The Day Before Tomorrow

We leave for Taiwan tomorrow! Yea!!!!! People have been asking all week if I'm nervous or anxious about going, and honestly, I just want get going! I know I am going to miss my family, and that is the only thing that I have the least bit of angst about. But I'm going to cram every bit of mommy time I can into the day....Nathaniel and I are taking Chinese food to the kids at school today, complete with chopsticks (except for Ryan who said a big "NO" to the Chinese food). I am going to have a little Wii session with Dakota, because I didn't figure that it was very cool for Mom to bring lunch and eat with you when you are in middle school :) Tonight I will watch a DVD movie with James and just hanging out. I have mentioned how awesome he is for encouraging me and being supportive of me going on this trip? I just love him!

So you know our traveling schedule tomorrow:

10:55am Plane leaves Houston
1:49pm arrive in St Paul/Minneapolis
3:00pm leave St Paul/Minneapolis
5:30pm on Friday (3:30am on Friday in Houston) arrive in Tokyo, Japan
7:00pm on Friday (5:00 am on Friday in Houston) leave Tokyo, Japan
10:20pm on Friday (9:20am on Friday in Houston) arrive in Taipei, Taiwan

We then get on a bus and travel 2 hours south to the city of Taichung, Taiwan where we will be staying and working.

Our ladies retreat starts on Monday morning (which would be Monday evening here in Houston...Taiwan is 13 hours ahead of Houston) and will go through Thurday. We return on Saturday March 21.

I will try to update you all here with pictures and stories while we are there, but I do not know what kind of internet access I will have. If I don't get to do much while I am there, look for a long post when I get home (I know...just what you all want) :)

Please pray for us....pray for our safety in traveling, but more importantly that God is glorified in what we are doing. Pray for our families. Pray for the ladies in Taiwan. We want to be able to call them sisters! Also, I ask that you pray for another team from our church leaving this evening for Mali, Africa. May God be with them and all they will be doing in the village in Mali!

Thanks to all!

Taking a break and getting ready....

It's Saturday evening, and I'm about to close up the computer for the next few days. We leave for Taiwan on Thursday and I feel like God really wants me to spend the next few days focusing on Him and spending time with family. I will be coming back with a blog post on Wednesday before we leave. Until then, I ask you to pray for these things:



-that all those going on the trip have peace as they are preparing to go



-that Renee and all those in Taiwan that are working on the retreat have the same peace



-that I hear all that God wants to tell me these last few days before we leave



-that I am able to spend meaningful time with James and the kids the next few days



Thanks so much for praying!

Waiting on an event vs. Waiting on the Lord

Well, we are down to basically 8 days till we board the plane to Taiwan! Wow! I still can't believe that it is finally here!

I wanted to share with you something that really impacted me this morning in my Tuesday morning women's Bible study. We are doing Beth Moore's study on Esther this semester. The topic of today's video was timing and waiting, and Beth said something that struck me as very profound. She talked about the verse in Isaiah 40:31 that says that "they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength". She went on to say that when we wait on an event, that so often it drains us of our strength but when we wait instead on God, it is then that we are renewed and strengthened. How many times have I sat and thought about when such and such happens? What a waste of energy, when I could have been waiting on the Lord and getting all the amazing things He had for me in the season of waiting!

My prayer is this.....

I've been waiting for this trip for a long time, and now more than ever I just want to wait on the Lord. Pray that all the "detail" stuff gets done, but not at the expense of what God has to teach me this last week. Pray that my ears and heart are open to what He has to tell me and to what He would have me share with the ladies in Taiwan. Pray that I, as well as all the women I'm traveling with, can set aside all those things that would zap our strength.

Just 8 more days! I'm so excited to see what God has planned!

Spirit Money

I just wanted to share a little bit (because that's really all I know) about the religious life of the Taiwanese people and what we will be encountering on our trip. We went to the "Chinatown" district of Houston this past Sunday evening and visited several Chinese shops. In one particular shop was a shelf full of "spirit money". It is believed that when a person dies, he goes to an afterlife and does things pretty much like we do. Therefor, he needs money to buy things. So, people buy this "spirit money" and then burn it so that their dead ancestors will have money to buy things in the afterlife. They also had pictures of cars, clothes, etc to buy as well so that dead ancestors could have those things as well.

