Missions in Taiwan

Merry Christmas! Hope you enjoy more pictures from the year.

2011-12-24T00:31:00.010+08:00

Hospitality: Some of the guests who stayed with us this year went for a walk around the college campus.

Even in north Alabama there are some Taiwanese families. We have been visiting a Taiwanese family who are pharmacists in a small town in Alabama.

It has been nice to begin to outreach to international students at the local university.

One of the classes I took this fall in my doctorate of ministry program, "Transformational Leadership in a Post Modern World," explores the leadership models of shepherding God's people in the Bible comparing them and contrasting them with secular leadership teaching. It was very interesting to see the both Alexander the Great and Queen Elizabeth I of England used many leadership elements that are found in the Bible, and modeled by Jesus, Nehemiah, Moses, and others.

Another class applies God's revealed Word regarding Biblical counseling. The Bible has a huge amount to say about depression and anxiety and other problems of the soul; and it offers real and lasting solutions. One key point for everyone to remember -- counseling is not solely for the "professionals -- whether you want to or not, everyone is a counselor; it is a question of whether the counsel you give is good and productive or bad and destructive.

While we are away in the U.S. New Hope has been well shepherded by our coworker, Rev. Daniel Cohee, along with the two ruling elders.
Daniel came back briefly to the U.S. to visit this summer.

We had asked your prayers for more Taiwanese men to join the church. God has raised them up.

New Hope members practicing Christmas carols.

Our apartment in Taipei is still being used for home fellowship groups.

The Tool of Hospitality; The Areopagus of Television; The Call of Continual Learning for Pastors

2011-10-18T21:22:00.025+08:00

We have a few updates and prayer requests.

Visitors and More Visitors

This Sunday we are scheduled to have many students come to our house. Some are Chinese and Korean international students at the local university here in Alabama. We've also invited some young men, American college students, who are potential future pastors. This year, I have been mentoring one American and one Nepalese, and both of these men have been involved in the outreach and discipleship of the students whom we are hosting this Sunday afternoon.

Please pray for our time and opportunities to share the Gospel or mentor those who are already Christians.

The following month, we will be hosting visitors from Taiwan. Please also pray for our conversations, that we would make the most of every opportunity.

We have hosted quite a few people this past year, some from Taiwan, and God has already given us the opportunity to get into
several very good, deep spiritual conversations about the Gospel and God's plan of redemption through Jesus Christ. God uses hospitality, and He commands in the New Testament that as Christians we make it a practice in our homes.

My daughters get a picture with a Taiwanese graduate student at the famous well in Sheffield, Alabama where Helen Keller learned her first word, "water."

Christianity Communicated on Taiwan Television:
Although much of the younger generation in Taiwan spend hours upon hours on online computer gaming, the middle age and older generation have their televisions on, often all day. We've been considering how best to get the Gospel message into Taiwanese homes through television. As surely as Paul went directly to the middle of the ideas market place in Athens, we want to get our message smack in the middle of Taiwan's ideas marketplace -- the television. There are several video projects in process that could be used to reach especially the retirees who spend much of their time at home. Among them are converting the Children's Ministries International curriculum into an animated format where the lessons could be put onto DVD's or broadcast on the air.

This video is from a popular Buddhist television station in Taiwan called "Great Love" Television. Surprisingly this particular program is about a doctor who served at a Christian hospital in ChangHua.

Currently there are not many quality Christian programs on Taiwanese TV. New Eyes TV has produced a situation Taiwanese-language comedy coupled with a English language teaching that may reach the older generation. In Mandarin, there is a similar kind of program called "Let's Talk English." Other than these two English-language related outreaches, there is one television station almost exclusively devoted to Christian programming: Good TV. It is found very near on the dial to a Buddhist religious station with an extremely popular drama. One would hope that viewers would stumble upon GoodTV as they change channels to get to the Buddhist drama.

English Around the Block - New Eyes TV program uses Taiwanese to teach English to reach Taiwanese-speaking older generation and countryside population

Let's Talk English - ORTV

Good TV Taiwanese language program

Unfortunately GoodTV does not always practice much discernment on what is aired. Almost anything professing Christianity can be found. There are great interviews and good testimonies, good outreach programs like Let's Talk English. But there are also a plethora of health/wealth prosperity false gospel teaching including that of Benny Hinn. Such teaching appeals to the ears of traditional Taiwanese religion which often is mercenary in seeking a tit-for-tat exchange of favors with the god or goddess being worshipped.

There is one good recent development we have heard. The sermons of Rev. Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City will be aired. The wife of one of the elders of New Hope, the church we started in Taipei, has been hired to translate the subtitles for Tim Keller's preaching. That's good because she is an excellent translator and would take care to accurately convey the meaning of what is said.

Please pray that there will be an increase of good, Gospel-message, programming on Taiwan's television. Pray that God will use it to open hearts, especially of the elderly who have little contact with Christians as they tend to stay in their homes much of the time.

Please pray for wisdom and skill as we think through and develop good teaching through video.

Please pray that Taiwan's pastors will be positively influenced by seeing good American preachers so that their teaching will be increasingly Christ-centered, Gospel driven, and expository.

Further theological studies
I've also been using my time before we return to Taiwan to do further theological studies. I am taking two classes this fall towards a doctorate of ministry in pastoral leadership at Birmingham Theological Seminary in Alabama. It has been really great getting to know the other pastors in my classes as well as the professors.

with Dr. Eyrich and two of my classmates in biblical counseling. One is a pastor from Tuscaloosa, the other from Huntsville

Dr. Howard Eyrich, one of Briarwood Presbyterian Church's pastors, is teaching both my classes this semester. It is great that I will be able to continue some of my coursework online from Taiwan. Beyond all the coursework and the writing that comes along with it, I intend to do my thesis focused on the special issues and needs of rural and small town churches and rural church planting. I chose this topic because it is often overlooked by church planting conferences and training, yet I plan to target rural areas in Taiwan that have few or no churches. Inspired by Tim Keller's success at planting Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, so many church planters have focussed on city-center urban church planting. However there is also as great a need for rural church planting, and so I hope my thesis will contribute to encouraging others to take up this labor.

Thanks for your continued support and prayers.

In Christ,

Joel (for the Lintons in Taiwan)

Pray for Taiwan's children and their parents

2011-10-06T03:51:00.005+08:00

Please pray for Taiwan's mothers. There is a reason Taiwan has such a low birthrate -- abortion. To consider how many moms must have taken part in killing their babies is just heart-wrenching. Surely they are facing many deep down heart hurts from this act.

* Here is a link to Ray of Hope, a Christian crisis pregnancy center.
* Here is an article about how Taiwan's teachers are afraid for the future because there are increasingly fewer students each generation.
* Here is an article about how Taiwan's population balance is continuing to shift to a greater number of old people.

Judy has written two books that we hope will influence parents to be willing to have more children. The first one was on infant care; the second on child training.

===============

Following is the article from the Asia Sentinel.

Taiwan's Astonishing Abortion Rate
Written by Jens Kastner
MONDAY, 25 JULY 2011

These made it through

The island’s terminations appear to vastly outnumber live births

For every pregnancy leading to a Taiwanese woman giving birth, a remarkable three are estimated by a Taiwan pediatrician to have been aborted, a figure that others believe isn’t too far from reality.

