26/11/2009 by paul.

Well there we go - I made it to ten weeks! Which also means just three to go until I’m home trying to cope with slightly chillier weather!

These three days have been as action-packed as ever, and the excitement started at 5am on Monday morning. Sleepy-eyed and without coffee I headed out of the house in hunt for taxi to take me to the train station. The first taxi driver, whether by mis-communication or just because he couldn’t be bothered (I think the later, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt!) decided to drop me at a local small station that was closed. When I asked him to take me to the big station he just shrugged his shoulders. Thankfully within 10 minutes (and after some prayer!) another taxi driver drove down the quiet street and seemed quite pleased to take me off for my 6.30 train from Taipei. My HSR train was bound for Tainan - I think, the oldest city in Taiwan, and, I’m pretty sure at one point it was the capital city. Now its renowned for its history, and of course, the PCT Theological Seminary. I had enrolled for a lecture course, designed for ordained ministers who are continuing their study. The lectures were run by Prof. Ted Siverns, who is a guest at Tainan Theological Seminary for this year. I had met him amongst others at the PCT missionaries retreat last weekend. Ted gave five lectures on ‘The Bible and The Preacher’. Each lecture presented the depth of writing in the Bible and challenged us to think about how we might convey that and use it in our preaching. The lectures were titled, ‘Humour and the Preacher’, ‘The Child and Wonder’, ‘Drama and the Scirptures’, ‘Spirituality and the Psalms’, and then after a nights sleep, ‘Roman Power and the Parables’. The final session on Tuesday morning was Q&A and final worship - it was good to let the lungs fill with cwm rhonda, even if the sound was more like Welsh than English.

On Tuesday afternoon I headed back to Taipei to give the English Bible Study in the evening. This week focussed on 1 Peter 3:8-22. This is another inspiring (if not slightly theologically controversial!) passage, and, right in the middle is the verse ‘But in your hearts set apart Christ as LORD’. Using this for the structure of the Bible Study we discussed how this leads to us doing good (v.8-14), furthering God’s Kingdom (v.15-17), all of which is a result of believing in the Gospel (v.18-22). As well as discussing the exposition and meaning of the passage we also considered some ‘theological-style’ questions - How does God bless us when we become Christians? For this we decided it wasn’t necessarily with the things we wanted, we can’t barter with God for a new car if we become Christian. Likewise if we trust in the Gospel that doesn’t mean that suffering and struggle will go away, or that we’ll get a pay-rise etc. What it does mean is that ‘the eyes of the LORD will be on the righteous’, he will journy with us and though all things we will have a comforter, a guide and ultimately a Saviour and Redeemer. Secondly we were challenged massively by the verse 15 - ‘Always be prepared to give an answer to those who ask you to give the reason for the hope that you have’. Would you know what to say, or be brave enough to say it if someone asked you to explain your faith? If not, then you need to get yourself prepared! And finally, we get some amazing verses that explain what Jesus has done for us that lead us to do good and further God’s Kingdom - FOR Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. If you need the one sentence to be prepared to share with other people you could do a lot worse than use 1 Peter 3:18. But following this we have an intriguing passage about Jesus going and preaching (or proclaiming) to the spirits in prison who disobeyed during the time of Noah. It may seem trivial to us, but this passage is the sole Biblical text that supports the line in the Apostles’ Creed: ‘he descended into hell’. If we are to stand up and say this in church then we need to try to understand what it means. Amongst different opinions, I favour the one that suggests that Jesus, after the resurection and before he rose went into hell to proclaim victory over sin and death and those that chose sin and death. This particualr reference is to Genesis 6. Other interpretations are available, including the more Roman Catholic view of purgatory and a view that says this this was Jesus in Noah at the time of Noah (i.e. not at the time of resurrection). The later would suggest we shouldn’t say the Apostles’ Creed, but I think there is a strong arguement for the first suggestion. The only problem is that Jesus said to the criminal hanging on a cross next to him, that ‘Today I will see you in paradise’. At this point my brain starts to struggle, but I’m happy to consider that Jesus had at least two and a bit days before he needed to be ready for the resurrection - and considering how much he had got done in the previous 24 hours I don’t think anything would be too difficult for him!