Father, give us a heart for the people of Taiwan. Open their eyes to the truth of Your Word and protect us as we face the Enemy who is deceiving them. In Jesus' Name, Amen

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:4-6

Woman's Heart and Soul Spa

Our flyer that will be used to advertised the women's retreat in Taiwan is finished. It's a little hard to read on here, but you get the idea. And it so pink! Also, please be praying for transportation. That's what Renee is working on next!

I told you I'd be a lousy blogger :)

Well, I successfully went for a whole month without blogging ANYTHING! So, I decided (at the request of my mother) to post all the emails that I have been sending to my prayer team. Please forgive my blogging dedication (or lack thereof).....here are all the Taiwan updates for the last month :)

From 2/3/09

I just received another email from Renee Hord, our missionary, and I thought I would pass along the info to you all with a couple of prayer requests

The flyers for the retreat we will be holding are just about complete. Once these are finished, Renee will begin the process of registering ladies. We are so excited to see God do BIG things and we really have no idea how many to expect to register. Since the vast majority of people in Taiwan are lost, so will be the attendees of the retreat. We know that God is in control and know each and every lady that will be there. I just can’t wait to see who they are! The schedule for the week is also being developed right now, so be in prayer for that. Also, originally there was going to be a minimal charge for registration to cover the ladies’ lunches as well as the rent for the room and any supplies. After much prayer, Renee feels like that it needs to be free of charge otherwise many ladies might not to attend. We know that God will provide all that is needed though, and we are excited to see Him at work, so we are praying for God’s abundant provisions :)

Pray for the team from our church, the 4 ladies from Oklahoma who will be meeting up with us in Minneapolis, and for Renee and the others in Taiwan working on the retreat. We only have about 5 weeks till we leave…..we are excited but it feels like there is so much to do to prepare.

From 2/2/09

Renee (our missionary) sent to us pictures of the place where we will be having the ladies’ retreat. This is in an apartment building. I thought you might like to see the location that you have been and continue to pray for.

From 2/1/09

Hi friends! I just wanted to share with you a bit about the latest happenings in our preparations for the trip to Taiwan. The countdown is at 5 and a half weeks…we’ve accomplished a lot, but we still have a lot to do. God has been so good though!

This weekend, we had our big garage sale. Thank you so much to all of you who donated! God really showed how big he truly is, even through something as mundane as a garage sale J We started at about 1:00pm on Friday setting up and organizing for the next day. We had a nice amount of donations, and we thought, “Oh, we are going to have a nice garage sale”. Then, bagful after bagful, truckload after truckload began to arrive. I cannot even tell you how much stuff we had to sell. At 7pm, we had an entire driveway (and it was a LONG driveway) and a whole front yard FULL of nice things to sell. People were stopping on Friday night asking if they could shop, and when they found out what we were doing, not only did they shop, but they went home and got more things for us to sell. We even had one lady who is Jewish that brought things for us to sell when she found out what we were doing. If that isn’t God, I don’t know what it is! We had our first customer (besides the ones on Friday evening) at 6:15 am and we had sold almost everything by 12:00pm for a grand total of $2171.10. How cool is that! Your prayers and donations are so appreciated! God is using you to make this trip possible, and you will truly be going to Taiwan with us.

We are going next week to Chinatown here in Houston to get a small taste of the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of Taiwan. Pray for us as we continue to explore what God wants us to share with the ladies in Taiwan that we will be working with.

I tried to put a picture of our t-shirts here, but it is a pdf file, so I can't figure it out so I'll just describe it :) Our shirts will black, with a very pretty swirly design in grey, a white heart, and in red letters will say "Humble to Taiwan" on the front. On the back in red lettering will be 1 John 4:19 in Chinese.

From 1/24/09

From Renee....

Brother is gone. He couldn't even stand up today when I went to see him. I held him as the vet gave him the shot. I came home and sister was all over me because I smelled like brother. I still can't believe this happened, it just happened so fast.

From 1/22/09

Here is the email I got today from Renee in Taichung. It looks as though the location need may have been filled! Also, see Renee’s prayer request at the end. Her cat is really important to her.