When on July 17 the veteran National Taiwan University College of Medicine professor and pediatrician Lue Hung-chi told a forum that 300,000 to 500,000 abortions are carried out in Taiwan each year, he was seeking to send alarm bells ringing. If his estimate is true, it has to be one of the highest per-capita abortion rates in the world.

Statistics show that the country has one of the lowest total fertility rates in Asia, apparently driven at least partly by the ready availability of the abortion drug RU-486. The government announced earlier this year that the average number of children a Taiwanese woman would have in her lifetime was the lowest in the island’s history, at 0.91 per woman.

In fact Taiwan’s total fertility rate appears to be the lowest rate any country has recorded anywhere, according to the Population Reference Bureau, although 2010 was an abnormal year, since families were putting off having children because babies born in the Year of the Tiger are thought to be quick-tempered and willful. For whatever reason, the low birthrate was recently declared a national security issue by President Ma Ying-Jeou.

With only 166,000 babies born on the island in 2010, Lue said, the government should act urgently to tighten the island liberal abortion law, which stipulates that a woman can undergo an induced abortion “if the pregnancy adversely affects the psychological or physical health of the woman or her family life.”

Measures should be implemented to encourage people to have children, counseling should be provided and an environment created that facilitates adoption, Lue told Asia Sentinel.

“Children's health care in Taiwan is terribly underfunded. The national health system is not in favor of pediatrics,” Leu said, which he blamed as part of the reason for the low birth rate. “In over 30 percent of Taiwan's towns no pediatrician can be found.”

Lue made it clear that his estimate is just that.

“In Taiwan, there is no solid data available,” he said. “Of course, the figures I mentioned include pregnancies that are ended with the abortion drug RU-486.”

The most recent official data on abortion numbers is over a decade old. In 1999, 42,282 legal abortions were performed compared to 283,661 births. In the absence of authoritative statistics, what's left is anecdotal evidence and assumptions of those who work or do research in the field.

Some believe the figures are lower. Lee Mao-sheng, a professor at Chung Shan Medical University's College of Medicine, believes the figure could be 80,000-100,000 with the number possibly being as high as 150,000 if illegal abortions were counted.

Chao Kun-yu, deputy director-general of the Bureau of Health Promotion, said that including RU486, roughly 240,000 abortions are carried out legally per year. Pan Hun-shan, a physician with the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at Shin Kong Wu Ho-su Memorial Hospital, believes the 300,000 to 500,000 figure to be realistic, saying that one to two mothers out of every ten who visited his hospital were there seeking abortions. Pan suspects that the percentage is significantly higher in private clinics.

Taiwan's demographers agree that it's obvious that the birth-abortion ratio is dangerously skewed.

“Demographers in Taiwan can only do their best by conjecture,” Yang Wen-Shan, a professor at Academia Sinica's Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, told said in an interview. “The health authority may have some estimated number of aborted fetuses, but it is never reported in the public domain.”

Every year, Yang aid, “there are around 13,000 births given by teenagers. If 90 percent of the total number of teenage girls who become pregnant would not want to give birth before they enter into marriages, we estimate that there are around 130,000 aborted fetuses by teenagers alone.”

Social demographers commonly conclude that there are around 200,000 abortions in Taiwan annually, and suggested that the 500,000 figure mentioned by pediatrician Lue came about through the estimate that each of the RU486 pills sold is counted as an abortion.

Yang agreed, however, that the high abortion rate for a good part is to blame on the lack of an adequate adoption system.

“Many of my colleagues argue that if the government would change the child adoption system in Taiwan, every year we can save enough babies to make up the deficits of the lowest-low fertility situation,” he said.

“The abortion rates are higher for unmarried women,” he continued.”According to the statistics, approximately 90 percent of them will make a decision to abort the fetus. Also women with higher parity [the number of times a woman has given birth] have higher rate of abortion, women whose husbands have higher socioeconomic status, as well as those of older age that had already given birth to a baby boy.”

Gender-selective abortions -- aborting girls before their would-be mothers had their first boy – has also led to an alarming gender imbalance. The practice, found in much of Asia, is mainly due to the belief that males will carry on the family name. By regional comparison, only South Korea and China account for male-to-female infant ratios roughly as unnatural as that of Taiwan.

In 2010, in Taiwan 1.09 males were born for every one female, while in South Korea and China the figure was 1.07 and 1.133, respectively. Taiwanese health authorities estimate that last year alone more than 3,000 female fetuses were selectively aborted on the island but prosecutors have a hard time fighting the practice because doctors often have blood samples screened by outside laboratories, meaning there is no evidence.

Unlike in the West, abortion has never been a polarizing issue in Taiwan. Neither NGOs nor public advocacy groups vociferously discourage abortion, and even the churches are remarkably quiet. Abortion was legalized in 1985 and has been generally accepted, mainly because of the stigma associated with unwed motherhood. In recent years, however, the prohibiting cost of education is overwhelmingly cited as reasons for couples not wanting children. Some 75 percent of Taiwan's children visit cram schools where tuition fees for one child alone can easily account for 25 percent of a worker's monthly income.

“Taiwan's abortion rate is high mainly because the economic growth rate is low,” said Tim Wang, deputy director of the ruling Kuomintang’s (KMT) Youth Department. “As government debts account for NT$5 trillion [US$173 billion], we can say once the child is born, it owes the country NT$200,000. Under these circumstances, young couples don't want to raise children.”

In the past, to the Taiwanese, as for societies elsewhere, it was the more children, the better. This was because filial support formed the by far most important financial pillar of retirement. But also this rationale to bear offspring has all but ceased to exist.

“Few people regard children as a means of support after retirement. Most Taiwanese who want to have children do so because they love kids,” said Joseph Tien, an assistant professor at Tamkang University's Department of Insurance. Investment-linked insurance has replaced the traditional filial support as the main means to prepare for retirement, he added.

In the eyes of pediatrician Lue, Taiwan's suspected shockingly high abortion rate has to be taken on top-down by Taiwan's policymakers.

“We cannot demand young pregnant women to think of the nation; it's the government that must think of the nation,” Lue said.

Several BBC featurette stories on Taiwanese people with video:

2011-10-03T23:46:00.005+08:00

* Street vender
* Tsou Austronesian tea grower
* Big city entrepreneur
* Foreign brides -- immigrants from China and Southeast Asia often move to Taiwan to marry Taiwanese men
* Hoklo Taiwanese -- democracy activist and civil engineering professor

New Report from Thomas and Jennifer McIntyre

2011-10-03T05:30:00.012+08:00

OMF Zhongpu from Micah on Vimeo.

This video clip tells about Thomas and Jennifer McIntyre. Thomas was my first missionary intern back in 2006 when he was attending Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. Since then, Thomas finished seminary, got married, and was ordained. They moved to Taiwan, learned Taiwanese, had a baby, and finally have begun a church-planting work in a rural area of central Taiwan.

Here is an articles from the archives about when Thomas was a missionary intern.
http://www.taiwanchurch.org/linton/tpl8.2.html

surveying a region of the countryside

For general information on missionary internships, please take a look at:
http://www.taiwanchurch.org/intern/

If you look at the following map, ChungPu Township is labeled as number 201. The statistics are current through 2006, but do not include any changes in the last five years. Chungpu is shown as falling in the range of having 1 church per twenty thousand - thirty thousand people.

