Hey everyone!

We are currently at our second location of the trip, a middle school in Suan Tou. We will conduct an English camp here for our third year in a row. Unlike Josh, I’m going to start off with the team update…

I can think of one word to describe our team right now: tired. Please pray as we are tired physically. We have had long days and short nights the past week. This morning the entire team was struggling to stay awake in church. Free time (what little we have) is spent sleeping, sleeping, or sleeping. No, just kidding. We also play basketball or check e-mail (or in my case, eat snacks!).

Yesterday was quite an emotionally and spiritually stressful day. We started off our day with a gospel meeting at the church in Niao Song. I was personally disappointed seeing only about 12 kids arrive out of the 90 that attended the English camp. However, 12 is better than none, and I’m sure that the 12 that attended were touched by God’s love. One highlight of the meeting was that we were able to surround the kids and pray for them individually. I have found that the area of Niao Song is very closed to the gospel and that the kids there are very firmly rooted in their families’ traditional beliefs. After the gospel meeting, we left for Kaohsiung to have lunch with our co-workers before parting to work with Johnny’s parents’ church for a couple hours. The original plan was to have an outdoor gospel outreach (in a park surrounded by a Taoist Seminary and a Buddhist temple), but the weather was stormy and rainy. We were told that every time the church plans something like this (public outreach), there is bad weather. The church decided to still hold a meeting indoors and then to go on a prayer walk. There is obviously much spiritual warfare going on in this area but praise God, the churches are still growing and actively reaching out in their area. Between saying good-bye to old co-workers and meeting twenty new co-workers, going on prayer walks, walking through thunderstorms, and attending gospel meetings, we were certainly exhausted by the end of the day – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Leaving our co-workers from the previous week was especially difficult for me. I had built some really close relationships, and as always, did not want to leave. In fact, I’m already dreading the day we leave Taiwan…

As we begin anew in Suan Tou this week, please pray that we will have energy and health and that we will continue to experience the joy of serving the Lord. As my mom would say, “I’m glad you think working 18 hours a day and sleeping 6 hours at night is fun.” Pray for the kids we are teaching this week. Many of them come from difficult backgrounds and since this is the third year we’ve been at this school, we’ll need creative new ideas to get them interested in what we have to say. Pray for unity between the Taiwanese co-workers and the BCF team. Many of them speak excellent English (some of them having spent 7+ years in the U.S.) but it is still difficult for everyone to mix and work together. Pray for tolerance for Josh…one of his co-workers is currently a student at UVA (need I say more??).

Well, that’s all from the BCF team. We’ve had a wonderful time so far (as I said before, I DON’T want to leave!!). We appreciate your prayers!! ~Claire Lo