T19 - A suprise outing on the Mid-Autumn Festival

Well this morning began in the usual way with prayers at 6 and breakfast at 8. Over breakfast we talked about the Mid-Autumn Festival (moon festival) to be celebrated today. Usually the church would hold a barbeque and fireworks, but the national denomination, the PCT, were encouraging churches to alter this years celebrations. Instead of celebrating with food and fireworks, churches have been asked to hold services of prayer for those who have and are still suffering after the recent typhoon and flooding in Taiwan. At the service Rev. Chuang asked if I would play and sing a couple of songs speaking of God’s mercy and compassion on people. So in the morning I trawled through my online Mission Praise (its harder looking online than using a paper index!) and chose a couple of songs which I then transferred to powerpoint. Using an online translator I even got the Taiwanese/Mandarin words.

At 11:30 I was interupted in my work by a family, who had come, somewhat unexpectedly to take me out for the day. The minister told me that we were going Lugang, that we’d be leaving in five minutes and that I would be back in time for the evening service!

View Lugang in a larger map

After about ten minutes in the car we arrived at our first stop, a very popular and scrummy restaurant in the centre of Erlin. I’m lovin’ it.
We then drove to the coast, via a PCT church. he coast had no beach, and had fast flowing muddy currents, but their were wooden piers built into the sea so that you could walk down and birdwatch. There were few birds but the view was quite impressive…

Afterwards we moved to Lugang, which is a historic town by the coast. We wandered through the little tiny streets, and I even managed to pick up some postcards. On the way back to the car, we passed a parade of things from the Buddhist temple. It wa a strange mixture of tapestries, dragons and kettle(-like) drums.

We then called in at another PCT (I think this one was Lugang) and it also ran a primary school. The playground kept the kids entertained!

After EVERYONE had exerted some energy we headed back into the car and travelled to the mountains. Just a little way up is High Speed Rail line and travelling a little further gives you a great view of the trains whizzing passed at 300km/hr. The line has only been open for two years so this is still quite a novelty. We then came back through the country, called in at another church and stopped to look at more trains. Here is a steam one, not sure how old, where it came from, or what it was doing in the countryside

We stopped off for some beef noodles before arriving back at church at 7:15. After a quick change and a quick check of the music, worship began. It was a moving service, for two reasons. Firstly the opening part was all about thanking God for the country of Taiwan, its beauty and its people. Having spent all day looking at beautiful Taiwan in the company of some great people, it was kind of fitting. Secondly, one of the conversations I had had with Rev. Chuang during the week focussed on international work, and he had told me that some people in Taiwan think that China steals the limelight, and so the rest of the world hears little of Taiwan (the BBC website is a good example of this!), and feel isolated. The recent typhoon is a great example. The president of Taiwan, in an effort to keep friendly with China, had refused help from the international community. This, however, simply meant that there was a delay in resources being made available. It was therefore good for me as a Westerner to be present at this service, praying for those who had been effected by the Typhoon. I also sang ‘Everyone needs compassion’. When I have used this song in the West I have often been thinking about the touch of Jesus in our hearts as a spiritual acceptance of Christ. However here it seemed to speak of God touching the lives of people after the Typhoon (editted to be third person rather than first person i.e. I -> we; me -> us)…

Everyone needs compassion,
Love that’s never failing;
Let mercy fall on us.

Shine your light and let the whole world see,
We’re singing for the glory of the risen King…Jesus

This entry was posted on 04/10/2009 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Paul's diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.