Lord God, increase our love we pray.

2011-10-02T20:06:00.007+08:00

Christians in local churches all over the world experience a similar root problem that causes them to be relatively ineffective and unproductive in their lives this side of Heaven. That problem is stated clearly in a recent article by Rev. Tim Barton, "God is never going to change in His love but our love for Him is always in danger of fading."

Please pray for the Christians in Taiwan. Pray that their love grown cold will be kindled anew. Pray likewise and especially for the pastors and missionaries laboring in Taiwan, that they will lead by the example of their own hearts.

Following is a slightly edited version Tim Barton's article. (Emphasis added.)

On our Love for God

When Jesus summed up the entire Old Testament law in two short phrases, it was truly an astonishing thing. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And love your neighbor as you love yourself. On these hang all the law and the prophets.”

God has loved His people with an ever-lasting love. If you have put your trust in Christ, you are His. That means you have voluntarily placed yourself into His hands to love you and care for you forever and have declared that He is your God and Savior.

But always in the minds of believers is “How do I show my love for God?” It is a wonderful desire to have. How do we demonstrate love for God? Because if our love for God is not exhibited openly, freely and without restraint...if we hold back...our love will wither like a fading flower.

I believe this is why the Old Testament book of Malachi was written. The love of God’s people was fading. And it is the greatest challenge for the Modern Church. God is never going to change in His love but our love for Him is always in danger of fading.

I encourage you to read and re-read Malachi. It only takes a few minutes, as it is only four chapters or three pages long. I don’t know of any prophecy that is more relevant for the Church today.

By the time this little prophecy was written, the Jews had already been carried away into exile and returned to Jerusalem. Israel, as their forefathers had known it, was long gone. But they were back in Jerusalem, trying in their limited ways to carry on the religious traditions of the past. They really weren’t practicing any of the idolatry of their ancestors. They were orthodox in their beliefs. But they did not love God with all their heart. They consistently held back in their expressions of worship and love for God, and consequently they did not love their fellow man very well either.

That’s what I mean when I say it is a book for today’s church. Even in churches with the most Biblical theology, there seems to be an epidemic of holding back. Over and over people who profess faith in Christ refuse to simply open their hearts and love God with all of it.

You need to learn what opening your heart to God looks like in a normal Christian life and I hope to show you why we should love Him with all of our heart.

If you want a sneak preview, it is this: you should love God because He loved you first and gave his Son as the atoning sacrifice for your sins (1 John 4:10-11).

By Tim Barton

Tim Barton is the founding pastor of Jordan Presbyterian Church in West Jordan, Utah
http://www.jordanpresbyterian.org

Suicide among Taiwan's elderly again in the news

2011-09-06T18:40:00.002+08:00

Taipei Times 2011/9/6

Video of Taiwan's history -- a tale of revival, and then decline of Christianity among the Austronesians

2011-08-27T22:35:00.007+08:00

"...What we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done. He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children.

Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands. They would not be like their forefathers -- a stubborn and rebellious generation -- whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him."
Psalm 78:3-8

The following video shows pictures from when Taiwan was under Japanese rule from 1895 - 1945. The Japanese were the first to unify the entire island -- they finally conquered the Austronesian tribes of the high mountains and eastern coastline that had been independent for several thousand years.

You'll see pictures of immigrants from China -- the Hoklo (now called Taiwanese) and the Hakka -- but more of the pictures are of different Austronesian people and language groups.

The Japanese suppressed the local cultures but also intensively built up Taiwan's infrastructure and economy. All of the Austronesian peoples were required to learn Japanese. This served to allow missionaries from Japan to come to Taiwan's mountains and east coast in the 1970's and use the Japanese-language to evangelize the Austronesians to such an extent that the 1970's were considered a time of revival among those peoples. However much the first generation of Christians embraced the Gospel, there were still too few native pastors, the second generation was not as discipled or solid in their faith as the first, and by the third generation the Austronesian peoples were Christians-in-name-only.

These days, for the Austronesians who have not been absorbed into the Mandarin-language urban secular culture, you will find many who have begun to embrace again the pagan past animistic beliefs. The vast majority continue to be culturally Christian, but do not understand the Gospel and do not have a vibrant faith.

Not all of the Austronesian languages of Taiwan have a full Bible translation and many, perhaps the majority of people, are illiterate in their own languages, since they were forced to learn Mandarin in the school systems.

It is hard to get those who move to big cities for jobs and education to consider returning to high mountain and remote villages where there are few opportunities and poor education options for their children. So to this day, the Austronesian peoples of Taiwan have a shortage of pastors, well-trained and equipped to preach the Word of God.

The one seminary that focuses on Austronesian peoples and languages, Yushan Theological Seminary in Hualien County, often has professors of a more liberal theology.

The only strong reformed and presbyterian witness and training currently happens only in the Mandarin language.

Please pray that God will raise up Biblical, reformed leaders among the non-Mandarin languages of Taiwan -- including the Austronesian languages as well as Taiwanese and Hakka.

"Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."
Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Pray for Taiwan's elderly

2011-06-21T21:44:00.003+08:00

Ephesians 2:12 "Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenant of promise, without hope and without God in this world."

We have all read news reports about suicides and drug overdoses among the pop music and movie star crowd. Can you imagine your grandparent doing the same thing? It would seem unthinkable. But in Taiwan, the suicide rate among elderly is much higher than you would expect. The older generation for the large part are without God and without hope in this world.

One of our planned projects for the fall is to begin to develop outreach material specifically targeting Taiwan's elderly who often live at home alone, spending much of their day watching television. The vast majority have never heard the Gospel once, not having social circles that would naturally bring them into contact with Christians that they might hear the hope found in Jesus Christ.

Oh, to hear the good news:

Ephesians 2:13-14 "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Chirst. He himself is our peace..."

Please pray that the Holy Spirit would move Taiwanese Christians towards prayer and a deep concern for the souls of the older generation. Please pray they will take the time to visit them and talk to them.

Please pray for God to have mercy and that so many unreached elderly Taiwanese will find the only true peace in Jesus Christ.
======================

Here is an article by Taiwan's government news service:

Suicide among elderly becoming alarming issue: official
06/20/2011 (CNA)

Elderly people have a higher propensity to commit suicide than younger people, and about 25 percent of senior citizens become suicidal after prolonged suffering from chronic or terminal illness, a Taipei City government health official said Monday.

According to the Taipei City Department of Health's Suicide Prevention Center, the suicide rate among people aged 65 and older in Taiwan is two to three times higher than in all other age groups in the country.

Statistics compiled by the Cabinet-level Department of Health for 2010 show a suicide rate of 35.8 per 100,000 people in the over-65 age group, a figure that tops all younger age groups, said Kao Wei-chun, deputy CEO of the center.

The center released its findings that same day on why so many elderly people became suicidal that year. Results of the study show that 25 percent of the elderly who became suicidal had suffered from chronic or terminal illness for a long period, 23 percent became suicidal as a result of depression, and 18 percent became so due to "relationship troubles with family members."

While illness and depression were tagged as the major contributory factors, it was a compound of many problems that weighed on the lives of the elderly and drove as many as 30 percent of them to suicidal thoughts, Kao said.