Anyway, theological rambles are great, but the thrust of the passage remains - believe in the Gospel - believe in Jesus - believe that he died for your sin, and then one day you will be face to face with him and be able to ask him for the answers to the difficult questions, if you stilll want to know the answers!

In comparison, Wednesday was a quieter day, mostly spent reading and preparing a sermon to preach on Sunday. I consider it a privelege and honour to have been given the opportunity to bring God’s Word to people in a different culture to mine, and so it really is taking a bit of time to prepare (especially without the safety net of my commentaries!). In the evening we went for dinner with a couple of Elders and then gave a home service at the flat of Dr. Chen. They certainly looked after us well, and the non-Christian couple who were present have decided to come to church on Sunday, so there’s some more prayer needed for Sunday morning!

Just to finish, here’s a picture of Tainan theological seminary:

Posted in Paul's diary | No Comments »

22/11/2009 by paul.

Well the weekend has passed! I’m not quite sure where it went, but it was full with trying to get prepared for next week and the usual church activity.

As will become apparent later on I need to be prepared for the English Bible Study that starts up again this next week. So Friday was spent preparing material for the English Class (Saturday night!) and 1 Peter 3! Saturday was a fun packed day with me escaping to my computer when I could to carry on the preparation. In the morning the women’s fellowship had a serious get together to bake. They made some fruit cake and I was asked if I would share my mum’s wonderful knowledge of scone-making. I was unsure if the copyright was still in tact, so did almost everything the same, except I let them chose the ingredients - they added eggs, hioney and dried cranberries (it is thanksgiving after all!) in addition to ‘the standard sh sh recipe’! On Saturday night I led another English class which amongst other things focussed on my much loved film, ‘Robots’ which Jo had kindly found space for in her luggage (amongst another 8ish films for me to watch, in English ). After the class I joined the Young Adults fellowship who were looking at 2 Samuel 11 - David and Bathsheeba. I’m not quite sure what they were discussing but at one point there was lots of laughter!

Sunday was thanksgiving - I had to explain to quite a few people that its AMERICAN and NOT English! Anyway the church celebrated with a communion service including handbells, women’s choir and a good romping forty minute sermon on Ephesians 4. Afterwards there was a huggggggeeee lunch featuring a cold turkey (literally!). Afterwards there were two choir practices and a handbell practice. phew. Back to 1 Peter.

Tomorrow I’m heading to Tainan - on the East coast in central/southern Taiwan. There is a PCT theological college there and one of the people I met last weekend (Ted Siverns) is giving some lectures in English (trans. into Taiwanese) on Preaching. It’s a two day course and so will be staying in Tainan until Tuesday morning, making it back to Taipei just in time to lead the 1 Peter Bible Study. So whilst I;ve only just got back into the habit of blogging, it looks like I might be missing a day or two, but hopefully I’ll have some interesting stories and thoughts to share when I get back!

Posted in Paul's diary | No Comments »

21/11/2009 by paul.

Well I’m writing this two and a half weeks after my last post. My lovely wife, Jo has come and gone and I’m left reflecting over the amazing time we have visiting various places in Taipei and the week we spent travelling around Taiwan, or should I say Formosa - the beautiful island.

T52 was spent getting over incoming jetlag, before having a wander to the amazing living mall and Keelung River in Taipei. On the way back we bought some Pineapple Cake for my host on the previous Monday (see T49). We took the present round to the optician shop, thinking it was a good opportunity for Jo to meet some of the people who have made me feel so welcome. When we arrived we were presented with two more presents - chocolates and a bottle of wine to help make our ’second honeymoon’ even better! I still don’t understand how to do presents and hospitality here!

