As I write this, the wind is howling outside as another typhoon is passing through.
After many years of delightful and sometimes difficult ministry, seeing people become Christians and grow in their faith, we had to say goodbye to our beloved church in Taipei, so that we could begin laboring in a new church plant in the rural Yilan County using a different language. We had been commuting to Taipei for the Lord's Day worship while doing outreach Bible studies and events in Yilan. But the exciting day finally came when we started our Lord's Day worship service. As I post this series of pictures, we have now been meeting for worship at Riverside Church (https://kbchurch.tw/) for four months. If you go to https://fb.me/kbchurch.tw you can find videos of the worship service, the sermon, and the Sunday afternoon Bible studies. My sermons are in Taiwanese, while the Bible studies are a mix of Mandarin and Taiwanese.
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| Our last worship service with New Hope Reformed Presbyterian Church in downtown Taipei that we started with a team in 2003. The following Sunday we began our first worship service at the new rural church plant across the mountains in northeast Taiwan. Mission Sending Service coworker Rev. Daniel Cohee (and a former pastor of New Hope) stepped back into the role of preaching and pastoring responsibilities at New Hope over the summer until the new pastor could come. The new pastor recently took up the ministry at New Hope in mid-September. |
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| My final sermon at New Hope |
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Those who attended our first worship service at Riverside Reformed Presbyterian Church in Yilan County, Taiwan
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Our intro to the Christian Faith series on Sunday afternoons at Riverside Church
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Speakers of Taiwanese are forced to use Mandarin in the schools in Taiwan. So they often never learn to read and write in their heart language. This summer I taught a class on how to read and write Taiwanese with the Latin orthography called P.O.J.
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We get to know people when we go out for walks. Here we are visiting a home in the neighborhood. Ashlyn made apple pie and the neighbors provided tea.
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Taiwanese love barbecues in the early fall around Mid-autumn Festival. We were invited to one across the river from our home. Building trust through relationship is an important part of the culture and evangelism.
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| A former pastoral intern of mine is taking his ordination exams in the September presbytery meeting |
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I serve on presbytery oversight committees of several church plants in northern Taiwan. Here, our Mission Sending Service coworker, Rev. Eric Pilson, is welcoming the first group of official members at Grace Hill Reformed Presbyterian Church in a district of New Taipei City in the mountains south of Taipei. This was an exciting and joyous milestone to their labors there.
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| An advance team from a church southwest of Taipei (Chhiū-nâ-á Presbyterian Church) came to visit us. Around 300 of their church members will be coming later in October. They have asked me to speak to them on my church planting missionary work and vision for Taiwan. We do not have enough room in our small ministry center so will hold the meeting at an outdoor location at a nearby park. I pray that our church will quickly outgrow the current meeting facility that can seat a maximum of 60. Currently we have 20-30 attending every week. |
In Christ's keeping,
the Lintons
