Monday, December 24, 2012

Joyous Christmas

The text is in Taiwanese. It reads in English: "Mulu hugged his dad and said, 'Thank you Lord for hearing my prayer and causing my dad to believe in the Lord and be baptized. I am so moved!' "
In Mandarin it reads: Mulu抱爸爸說:感謝主聽見我的禱告,讓我的爸爸信主受洗,我好感動。

Mulu is 5 or 6 years old (I'll have to check).

This drawing was done by Carol, a member of New Hope Church. Carol grew up in a traditional Hakka family. After several years of prayer, her husband, Acer, professed his faith and was baptized at the Christmas Sunday worship service at New Hope. I baptized his son Mulu and his mom Carol back in 2009 when she professed her faith. Yesterday, I was privileged to baptize Acer and their second child, Jofee, whom they adopted last fall.

When we get the audio uploaded, I'll post Acer's testimony here.

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Our Christmas Sunday worship service was very packed. The Taiwanese language Bible study fellowship sang two verses of O Come All Ye Faithful (the second verse use language about Christ from the Nicene Creed.) The whole congregation joined in singing verses in English and Mandarin. (We'll have to track down a photo for this part.)

Then a little later, the guitar fellowship came up and played guitars to accompany the congregation in singing Joy to the World.

I gave a children's message on Isaiah 53:5-6, using a candy cane as an illustration.

After a young architect, Acer Lee, gave his testimony, we had three baptism including his own.

Finally the sermon was from Luke 1:26-38.

And we sang our closing hymn, Silent Night.

After the worship service, all the guests were given a Christmas gift. The gifts were calendars with photographs of Taiwan's mountains taken by a Christian photographer. On each photo was also printed a Bible verse.

The new visitors stayed to eat lunch with the church members.

1 comment:

  1. Need come to New Hope Church visiting old and new friends there. There are expansion and progress in the church. Acer is also a prestigious company name in Taiwan making Note Book computer. Easy to remember and never forget it.

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