45] But we have no fear, even walking through the valley of the shadow of death, because we know whom we have believed. Something sad happened while we were at this temple.

[28:59] We were inside sightseeing, and a bunch of buses pulled up, and they brought in hundreds of students from the local middle school. Exams were coming up, and the administrators put all the kids on the buses and brought them to the temple so they could pray and give offerings and sacrifices to the idols for good grades on their exams.

[29:20] So we're inside sightseeing, and they're all around us doing their worshiping, and outside doing their Omidofu chants and bowing down in front of the idols and worshiping.

[29:34] Go ahead. So the contrast of seeing the children in the morning classes begin to learn about Jesus and the shocking response they had when they understood that a perfect man would come and die who was God's son and then be resurrected, and then to go and see this in the afternoon was quite shocking.

[29:59] Go ahead. More temple shots. Keep going. So this is a women's ministry that we went to. One afternoon, we went with the pastor and his wife to visit this women's ministry, and it was a full circle moment for me.

[30:17] This ministry serves survivors of a red light district outside Taipei, close to Taoyuan, which is kind of like the capital city, and helps girls and women to get out of the human trafficking trade.

[30:28] And I kind of have to give the back story on this. When my mother was in Tainan back in the 90s, one day this lady came into the church, and she said, I'd like to learn about the Bible.

[30:39] Can you teach me? And she said, yes, I'd love to teach you about the Bible. She said, oh, great. Well, when can we meet? And so my mother set a time, so we'll just come meet me here at the church. She said, no, I really don't want to come in at the church.

[30:50] Can you come to my place of business and meet me there? She said, sure, I'll be happy to. And so she prepared her material. She thought she was just going to teach this one lady, and so she went in and she walked in and this middle-aged lady was there, but there was also a bunch of these young ladies as well.

[31:10] It was a huge, a whole class, and that's the story of how she began teaching a Bible study in a brothel. And she ministered to those women for years, teaching them about scripture.

[31:23] And so to see that this work is continuing and they're continuing to bring people out of darkness there was really a poignant moment for me to see that this type of work is still going on.

[31:36] When we left this building, like this building is in the middle of the red light district, so when we left this building, we went down the road and there's ladies standing outside the tea shops advertising, so to speak, and a big black Hummer all tricked out with blacked out windows and everything was making stops and people were coming and going.

[32:02] Obviously an organized crime element. You see, when Satan is in control of a society, it's not content to, he's not content to just have them suffer spiritually.

[32:13] He has them suffer in other ways as well. And so that's one of the reasons that bringing the gospel and bringing the light into this darkness is so vital and so important.

[32:27] So being with Pastor Ming and Kitty and our translator Maddie and her friend Tracy who were in the previous picture who are such bright lights and so full of God and so full of light and life and compassion for these hurting people, it ministered to me so much.

[32:47] It was amazing to just be around them. Our very first presentation was an open presentation at a library on a Saturday and after the presentation, I went up to one of the parents.

[33:03] I was talking to her. I said, man, your daughter has very good English. You must practice with her a lot. She said, I do. Thank you. But I want to tell you something. What you're doing is very, very important.

[33:15] When I was four years old, I heard the gospel one time and then when I was 17 and I heard it again, I realized that's what I had believed this entire time and I knew that was true and I became a Christian at that point because of what had been shared with me when I was four years old.

[33:38] One school that we went to was an elementary school where we presented from fourth graders to sixth graders.

[33:53] There was one little girl, Jojo, who is just the cutest thing ever. She is all the way on the right there and she was our little shadow.

[34:04] As soon as our van pulled up, she just spent every moment that she could with us. It was just watching and stuff like that. She had sparkly eyes and a happy smile and she followed us all over the school.

[34:19] She always spent the five minutes with her that whenever she could afford in between our classes. She loved hanging out with us and talking to us in Chinese even though we couldn't understand her.

[34:33] The pastor's wife who was translating for us got to talking to her and was translating the conversation for us. We found out her favorite thing to do is to dance.

[34:44] She doesn't really like to study and she loves animals. We also learned that her favorite show is a cartoon about a demon and that when she can't sleep at night she watches horror movies.

[35:06] And she also told us that she lives next door to elephants and kangaroos and the pastor's wife told us that often they have learned that children will make it fantastic stories because they have a bad home life.

[35:23] Jojo is part of that group of children that makes up fantastic stories like that. She's in third grade.

[35:35] We only share the gospels from fourth graders to sixth graders so we couldn't share the gospel with her. This means that Jojo didn't get to hear about Jesus.