Elderly people have to deal with issues such as prolonged use of medication, declining health, troubles with their children or aged spouses and financial pressure, all of which can lead to suicidal tendencies, she continued.

She also noted that while the country's overall suicide rate has dropped in recent years, it has remained consistently high in the over-65 age group.

"Keeping the elderly company and helping them vent their grievances is the best way of helping to divert their minds away from thoughts of suicide," she said.

Pray for Taiwan's Hakka

2011-05-30T10:56:00.003+08:00

Of the three major language groups in Taiwan, over 70 percent are Hoklo Taiwanese speakers and 15 percent are Hakka. Less that one percent of the Hakka are professing Christians. Please pray for God to raise up more missionaries, church planters, and elders among the Hakka in Taiwan.

Hakka People Episode from Church of the Lutheran Brethren on Vimeo.

Earthquakes, Tsunamis and the Gospel

2011-03-13T07:55:00.004+08:00

Here is an interview with a missionary in Japan who is my friend.

Please pray with us for the missionaries in Japan, the church in Japan, and their outreach with the love of Christ during this terrible earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan.

Please pray that God will turn this tragedy to the good of Japanese people putting their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Japan, Thailand and Taiwan are nations with very few Christians. Please keep them in your prayers.

Rural Church Planting Plans

2011-01-19T08:16:00.006+08:00

When we go back to Taiwan later this year, the Lord willing, we will focus more time on recruiting and training Taiwanese pastors and church planters as well as beginning church planting works in small town and rural communities which often have few or no churches. Though many missionaries focus on the big cities, if you read about the history of the growth of the church in Korea in the 20th Century, you will notice works like Operation Lighthouse that did extensive surveys and analysis that showed the benefit of rural church planting -- even to the big cities. I hope to write more on this in a future article.

Here is an example of the type of small town where we would like plant churches when we go back to Taiwan. This happens to be the home town of Carol Huang, a Hakka Christian who became a Christian and joined New Hope Church - Taipei in 2009. You can hear her testimony here or click on the following:

You can read more about Carol in a November 2009 post on this blog.

This town is a Hakka speaking town, but the Taiwanese speaking towns we target will be very similar -- with one small church or no churches at all. Please also pray that we may be able to recruit some missionaries to focus on Hakka speaking communities.

Our church plant in Chidu in north Taiwan also used the approach of outreach to the children that the church in the video talks about. In the short term, it can connect with a few parents. From our outreaches four of the moms in that community became Christians. But in the long term the parents may look at church as either 1. a useful child-care charity or 2. a thing for children and not for adults. That certainly is what happened with many families in Chidu. The children would come for several years, but then as they got older they did not come back. Either they got involved with gangs or they got involved with studies. It was hard to get moms to come to any events and almost impossible to get dads to come. We think that for the long term -- reaching the parents, particularly the dads, will be the most effective, although trying to reach the dads with the Gospel is a seemingly much slower way to get something going and will not immediately show fruit in the short term.

Watch a National Geographic show on Kaohsiung, Taiwan

2010-11-27T02:40:00.006+08:00

If you get the National Geographic Channel - Asia, please tune in to its show Megacities on the 27th which is airing a piece on Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second largest city. As you watch, please continue to pray. We would like to recruit a mission church planting team to target the cities and townships along the southwest coast of Taiwan. Taiwan needs more churches that clearly preach the Gospel and follow the full counsel of God in the Bible.

Megacities: Kaohsiung
Taiwan and cities like Kaohsiung are on the leading edge of carbon dioxide reduction technology, innovation and policy-making.
Next Showing: Saturday 27 November at 09:00 - National Geographic Channel

Repeats:
Monday 13 December at 08:00 - National Geographic Channel
Monday 13 December at 13:00 - National Geographic Channel

The Darkness, Bondage and Fear of Idol Worship in Taiwan

2010-09-20T22:49:00.009+08:00

Recently, spurred by an article posted by Michael Kellahan (an Anglican pastor in Sydney, Australia), some Christians in Australia got into a discussion on whether western "idols" of the heart were equivalent to the worship of physical idols such as in Taiwan. One missionary to Taiwan, Phil Nicholson, entered the discussion with the following statements. As you read them, you will get more specifics of how to pray for Taiwan's people:

"Taiwan is an animistic society. Most people here are actively involved in worshiping idols, at home, in temples, at shrines. They pray to them, seek guidance through divination, offer sacrifices and truly believe that these idols represent spiritual beings with power to intervene and cause good or harm.

They are not one for one replacements of God since everyone recognises the gods represented have limited powers and sphere of influence. Nevertheless they are treated in many respects the way we are to treat God.

People look to the idols (and the gods behind them) to protect them, provide for their needs, give direction, etc.

At the same time they are still prone to what we would call idolatry of the heart. i.e. they look to money, possessions, love, etc to make them feel good, happy, valuable, etc. So what they are looking for from the physical idols is not actually the same as what people like Keller & Driscoll would say we look for in our functional saviours/idols. In fact their emotional response to the idols is often one of fear or detachment, not love.

They tend to read the passages of idolatry literally since there is a one to one correlation between the biblical context and their own context. And there is a real temptation for even Christians to rely on idols, charms, divination when life gets rough.

As I mentioned, I am not opposed to use idolatry as a useful way of looking at our sins, but at the same time it strikes me that these are not identical….

There is something particularly distressing about seeing people bowing down to idols and this is confirmed in the Bible. Idol filled places like Taiwan also seem spiritually very dark. And I don't think this is just our Western sensibilities or cultural prejudice. We are no less sinful in Australia, but when a people are given over to full fledged idolatry I think there is something degrading and enslaving that we in the Western have been spared from for many generations (but are now returning to).

One of the first things done when a household repents is to rip down the idol shelf. It is quite a celebration. Christians tend to replace this with cross or more often with hanging scrolls with scripture on them.

People know we don't worship idols so they don't find it odd, in fact doing things they find taboo can be a powerful witness to the fact that Christians have all they need in Christ.

If anything, people like the atmosphere of churches and the freedom Christians have. But fear is often a barrier that stops them believing."

-- Phil Nicholson, OMF missionary to Taiwan

The last comment bears repeating: "But fear is often a barrier that stops them believing."

If you look at 1 Corinthians 10:14-22, Paul specifically associated worship of physical idols with demon worship -- in that somehow demons particularly hang around and associate with such altars, idols and temples. That would account for the particular feeling of spiritual darkness mentioned by Phil Nicholson in his above discussion. I think the issue of demonic involvement in idol worship is a major distinction between "heart" idols and literal physical idols and altars. We all sin, and we cannot simply blame lust or greed or hatred on a demon's influence. These sins are closer to home -- "Out of the heart, the mouth speaks." In contrast, I think that in much of idol worship in Taiwan, there is in many cases an added dimension of demonic involvement.

1 Corinthians 10:14-22

"Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.

Observe Israel after the flesh: Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols anything? Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord's table and of the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger that He?"

The kind of idol worship in Taiwan results in a strong bondage to fear. From what I have seen, people feel the same way about their gods and spirits they worship as a small businessman might feel about organized crime and an extortion racket where if you don't pay the "protection money" then the mafia will cause you trouble and ruin your business. And so the background culture in Taiwan constitute huge walls and barred gates to accepting the Gospel.

