The month of December was a busy one for us. We recently have been preparing to visit the States, Collin turned 24, Collin shared his testimony and the gospel in Chinese at our church, and we also celebrated our first Christmas here. Christmas here was a new experience for our family. The Taiwanese don't really celebrate Christmas, unless they are Christians(which is actually a good thing, because only those who would truly celebrate the birth of our Savior would be Christians...). The percentage of Christianity in Taiwan is 2.5%. Most people relate Christmas to Santa Clause, presents, and a "fun" season, but they don't know the true meaning of Christmas. When Collin asked his English students what Christmas was about, they all unanimously said, "Santa....?" . Their next guesses were presents, family, etc... It's sad that this is the way that Christmas has been portrayed here in Taiwan and for that matter all throughout the world. December 25th is a normal working day here. People are working, shops are open, Post Offices are open, kids go to school, everything is operating as normal. Here in Taiwan YWAM has a local Coffee Shop called the Rock, which we have spoken about before. At the Rock we held many different Christmas activities to engage the students and hopefully spark their curiosity about why Christmas is celebrated. They had card making, cookie making, dramas, and a kid's program. Some people from our organization also went caroling in the neighborhood and passed out cards and cookies. As for our family Christmas Eve we spent the night at our friend's house. We ate dinner, played games, watched some movies, and went to bed too late:) Christmas morning we got up had a big breakfast exchanged some gifts and then we went back to our house and had our family time. Christmas night Collin and the language team went down to a hospital in Taipei, and did an outreach to Children Cancer Patients. It was an eye-opening time and also a time where these kids hopefully could take a break from their painful everyday routine and have some fun and really enjoy their childhood. Most of these kids were so young, so being cooped up in a hospital and stuck on an I.V. isn't much of a childhood. We were blessed to see them making balloon animals, playing with play-dough, and even enjoying a Christmas movie that we had brought. They heard the gospel, many of them even prayed, so we trust that God will complete His good purposes in their little hearts. At least they got to have some fun, and so did we! We feel honored to be able to spend Christmas here in Taiwan. Spending a major "holiday" like this here allows us to settle in a little more. Now we feel more as if Taiwan is our home. Continue to pray for us that we would understand how to engage this culture with the glory of God, and the gospel of His Son Jesus, in ways that will be relevant and understandable to their "Eastern Cultural Lenses". There is so much we need to learn about the culture, but we know that love is something that speaks across languages, so pray that we would love the Taiwanese even more.