[35:45] But there is hope because Jojo is really interested in learning English and the pastor's wife invited her to the English classes at their church.

[35:58] So you can be in prayer for Jojo that she comes to know Christ and that she's delivered from her bad home situation. So what do we do?

[36:17] What do we do now? How do we respond to this? How do I respond to this? I see the need and the need is great. We would like to go back again next year and we're praying in that direction.

[36:30] If we do go back in the future I would like to make a few changes to the itinerary. One other thing we did not have the opportunity to do was to spend more time with the local pastors and local ministry leaders hearing more about their ministries the infrastructure of their ministries what their needs are any things we might be able to supply as they're teaching as they're training what can we do on our end as a church to come alongside them.

[36:56] So that's something I'd like to do. Another thing I'd like to do is to schedule times if it's possible where we could interact more with the students and then get them plugged into the local church.

[37:08] Because of the way the classes were set up there wasn't we were not allowed to give out anything with the local church information on it. However my thought process is if we could give out like the kids loved Robert they absolutely loved him.

[37:22] If we had like a little card that had QR code that they could scan and see where he was going to be next and they'd see hey this Friday night he's going to be at the church down the street we could all go down there and see him.

[37:37] It would be a good way to get the kids into the local church where they could get engaged with some of the leadership there. So that's something else that I would like to do.

[37:49] But it's also put in my mind how important and how critical what this church is doing on a week in and week out basis is. just because someone is not in idolatry to an idol of wood or stone does not mean they're not in idolatry.

[38:05] Seeking self and seeking pleasure and seeking monetary rewards is just as much idolatry as these other idols are. Serving anything over Christ is that same level of idolatry.

[38:20] And there's those in our community that are really devastated and they need that light and we have the opportunity. I mean, the children's ministry in this church is phenomenal.

[38:31] The number of little JoJo's and girls and boys like her that come to know the Lord through what this church does and all the other ministries done here are so vitally important.

[38:42] And so more than anything, I hope that this report encourages you as you remember Acts 1.8 but you will receive power.

[38:54] You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses. Thank you. Thank you, brothers.

[39:27] I'm going to give you a few minutes if anybody's just got a pressing question you want to ask. I'm going to let you ask it. If anyone has a question they want to ask. I want? Yes, to you guys.

[39:38] Just advance one more slide while we're doing this. Okay, go one more slide. Jet lag is real. Give me one more slide.

[39:48] Jet lag is really real. No, but does anyone have any questions about Taiwan or the ministry there or what we did or anything? Any questions? In the back.

[40:01] Yes. So can you bring anything in at all? can you stop the ministry at all? So we were allowed to bring in, we were allowed to bring in anything that would be considered educational.

[40:16] So the Gospels of John that we brought into the classroom, they were bilingual. And we said if you want to learn more about the story that went over today, this is in Chinese and English.

[40:28] So you can practice your vocabulary and you can learn this story. So anything like that we were able to bring in. Right here. Yes.

[40:39] Yes. Because they don't have Jesus. Yes. It's against the law in, to teach about Jesus in their schools.

[40:59] And that's because basically the spirit of darkness is over the island. The spirit of, of, of Satan is over the island. And, in a lot of other countries it's also illegal to teach Christianity in the schools.

[41:17] Like our country. Yes. Yes, sir. Why did the group decide to stop because he did not die? He did that because he knew that what was being done is telling people about Christ and getting them to come to believe in Christ.

[41:37] And he wanted that to stop. He didn't want people to learn about Christ. He's not a Christian. Right here. So, is the translation between Mandarin and English actually half-way decent?

[41:51] I know my sister-in-law is Japanese and she said that certain words we use in English that don't even exist in Japanese. So, I assume it's similar in Mandarin.

[42:04] Some kind of, some kind of the eloquence lost. It is, and it was real interesting because I speak just enough Mandarin to get myself in trouble. So when the translators were speaking, I was speaking from a script.

[42:17] And so when the translators were speaking, one translator would translate it one way, and I'm like, oh, he got it. The next translator would translate it a different way. I'm thinking, mm, not quite right.

[42:27] So it's, yeah, there are differences. Yeah. So in Chinese, qi wun is, I have a question.

[42:39] qi wun is, I'd like a kiss. You've got to be careful. Yes, sir. If a family member makes sense, cross, are they separated from their family?

[42:57] So let me tell you a story to illustrate that point. Um, my parents, when they lived in Tainan, were, um, a person, a young girl had come to Christ.