Praise be to God that Christ will build his church and the Gates of Hell will not prevail against it. Christians fight with the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. By it we preach the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

1 John 4:18 "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us."

We want to thank again all of you who help send missionaries to Taiwan with your prayers and financial support. People all over the world desperately need to hear the Gospel and put their faith in Jesus.

- Joel H. Linton

(* all scripture quotes are NKJV translation)

Principles from Proverbs on Church Planting and also Church Revitalization

2010-09-13T05:58:00.007+08:00

Today I visited a church and preached from Proverbs 27:23-27. This passage of Scripture can be applied to many areas of life although in this sermon I applied it specifically to the church.

As they keep track of supporters, maintain their communications, and give reports, missionaries also have to remember this passage of Scripture. It will encourage them in their active involvement with not just the nation to whom they were sent, but also with supporters who help to send them.

The Cultural Background of Taiwan

2010-07-26T06:51:00.004+08:00

Here is an interesting analysis of the origins of Taiwan's hybrid culture.

Regarding Taiwan's background religious culture, I was reading from the book of Jeremiah this morning and noticed a chapter describing the prophet Jeremiah's interaction with the Jewish exiles in Egypt. Their worldview of idolatrous pragmatism seems to very much capture traditional Taiwanese religious experience. So go read Jeremiah 44 and 45.

The answer to that worldview can be found in Psalm 49 and Psalm 73.

Please pray for Taiwanese to come to the wisdom that the Holy Spirit teaches in the Psalms.

Fun with Wildlife

2010-06-15T21:18:00.002+08:00

Living in the center of a big city in Taiwan, the children do not have a yard or much outside space. So when they visit the U.S., they head outdoors.

The Gospel comes to a local cafe in Taipei

2010-06-14T21:20:00.008+08:00

Across a small park from our apartment in Taipei is a beloved little cafe called, Park Cafe. It is a Taiwanese family-owned restaurant run by two sisters. We walk by it all the time on our way to the subway rapid transit station. Last year we got to know these owners. Also, because of their excellent home-cooked Taiwanese-style food, some of the New Hope church members began to frequent their cafe.

As they observed their most frequent customers, the family of one of New Hope's elders, Aaron Heidel, they became curious about how these young children were so well-behaved. They got into many discussions with this elder and his wife about child training and that led to opportunities to share the Gospel.

(This elder's wife, Jean Heidel, is the one who translated Judy's infant care book. She also heads the translation team for New Hope's bilingual service. Jean is writing her own book this year about her experience trying to implement the methods of Judy's book. She also has a special chapter on adoption since the Heidels have adopted four children so far. We are especially praying that the adoption chapter will have an impact on Taiwanese culture since traditionally adoption is frowned upon.)

As several of us from New Hope began to visit their cafe, we all were able to gradually, more and more, share with them the love of Christ. We all became friends and the Park Cafe even hosted an outreach event where Judy met some of her infant care book readers. Last November, one of the sisters, Amanda, began visiting our church regularly; her whole family came with her. Joel spent a lot of time talking with her and her husband about the Christianity.

This spring, Amanda, professed her faith in Jesus Christ, received baptism, and joined the church. Please pray for her family: her husband and two sons attend New Hope regularly but have not yet come to faith.

Click on this link to see a video of her baptism. We were very sad to miss it, but we had already come to the United States for a year of furlough.

You can listen here to the testimony with translation into English:

You'll notice that Joel's coworker Rev. Daniel Cohee is now serving New Hope as pastor. After seminary and some internships in the U.S., and a two-year mission in Romania, he had come to Taiwan to serve under Joel as a missionary intern. Then he went back to the U.S. to take his ordination exams, and raise support; now he has moved to the field as a long-term missionary. Please also pray for Daniel as he studies Mandarin and pastors New Hope. We praise God that because he was able to come for an internship for over a year, he already was able to adjust to Taiwan and so this time was ready to start right into his labors. Daniel plans to continue as interim pastor while this church looks for a long-term full-time pastor. Please pray for New Hope's pastor search. As Daniel's language improves and he transitions out of serving as the full-time pastor, he plans to expand his work in training Taiwanese men for church planting.

Pray

2010-03-01T05:18:00.012+08:00

Please pray for Judy's extended family this February 28 as they remember the suffering their family went through in 1980. Pray that they all may come to know the Lord.

Here's a history piece one news organization put out this year about Judy's family. There are video footage and pictures in this news report that I have never seen before. I do not understand all of the Mandarin yet so cannot assess how it is narrated (whether completely accurate or sensationalized), but the pictures say a lot about what they went through.

The P5 video contains an interview with Rev. Tīⁿ Jî-gio̍k who happens to be one of my former Taiwanese teachers, someone who helped me out a lot on my first ever Taiwanese sermon I preached. (Here are links to the sermon in Taiwanese and translated into English.)

Jesus Loves the Little Children

2010-02-18T23:44:00.016+08:00

Here's an article regarding Taiwan having the lowest birthrate in the world.

Here's an article about the longest practicing pediatrician in the world who retired at age 103 years, Dr. Leila Denmark of northern Georgia. She turned 112 this year. Judy wrote an infant care book based on the advice of my aunt with 11 children and their pediatrician Dr. Denmark, and Judy's book is not only helping to reach families with the Gospel but also helping to encourage families to have more children.

Click on the following to hear the testimony of one of Judy's book readers who became a Christian and then joined our Taipei church plant in 2009:

PRAYER REQUEST: Please pray for Judy and me as we plan to write a follow-up child-training book later this year. (Many of these families have been asking for one, and so we plan to write a book explaining what God has taught in His Word regarding how to train your children.) There are almost no Mandarin-language books from a Biblical perspective on the subject whereas there are some helpful English books out there, among them, To Train Up a Child, which gives very good practical illustrations about how discipline and training work out in many real-life situations.

Here is my sermon on Proverbs 13:24. I recently preached this passage at a church in Alabama.

Something to be encouraged about...

2010-01-07T09:59:00.002+08:00

Brit Hume, a well-known and respected Fox News anchor, professes his faith on one of the most highly rated and watched news programs in the USA.

On the way to church

2009-12-22T04:30:00.005+08:00

Enjoying the car ride one wintry Sunday morning on the way to a worship service in Alabama.

... and while we're at it... another ride closer to home:

Merry Christmas 2009

2009-12-22T03:30:00.006+08:00

Our dear friends and family, partners for the Gospel.

We want to wish you a merry Christmas. Thanks for all of your support. As we write this, our New Hope church plant in Taipei seems to be going strong and heading in a good direction with three elders and two men training to become pastors. My coworker, Rev. Daniel Cohee has been raising support this fall. He hopes to go out to Taiwan as soon has he raises full support and to serve at New Hope while our family is away in the United States on home assignment.

We were busy in Taiwan almost non-stop this fall, and felt like we were barely hanging on after a long sprint when our Thanksgiving departure date for America arrived. Saorsa broke out with roseola and a high fever three days before we left. The fever broke just in time, but she was very uncomfortable the entire airplane flight. When we arrived we had a tough adjustment with jet lag, and then, one after another, all of our girls and Judy got a five-day flu, so we are even now just hardly coming out of that phase of existence. We have not yet gained enough energy to celebrate our first Christmas in the U.S. after four years.