On Friday we set off for our solo adventure (well there were two of us, but no Taiwanese/Mandarin interpreters!). We spent five minutes trying to tell the taxi driver we wanted to go Shonsan Airport, which eventually after pointing at a big airport sign he understood our mumblings. We took the plane to Hualien - about 45 mins flight time in a propellor plane. As we flew down the North-Eastern coast there were several breaks in the clouds through which we could see beautiful Taiwan - bright blue seas, flat plains and high, steep, green covered mountains (links to pics are at the bottom!).

We spent the weekend in Hualien in a rather nice hotel, Parkview. There was an outdoor swimming pool which we made use of, and to our suprise no-one else did! We ventured out both to Hualien city centre - to a very local market, stumbled across a political gathering, and realised that the sea front was littered with industry, in particular a huge place that looked like a cross between a harbour and a cement works. Strangely the coast here reminded me of some of the places on the North-Eastern Coast of the UK - except here the indsutries are still thriving. I wonder whether they will suffer the same fate as our industrial towns in the North. On our second day in Hualien we went for a tandem bike ride - this time heading North from the hotel. We were only chased by two dogs along a small lane to a busy road. Tandem bike riding is particularly difficult - we didn;t really excel but we got far enough to admire the coast North of Hualien.

After three nights in Hualien we made our way to the train station and boarded a train bound for Taitung. Our second destination had sent someone to pick us up from Luye station. This meant taking a small train that called at nearly every stop. It took three hours, and after crossing off the 17 stops on a list as we went, we met with a man from the Bunun Foundation Cultural Centre. He drove us up into the mountains to our second stay. The Bunun people are some of the aboriginal people in Taiwan. I have been incorrect in my history before, but I believe that the Bunun people occupied the mountains of Central-Southern Taiwan until the Japanese came about 70 years ago. Because people living up in the mountains are hard to keep an eye, they made the people move further down to the edge of the lowlands, where several groups and villages still exist. It was at this particular village that we met Rev. Pai - an aboriginal PCT minister. He explained that the aboriginal people are still some of the poorest in Taiwan, and that they still feel the inequalities of education, health, wealth and skills. At the same the culture heritage is slowly fading as the young people are leaving the villages to go to the cities to find work. As a minister in this kind of place Rev. Pai developed the Cultural Centre to provide jobs, purpose and support for these people, whilst also protecting and sharing their culture. The centre can sleep many people and also has a great restaurant, coffee shop, souvenir shop (where you can still buy the traditional aboriginal goods) and theatre for performing aboriginal shows…

After two days in the mountains with these wonderful people, we were taken into Taitung to catch a bus to take us to Kaohsiung. Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan and is on the South Western Coast. The bus driver had a timetable to keep and un-tarmaced roads and hairpins bends would not slow him down. Our hotel was in the middle of Kaohsiung. Well in fact it was in the Kaohsiung biggest landmark - the skytower. This building (again links to pics below) is the second tallest in Taiwan after the 101 building in Taipei. Our hotel room faced the city from the 57th floor. After enjoying the wonderful food in the buffet restaurant, and sampling a few cocktails in the bar, we were nice and relaxed. One day we headed to Cijin Island - a small natural island off the coast of Kaohsiung which helped create a natural harbour for the biggest container ship port in Taiwan - there were a lot of boats, and they weren’t small. We found a little small boat that for 15NT (30p) took us across the harbour to the island. We wandered up to the lighthouse on the point and looked across the entrance of the harbour to the mainland to see the old British Consulate building (which is now a cafe) and our hotel towering above. We also visited the derlict fort and tried to find the church. The Presbyterian Church on Cijin Island is quite famous as it is where Maxwell (one of the first missionaries, with Mackay) began his ministry in Taiwan. Unfortunately the only building we could find with a cross on was completely locked and sealed up. hmm.. After a taxi ride which drop us off at a random place, we made it back to the hotel for another scrumptious meal and our final night of five-star luxury.