I had another place come to mind when all this came up but I hadn't been there in a long time. It's also an apartment complex, large room, several small rooms and a nice courtyard. Anyway, I met with my old teacher today (not Christian), she lives there. I told her what's been going on (I said nothing about their building) she brought up using their facilities. Her husband has been telling her for quite awhile how he would like to help me sometime and she just laughs at him because he's a guy and this is a women's ministry. Well he's one of the ones that makes the decision about who can rent. I'm going over there for Chinese New Year Eve "lunch" on Sunday. I'll look at what they have then and make sure it would work. Her husband told me he'd rent it to me cheap. Anyway, be praying about this and I'll let you know what happens. So, I was pretty excited about this, this afternoon and then...I took Brother, my cat, to the vet. He lost a lot of weight while I was gone (found out today about 4 lbs, he's big) and he's not eating. The vet said his liver & kidney functions are messed up, glucose is way up (might be diabetic), he's dehydrated, he's in bad shape. He's at the animal hospital right now on 24 hour IV for at least 2 days and then we'll see what will happen. Anyway, anyone who knows me, knows my cats are my babies. Please be praying for Brother. He's only about 5 1/2 years old and he's a sweet boy and I just want him to be ok. The vet said he didn't know. So, please be praying about this.more later...

From 1/20/09

This is an e-mail that Renee, the missionary who we are working with in Taiwan just sent to us. She is referring to the location where we are going to be holding the retreat for the ladies in Taiwan. We thought that we were going to be able to use a meeting room/rooms in an apartment building, but some things have come up with that. Please read the following email and be in prayer that it either works out with this building or that God provides a new and more perfect location.

Ok ladies,
I need your prayers and if you have any discernment on this I want to hear it. Susan (from my English Bible Study) has been working on getting us the building. Before I left the States I was told it looks like a go. I was told day before yesterday, it's a go with a twist. The apartment complex's management company said we can do it there but we can't invite people who don't live in the apartment building (this was not expected, my Bible study is done there and many of the ladies don't live there). The woman Susan has been contacting is very supportive of us and wants us to be there - it's the board that's saying no. Anyway, this needs your prayers! The building needs to be confirmed (for anyone we want to invite) ASAP! I believe this is the enemy trying to throw a wrench into what the Lord wants to do BUT In Jesus Name - he will not succeed! I do have some ladies helping us look at different locations but I'm struggling with letting go of this place. This is where I've felt the Lord wants it all along and I am willing to change if that's what the Lord wants but He needs to direct us to the place and we need it to be confirmed yesterday!
Please be praying! I will keep you informed as things progress (hopefully extremely quickly),
renee

From 1/16/09

Hi friends! I just wanted to give you the latest news and prayer requests for our team going to Taiwan.

The team from First Baptist Humble includes 10 ladies and another who now lives in the Dallas area but was a member of our church, so that’s 11 total. There are also 4 ladies from Oklahoma City that will be meeting up with us in St. Paul.We recently purchased our plane tickets. We got a good price, just a little over $1000, but we are making lots of plane changes along the way. We leave on Thursday, March 12 at 10:50am and 4 airports and 22 hours later we arrive in Taipei, Taiwan. THEN we get on a bus for a 2 hour trip to Taichung where we will be staying/working. We will be helping with a 4 day women’s retreat for the Taiwanese ladies. We are not actually certain what exactly we will be doing yet, but as time gets closer, we will have a better idea of the number of women attending and their needs. One of the resources that we are going to use is a book called “Lies Women Believe and Truth that Sets Them Free” by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Some of the ideas from the book will be the basis for some of the classes that we help facilitate. I think more than anything we want to love on these ladies and show them that there is a personal Christ who wants a relationship with them and loves them dearly. They have no concept of this…their gods sit on shelves. We realize that we may not see a great harvest while we are there, but we intend to plant lots of seeds and to SHOW them God’s love.

Here are some prayer requests:
-We are having a garage sale to help raise funds for the trip on Jan 31. Please pray that all goes smoothly and that the weather is accommodating.

-One of the ladies going with us recently found out that she is pregnant. She is still going with us…she said God told her to go and He knew she would be pregnant, so it will all be OK. She will be right at 20 weeks when we leave. 22 hours on a plane/in airports is hard enough when you are NOT pregnant, much less when you are. Pray for her pregnancy and that we will be super aware of any way that we can make her more comfortable.

-Pray for Renee Hord, the missionary that we will be working with. She is just recently home from a trip to the States for the holidays. She is getting the ball rolling and will be starting the registration and all the plans for the retreat soon. Pray for an extra measure of protection for her.