However we are recovering. We've begun enjoying singing Christmas hymns. We really love the Christmas carols we sing this time of year. Some of our favorites are "Of the Father's Love Begotten" and "How Lovely Shines the Morning Star." To think about the Son of God adding to Himself human nature to be our representative, live a perfect life in our place and also die in our behalf still astounds me. I am reminded of 1 Peter 1:12 sharing that even the ancient and brilliant angels serving before God's throne long to look into these things. Everything God plans and carries out is very good indeed! Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

We have so much to enjoy in this world God created. Today I tried a little experimenting in a divergence from my tried and tested chocolate chip cookie recipe. And according to the family, it succeeded. I made a new recipe today with red and green in the cookies to celebrate Christmas. Yes, cranberries and spinach. Please try it out and enjoy.

Merry Christmas, from the Lintons
Joel, Judy, Faith (9), Charis (7), Ashlyn (6), Saorsa(1)

-- Joel's Cranberry - Spinach Christmas Cookie recipe

preheat oven to 375ºF (190ºC)

mix
1 cup (2 sticks ) butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey

mix in
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon - vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon - almond extract
2 tablespoons (100 percent peanuts) peanut-butter

gradually mix in dry ingredients

1/4 cup oatmeal (add more as desired)
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 cup coarsely chopped almonds (add more as desired)
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1 cup coarsely chopped cranberries
1 cup finely chopped spinach

for a slide edge, add 1/4 cup finely chopped dark chocolate

use heaping teaspoons to place cookie dough on greased cookie sheet
cook for 9 minutes or until golden brown

taiwanchurch.org/linton

Sèng-tàn-cheh Khoài-lo'k ! Merry Christmas.

2009-12-22T03:24:00.002+08:00

Kám-siā, ta'k-ê.

("Bo'k-su, ài ta'k-kang liān-si'p kóng Tâi-gí.")

Sèng-tàn-cheh Khoài-lo'k !
Merry Christmas.

(Some of the church members at New Hope make a Christmas video message to remind me to practice my Taiwanese language and to come back soon.)

New believers and new church members

2009-11-16T13:05:00.022+08:00

In recent weeks I've had the privilege of participating in several baptisms.

Traditional Taiwanese culture places great significance on rituals. [You can listen to a sermon I preached in January of 2008 about how Christian rites are different from those of traditional Taiwanese religion.]

As new Taiwanese Christians come to faith, we spend time explaining to them about Christian baptism, how the water is not magical, but instead simply acts as a sign that points to the fact that we are all called to look in faith on Jesus Christ who died to cleanse us of our sins. In celebration, we often sing the song "Nothing but the Blood of Jesus" when we have baptisms at New Hope.

One young mother, a reader of Judy's infant care book, began coming to New Hope and she professed her faith and was baptized on October 25, 2009. She is the first Hakka believer whom Joel has had a chance to baptize.

You can hear her testimony here, or click below:

Carol Huang was baptized by sprinkling with water.

Sprinkling with water points to the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and the sprinkling of His blood to purify us from all sin. The mode of sprinkling is probably the most attested to in Scripture, e.g. in Hebrews 9:10 referring to the temple ritual washings (in the Greek - "various baptisms"...) in which things were sprinkled with blood or water mixed with the ashes of a sacrificed heifer.

"The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!" Hebrews 9:13-14

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God uses the imagery of these temple purifications to teach us about how our hearts can be clean of sin by God's work of grace, sending the Holy Spirit to give us a new heart to come to repentance and put our faith in Jesus Christ.

"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." Ezekiel 36:25-27 (NIV)

We are so delighted that God gives us a part in bringing new believers into the church to begin a life of serving the living God.

One young doctor, Thomas Chu has been coming to New Hope for about a year now. You can hear his testimony by clicking on this link, or simply playing the following:

I baptized Thomas Chu on November 1, 2009. He requested the pouring mode of baptism. Using the method of pouring reminds us of justification by grace through faith, and particularly points to the "washing of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit," the fact that our faith was brought about by Holy Spirit's work as God poured out His Spirit on us to apply the redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ. Joel 2:28, Titus 3:4-7

On that Sunday, during the middle of the worship service, most of the New Hope congregation joined us out in the courtyard to witness Thomas' baptism before heading back in to listen to the sermon.

During Thomas' baptism, it started raining so the rest of us got wet as well.

Children are a blessing from the Lord.

2009-11-14T23:11:00.004+08:00

Judy meets many moms because of her infant-care blog and some of them have come to New Hope church in Taipei. On the last Sunday of October, Joel got to baptize one of the mom's who had begun coming to New Hope and became a Christian and joined the church. Please pray for that many more parents will become Christians.

We are so happy to also get a chance to show how much children are a blessing and valuable in a nation that has the lowest birthrate in the world (because children are often thought of mainly as trouble).

After reading Judy's book on infant care, some of the parents have been encouraged to go on to have their second or third child.

Beautiful Taiwan - Formosa - Hawaiiki

2009-10-05T12:42:00.006+08:00

Please keep praying for Taiwan and its people. Even in the midsts of the concrete and crowds, you can still see God's handiwork in His Creation. It is a great reminder that God is still sovereign.

If you actually go to the link on Youtube, it will show a wide-letter-box size video. The one embedded above cuts off the sides...

Not fearing Ghost Month 平安七月 Pêng-an Chhit-goe̍h

2009-09-04T16:29:00.007+08:00

Right now, we are in the middle of ghost month in Taiwan. Traditionally, the Taiwanese offer many sacrifices to appease wandering spirits whom they euphemistically call "good brothers" and whom they think have gotten a one-month parole from Hell to roam the earth and bring bad luck to any who do not offer them worship. Many Taiwanese are also afraid to travel, take vacations, or to conduct any major affairs such as weddings during this time.

During this seventh month of the lunar year in which Taiwanese fearfully participate in rites to placate the dead, it is good for Christians to consider the truth about what happens to them after they die. As you make yourself familiar with the verses quoted below, you could get yourself ready for opportunities for discussions with your non-Christian Taiwanese friends.

The following is a link to a sermon by Jonathan Edwards entitled, "True saints, when absent from the body, are present with the Lord."

Please also read the following meditation written for the church here in Taiwan: (I will post a Mandarin translation as soon as it is translated.)

Thank you for your prayers for the Taiwanese people to come to believe in the true God.

In Christ,

- the Lintons

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In Revelation 1:17-18, Jesus Christ says, "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! and I hold the keys of death and Hades."

Christians do not fear Ghost Month. "Good brothers" do not exist. We know that when a people die, their bodies decay and their spirits depart from this world. They cannot have contact with this world; the dead have no power or influence in this world. There is also no reincarnation. There are two destinations that people go when they die. Spirits of unbelievers are bound in hell to await the Judgment Day. Spirits of believers are immediately present with the Lord in Heaven and await their resurrection. At the end of the world the Lord Jesus Christ will return a raise both the wicked and the righteous from the dead and Christ will judge them with justice.

Instead of fearing ghosts, people should think about their own sins and put their faith in Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 9:27-28 "Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him."

2 Samuel 12:23 "But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me."

2 Corinthians 5:6-8 "Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord."

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 "Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words."