[43:11] And, uh, she was kicked out of her house. She was thrown out. Like, she came home, and her clothes were in the street. Her belongings were in the street. Um, and she was, that was it.

[43:23] She was done. She was out of that house completely. And one night, she had tried to go back. It was a, it was a real bad situation. I'm going to go to the back story. She had tried to go back home, because she didn't have anywhere else to be.

[43:34] It turned into a huge fight. Uh, they called my father. And he went over there. They said, don't go over there. That man's going to kill you. Do not go over there. But he prayed about it. It felt like, well, God told me to go.

[43:45] I should go. So he went and talked with the man, called the man down, and opened a dialogue with him. The following year, there was another big disturbance in that neighborhood, when that man and his family were throwing their household idols and their God shelf out into the middle of the street and burning them, because the whole family had become Christian.

[44:10] So, yes, people can be kicked out of their home and kicked out on the street. Yeah, it happens. Yes, ma'am.

[44:22] Can you teach the people like the outside of here? Yes, you certainly can. It's definitely legal. Yes, ma'am. What did your dad say about it?

[44:34] About my trip? Oh, man. He said, man, I wish I was going with you. I wish I was going with you. I want to be there so bad.

[44:45] Yeah, he loved it. He gave us a lot of pointers. He used to also train short-term mission trip teams.

[44:56] So, yeah, he was very invested in this whole process. Anything else? Yeah. Can I have the trip next year to anyone go?

[45:09] I think they're open. Yes. So, yes. Thank you for bringing that up. Thank you, Tracy. So, if anyone else says, hey, that sounds amazing. I want to go do that. I don't know any Chinese, but I want to go.

[45:20] Robert didn't know any Chinese. And he went, and he was like the star of the show. So, if you want to go on a trip like this, if you want to go on a trip to Taiwan and tell people about Jesus who have never heard it before, come see me.

[45:35] What were the ages of the team? The ages of the team that went with us were 15 to 72.

[45:46] So, we had a pretty broad range. And all from Tennessee, all from Middle Tennessee. Yes, ma'am. Is there a typical sort of personality, a Taiwanese person being like this?

[46:00] There's really not just as unique and varied as, you know, some real introverted, some very, very outgoing and loud, some very quiet and shy.

[46:11] Yeah. Is there another question? Another hand? No? Okay. Cool.

[46:22] Are we all good? I think you're good. Thank you. Thank you, guys. And there was, when they got back, of course, Robert's work schedule has completely changed since he got back.

[46:33] He had to work things out so that he could be at work. And then as soon as he got back, one of his employees ended up facing major surgery. So, Robert's had to be kind of in the building this entire time.

[46:43] But we've had the opportunity to share. And I know originally when you guys got back, there was some doubt as to whether this trip would happen next year. Because a little bit of back story on that trip is it's the former director of mission of the Duck River Baptist Association, not the New Duck River.

[47:02] We were part of the New Duck River Baptist Association. So the gentleman who heads it up is the former director of the Duck River Baptist Association. He has retired from DOM, and this was to be his last trip.

[47:13] But I know the last email you sent me, he has since decided that he is going to leave one more. One more. Now, the matter of prayer that Robert and I were praying about was, what then?

[47:26] Does it stop when he stops? Because he had inherited this trip from another director of mission in the state of Tennessee and was just continuing it on for a couple more years. So there is a possibility that someone else is going to have to step up and take this trip on.

[47:42] And, you know, as the Lord placed it on their heart, we're just praying about that. Because we didn't know who's going to step up and who's going to take that. And the need is still there. And if you have the opportunity, just a matter of prayer that was shared with me.

[47:57] If you have the opportunity to go while the door is open and you don't take that opportunity, then you're saying, well, it's not worth the effort. So we don't know how long that door would be open.

[48:08] The educator is allowing it to happen. The teacher is still in the room. So that's just a matter of prayer. We know one more year. But if the door remains open in the schools after that year, well, then we need the Lord to raise up the next leader of that mission.

[48:26] And we need someone to take that. As your pastor, I looked at Robert and said, if it's you, we'll support you. So I put you guys on the cuff for that as well.

[48:37] Because I said, you know, we'll stand beside you and do it. But we're just praying in that direction. But thankful that there will be at least one more year. So thank you, brothers. Thank you for going.

[48:47] Thank you for sharing. And thank you for your heart in the matter. If you have any questions, you want to talk to them about it afterwards, then you're free to talk to them afterwards. Okay? Let's take a moment to, we're going to pray together.

[49:00]  You have the prayer list in front of you. I think we can go ahead and, brothers, you go.