So much naivety to get rid of.

This past weekend I once again made the long journey to Taipei. Not only had we not heard from the Taoyuan church so we don't have a place to go in Taoyuan yet, but also the family we were staying with was going to an orphanage to teach a Sunday school lesson. So, Stephanie and I decided it was definitely worth it and it most certainly was!

To start this marvelous day off, the sermon was called “Three Chairs.” One was commitment, one was compromise, and one was condemnation. It was an amazing sermon! He spoke of how God wants us to be perfect, not just good but perfect, and the only way to do that was through Jesus Christ. Jesus is what you need to go from the condemned seat to the commitment seat. Then he spoke of how people compromise in their walk with Christ. We go to church and give to those who need, but then we go out and do whatever we want even if it against what Christ wants for us. We want the good that comes with Christ, and the fun that comes with the world. But we can't have both. His words were much more powerful than mine, but it was a very good sermon to hear.
After that we once again went to the Old Testament Bible study that we went to last time, but this time we got really off topic and started talking about the difficulties that Taiwanese people have when they make the decision to follow Christ. The family that we are staying with said that the first time they met their landlord, he encouraged them to hold a Bible study in their house and he believed Christianity was the right way. But when they asked him if he was a Christian he said no, he couldn't be. Although he thought his siblings should, and his tenants should be, he was the oldest son so he couldn't become a Christian. In the Taiwanese/Chinese culture the oldest son has most of the responsibilities in the family. He has filial responsibilities to attend to, and someone mentioned especially at the time of the parent's death. Some of the Taiwanese people shared their own experiences, and I realized once again how blessed I am to have such an amazing family. And my heart completely broke. As much as I would like to think that I am independent and that I would abandon all for God, I don't know if I can truthfully say that. Some people are beaten by their family for choosing Christ. That is true faith and love for God.
Then after church we went to the orphanage! In this particular orphanage there are mostly kids with HIV/AIDS. The kids without it are children from migrant workers or are babies that aren't old enough to know for sure if they have HIV/AIDS. Apparently you can't actually tell that until around 2 and a half or 3 years old. If the child has HIV/AIDS than they can't be adopted so they have to live in the orphanage until they are 18 and then they are out on their own. For the babies of the migrant workers, although the beginning of their lives are not happy, they are far more fortunate. The migrant workers come from places like the Philippines and Vietnam to work as maids or whatever. While they're here they aren't supposed to have kids, some have families back home, but things happen and they are sent to this orphanage to have their children and help out for a while. There are 3 of these children there right now. Two are going to the US and one is going to Germany. All of these children are so beautiful. I stayed with the babies the whole time and fell in love a little. Ming Ming fell asleep while I was holding her! (I think she was a girl – they don't really dress the babies according to gender) We are definitely going back, Stephanie was like “they come every other weekend...we can do that.” So we'll see. We might end up making a bi-monthly pilgrimage to Taipei.

Love you All!! And I pray that you all will truly live your lives for God.