If you wish to read more about this topic please look at the following passages: Genesis 3:19, Luke 16:19-31, 1 Corinthians 15:12-23, Philippians 1:21-23, 2 Peter 2:4-10, 2 Peter 3:1-13, Revelation 7:9-17, Revelation 20:11-15

啟示錄第一章17-18節，耶穌基督說：「不要懼怕！我是首先的，我是末後的，又是那存活的；我曾死過，現在又活了，直活到永永遠遠；並且拿著死亡和陰間的鑰匙。」

基督徒不怕鬼月。並沒有「好兄弟」的存在。人死後，他們的身體會腐爛，靈魂會離開這個世界，他們不能夠再接觸這個世界，也沒有影響力或權力了，更不會輪迴轉世。人死後只有兩個去處，不信者的靈魂被捆鎖在地獄，等待審判的日子。信徒的靈魂死後馬上與主同在天堂裡，等候他們的復活。末日主耶穌基督會再回來使惡人和義人從死裡復活，並按公義審判他們。

人不應怕鬼，反倒應該想到他們自己的罪，而來信靠耶穌基督

撒母耳記下第十二章23節：「孩子死了，我何必禁食，我豈能使他返回呢？我必往他那裡去，他卻不能回我這裡來。」

哥林多後書第五章6-8節：「所以，我們時常坦然無懼，並且曉得我們住在身內，便與主相離。因我們行事為人是憑著信心，不是憑著眼見。我們坦然無懼，是更願意離開身體與主同住。」

帖撒羅尼迦前書第四章13-18節：「論到睡了的人，我們不願意弟兄們不知道，恐怕你們憂傷，像那些沒有指望的人一樣。我們若信耶穌死而復活了，那已經在耶穌裡睡了的人，神也必將他與耶穌一同帶來。我們現在照主的話告訴你們一件事：我們這活著還存留到主降臨的人，斷不能在那已經睡了的人之先。因為主必親自從天降臨，有呼叫的聲音和天使長的聲音，又有神的號吹響；那在基督裡死了的人必先復活。以後我們這活著還存留的人必和他們一同被提到雲裡，在空中與主相遇。這樣，我們就要和主永遠同在。所以，你們當用這些話彼此勸慰。」

如果你想讀更多關於這個主題的經文，請查閱以下的經文：創三19、路十六19-31、林前十五12-23、腓一21-23、彼後二4-10、彼後三1-13、啟七9-17、啟二十11-15。
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Please pray that Taiwanese will come to know the fear of the true God that leads to repentance and faith in Jesus.

Once in a life-time events in Taiwan

2009-07-23T14:08:00.010+08:00

Taiwan has had two unique events recently.

The World Games for the first time are being hosted in Kaohsiung City in southern Taiwan. You might have noticed that the U.S. recently won the gold in ultimate frisbee. The host city was very well organized and the opening ceremony was said to be beautiful but unpretentious, giving the city of Kaohsiung and the nation of Taiwan international dignity.

Please pray that these World Games in Kaohsiung will put Taiwan on more Christian's minds so that they will pray for Taiwan. Also, please pray for Kaohsiung. We would like to expand our church planting work to the south of Taiwan, including the city of Kaohsiung and we would like to recruit both foreign missionaries and Taiwanese church planters for that task. Please pray that God will send out the laborers for His harvest field.

Secondly, yesterday morning, we got to see an eclipse of the sun. As I left the building headed for my Taiwanese-language class, I noticed the light seemed a bit dimmed for mid-morning. I thought, hmm, I wonder if a typhoon is coming. There were quite a few clouds, but there was also quite a bit a blue sky visible. I thought that it was really strange. But then I noted a lot of people looking up -- and so I looked up, too. And through the thin clouds, you could see a solar eclipse. There was only a thin sliver of brightness like a fingernail. Most of the sun's light was blocked by the moon! I heard that there was a full solar eclipse in other parts of Asia, but the partial eclipse here was still spectacular. There will not be anything like this in Taiwan for another 300 years. Our children got to see it, too. Perhaps they do not realize how rare and precious the opportunity was.

Solar eclipse seen through the clouds looking past the top of the tallest building in the world -- Taipei 101

As I was walking to my class, I thought -- God's glory will eclipse the sun one day -- more like the lights of Taiwan's many cities block out the stars at night. It simply is too bright to see the stars clearly. Usually you might be able to see a few, and of course, Venus is visible, but that is about it.

In the new heavens and new earth we will not need the sun but will walk by the light of our God who makes His dwelling with His people.

What a glorious thought! How precious it is to be one of God's adopted children.

Will you join me in praying that more and more Taiwanese will one day look to God as their Light and trust in the Light of the World who gives them life -- Jesus Christ, our Lord?

Revelation 21:3-4 "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God."

Revelation 21:22-23 "And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb."

(ESV)

God's Word Written Down For Us

2009-07-07T20:01:00.012+08:00

The Codex Sinaiticus can now be seen online at codexsinaiticus.org

This is a full, compiled hand-written Bible in Greek from about 300 years after the New Testament church. There are many hundreds of fragments of different passages or books of the New Testament from earlier times, and we have the complete Old Testament from before Christ came, but this is one of the earliest copies still existing that was a fully bound text of both the Old and New Testament like our Bibles today. You have to remember that back before the age of printing presses, whatever was going to be copied had to be copied by hand. From the existing manuscripts, it seems that often people would copy excerpts from books of the Bible to send to friends, family or other churches just like you will quote a passage in an email. In the back of every Greek Bible that any of your pastors have, there is a list of every single ancient manuscript of passages of the Bible that has ever been found. The list also tells exactly where in the world it is kept so that you, if you wanted to, could actually go see the original copies.

In the Old Testament and the New Testament there are references to making sure Scripture was copied and shared with other people and other churches (e.g. Colossians 4:16). Did you know that God commanded the kings of Israel to personally make their own a hand copies of the book of the law for them to keep when each one first takes his throne (Deuteronomy 17:18)? Imagine how good it would be if our presidents had to take out the first days and weeks of their terms in office to spend their time studying and hand copying passages from God's Word.

Try copying a few pages of your own Bible and you will see how long and difficult a task it is. Recently Taiwanese presbyterian churches all over Taiwan did that very thing. Church members signed up to hand copy their assigned passages -- to make up complete hand written manuscript Bibles in Taiwanese.

I'm not sure how many copies they made, but if you visit a Taiwanese Presbyterian church building, make sure you go up to the front and look for the large hand-copied volume of the Bible.

Photo taken at Lotong Presbyterian Church, Ilan County, August 13, 2006
Like it is all over the world in this day and age, this period in Taiwan's church history is a time where people in the churches are straying away from God's Word and taking their direction from pagan society's values or personal experiences. Please pray for the churches in Taiwan that they will not turn their eyes away from God's Word but will seek to submit to it and apply it to every area of their lives and teaching. Please pray especially for the elders and pastors not to seek new things but instead seek to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).

Taiwanese fellow-laborers in God's Harvest Field

2009-06-27T21:10:00.005+08:00

Last week we had a guest come to our church: a young Taiwanese man named David Ông. He just graduated from seminary. He's from Tainan in the south. And he plans to become a pastor here. We are so happy to meet young men like him.

David wrote about his visit to our church and home in his blog. He posted a lot of pictures.