The next day (if you’re keeping track we’re up to Friday T59, I think) we headed to Kaohsiung train station and boarded another small train to take us Douliou station where some good friends would meet us. Here we were met by Rev. Chuang’s daughter and nephew and were taken Tek-Tung, to visit the church and school which I had experienced for ten days. It was great to meet up with everyone once more and the children put on a special show for Jo and were very pleased to meet her. After lunch together, we were driven up to Taichung HSR station to meet up with some PCT people.

This weekend we were to experience two amazing things - another Bunun village, and meeting many of the missionaries serving the PCT in Taiwan. We had been invited to the missionary retreat by the PCT which began in Taichung station before two small buses took us the two hours into the hills to another aboriginal village. This weekend was fabulous and it was great meeting and chatting to people - and worshipping in English! On the Sunday we joined the local church and I preached to the full church of around 200 while Johanne translated into Bunun. As encouragement to us all I chose to speak on Philippians 2, focussing on verse 2: ‘…then make my joy complete by being like-minded having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.’ I spoke about how we are to have the same love for each other (v.3-4), how we are to have the same love for Christ, placing Him and the cross at the centre of all we do (v.5-11), how we are to have the same spirit of the attitude of Jesus (v.5-11) and how we are to have the same purpose to shine like stars (v.12-18). It was wonderful to see how the Holy Spirit means that people from across the world can come together and meet with God through his Word.

On Sunday afternoon we headed back to Taipei. And the next few days were filled with many tourist visits. We made it to a night market, Damshui, the National Concert Hall, the National Theatre, the Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall (which was very disappointing and a particularly biased museum to glorify a dictator - thankfully it was free!), parts of Taipei I’ve never been to, and, parts of Taipei I’ll not go to again!

On Thursday (T65) evening we also made it the airport where me and Jo said our goodbyes for another four weeks.

We had a wonderful time these last two weeks, and have really seen some of the extremes of Taiwan - five-star luxury and aboriginal villages, flat plains and high rise mountains, quiet countryside and bustling city, big mountains and cities that from the 91st floor of 101 seem to extend forever, people working hard to earn enough to eat and people splashing out on 12 course buffets, honest people sharing the faith and hope for future with us and a museum dedicated to a dictator who even after his death still demands respect and towers in Taipei, the friendliness of the Taiwanese people and the aggressiveness of their dogs, not to mention planes, trains, buses and boats!

Here’s a map of places we stayed, and then below are some links to our photos. The photos are on facebook but anyone can view them using the links below!

View Tour of Taiwan in a larger map

The photos have had to be put in three albums…

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Posted in Paul's diary | No Comments »

04/11/2009 by paul.

Well Tuesday and Wednesday were action packed as ever. After the exciting trip to Tamshui on Monday it was back to the laptop to prepare for the Tuesday evening English Bible Study. It was a good study and finished with people praying for each other, for their families, workplaces and fo Taiwan inkeeping with 1 Peter 2 and 3.

Wednesday was a day spent counting down the hours minutes and seconds, and trying to concentrate on writing a sermon.

In the evening my wonderful wife, Jo, made it to Taiwan for a two week stay. After spending a few days in Taiwan we will set off for a week-long-round-Taiwan tour before returning to Taipei for a few more days. From here until Jo goes go back the blog may suffer somewhat, but I’ll try keep you updated on what we’re upto, and will of course pick it up when I Jo returns back to England.

Posted in Paul's diary | No Comments »

03/11/2009 by paul.

Well I knew it was likely to happen. In pauls-view-of-politics-in-Taiwan-since-1600 that was T45 & T46 I managed to make some mistakes. I have been informed of one of them - the DPP came to power in Taiwan in 2000/2001, not 1996 as originally stated. The first democratic election was in 1996, but it wasn’t until 2000/2001 that the DPP were elected to power. Thanks Jane, for your info. You mention 2001, wikipedia (the totally fallible truth!) says 2000. As for me 2000/2001 will do just fine!

If any of you spot any of the other mistakes I’m likely to have made, please do try to get in touch. I know a few of you have tried to leave comments, and trust me I;ve tried zillions of settings in my blog but can’t get them to work, so find me on facebook or send me an e-mail

Posted in Paul's diary | No Comments »