For the past few weeks another young man has been coming to our church. His name is Eric Yu. He is a Taiwanese from I-Lan City. A 30-year-old, he just graduated from Christ's College because he had worked and then gone to do military service after high school. Eric is fluent in Taiwanese and Mandarin and has a good command of English. I was introduced to him by Dr. Quentin Nantz, the current acting president of Christ's College and an MTW missionary. After I met him at Christ's College, he began to attend a Thursday men's discipleship group led by one of New Hope Church's new elders. He also began attending our churches service. Please pray for him as he decides whether or not to go into the ministry. He'll have to find a way to support himself while he goes through seminary.

I also want to mention my Taiwanese pastoral intern, Caleb Tian, who is now a licentiate in the Reformed Presbyterian Church. He and his wife just had a baby son. Already having a Bachelor of Divinity, he has one more year to finish an M.Div. at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Taipei before taking his ordination exams. Please pray for Caleb this year as he tries to provide for his family while finishing up seminary. His wife just this week decided to quit her job in order to take care of her newborn, and so their income will be drastically reduced. It was a hard decision for them that went against the cultural grain of contemporary Taiwan, but it was a good principled decision.

Thanks for your prayers. In Christ,

Joel

Sharing the Gospel in Taiwanese with the Older Generation

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Please pray for Mr. Tiuⁿ. He is 89 years old and lives in Tamsui, north of Taipei on the coast. We met him and his son's family at the Taiwan National History Museum last Saturday. His grandson was pushing him in a wheel chair and I got into a conversation with them in Taiwanese about Taiwan's history. After giving him my church business card, I invited him to come visit. This morning he came to my home and we drank tea and talked in Taiwanese. He is not a Christian but seems open. Since he grew up in the Japanese colonial era of Taiwan, he speaks and reads Japanese well. I have one Gospel message sermon that has been translated into Japanese, so I gave it to him. He seems interested in going to a Japanese-Taiwanese language fellowship in Taipei where I spoke last year. Most of the members are over 80 years old.

His eyes are not very good, so I plan to send him some audio sermon CD's and also audio selections from the Taiwanese Bible. Please pray that he will listen and hear the Gospel and come to faith even in his old age. He turns 90 in September of this year.

At the Taiwan National History Museum in Taipei. (April 4, 2009)

Gospel Joy

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Psalm 66 - "How to Enjoy Your Life as a Christian"

(A typical sermon at New Hope Christian Fellowship, Taipei, TAIWAN
English-Mandarin bi-lingual)

Green Shoots of Spring

2009-04-04T10:20:00.020+08:00

Planning a Taiwanese pastors' church planting fellowship and potential target areas for church planting in city-center Taipei
(L-R Rev. Dennis Brown (Friendship Presbyterian - Taipei); Rev. Joel H. Linton (New Hope Church, Team-leader Taiwanese Church Planting, MTW); Rev. Jay Kyle (Redeemer Presbyterian - New York City); Rev. Dr. Peter Yao (Grace Church - Chungli, Adjunct Professor - Reformed Theological Seminary in Taipei) March 19, 2009 - Chungli City, TAIWAN
Note: You can view the Taiwan church distribution map online.

New Hope Church -- and guests for the baptisms
That day we actually ran out of chairs and had to borrow
some from the building management's office cubicles.
(March 8, 2009, Taipei, TAIWAN)

(March 8, 2009 at New Hope Church -- the Taipei church plant recently particularlized and member of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Taiwan.)

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In the mountains of Gī-lân (I-Lan) on February 28th remembering Judy's sisters and grandmother who were murdered in a February 28, 1980 political assassination in Taiwan.

I think at the time the picture was taken we are singing "Verdant Taiwan" the unofficial Taiwan National Anthem.

Learning the Language

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Joel continues his Taiwanese language study attending two-hour classes three days a week.

Do you know what the sign above says?

The Christmas story throughout the Bible

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Faith (8 yrs old) and Charis (6 yrs old) are reading through New Hope's Christmas through the Bible reading list. This list contains many Old Testament passages that look forward to Jesus Christ's coming and what he would do. It also contains some New Testament passages that look back to Christ's coming.

After the worship service on the Sunday before Christmas, New Hope members go to Taipei's biggest park in the middle of the city -- Da An Park -- and sing Christmas carols to the crowds. As people walk by, the children hand out Christmas cookie packets. On the card is a verse about Christmas on one side and information about the church on the other side.

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Merry Christmas!

November - December 2008

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Please click on the link below if you would like to become partners with us in evangelism and church planting in Taiwan.

How to support.

Thanks.

2008 Family, Ministry and Missions pictures in Taiwan

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Joel (back row on right) gives a short talk in Taiwanese at the annual Taiwan Prison Fellowship ministry coworkers' luncheon -- December 13, 2008

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The Taipei bilingual church plant - New Hope Christian Fellowship held its first ordination service on December 14, 2008. Representatives from the presbytery of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Taiwan as well as Presbyterian Church in America ordained teaching elders all participated in the ordination of New Hope's first three ruling elders.

Church planter Rev. Joel Linton instituted formal membership in 2007, and then after the members nominated elder-candidates, Joel spent several months training them. Three elders were elected in June of 2008 and then they went through more training and then took the ruling elder exam administered by the presbytery in October of this year.

In attendance -- from the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Taiwan: Rev. Harry Chang, Rev. Huang and Rev. Daniel Tsai; from the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan: Ruling Elder Moses Tsai; from the Presbyterian Church in America: Rev. Dennis Brown, Rev. Jim Gray, Rev. Joel H. Linton, Rev. Dr. Andrew McCafferty, Rev. Dr. Tim Yates, and [Pastor Tim]

Joel and Judy (back left) at Christ's College faculty and staff retreat . Joel was their main speaker and gave a two part message on how the Gospel applies to their own lives and in their ministry with coworkers, students and their families, and churches in Taiwan. At I-Lan County's Shangrila Hotel - October 2008

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New Hope started a new Mandarin-language home fellowship group in downtown Taipei led by Taiwanese pastoral intern Caleb Tian. (August 2008)

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Joel baptizes the Wang family. The husband is an architect; the wife works at Taiwan's Department of Health. Both make professions of faith and join New Hope. On the left stands a psychiatrist who also made a profession of faith that day. July 27, 2008

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Reunion with Judy's extended family deep in the high mountains of central Taiwan. Summer 2008 (Please pray for Judy's family as the majority are not Christians yet.)

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New Hope holds a Cafe-Gallery Night outreach event near National Taiwan University in Taipei -- July 2008

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Meinung Township, Kaohsiung County, southern Taiwan: This Hakka farming region needs church planters and evangelists.

Daniel Cohee and Joel Linton visiting a traditional Hakka family in Meinung (Within the family some worship at temples of Buddhist, Taoist and syncretistic I-Guan-Tao religions.) June 2008

Daniel Cohee and Joel Linton visiting a traditional Taiwanese family in Pingtung County, southern Taiwan. (This taxi driver is a retired fireman and also Amway salesman. He and his family are not yet Christians. They worship at a local Taiwanese Taoist temple.) June 2008

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At the newly named - "Liberty Square" in Taipei in December 2007
When I see this arch, I am reminded of John 8:36 and also the name of our fourth child - Saorsa.