Saturday, August 20, 2005

Safe Arrival

Hey everybody! Just wanted to update from Taiawan. Me and the rest of the group made it over safely. Thank you all for your prayers as we traveled. The last couple of days have been spent recovering from jet lag, and getting famaliar with the surroudings. The first two nights I woke up in the middle of the night, and then for good at 6 am, because my body told me I should not be sleeping. Today however, I slept until my alarm went off at 8 am. I was never so happy to hear my alarm. It meant I slept through the entire night, and am getting more adjusted to the time change.

We took a bike tour of the city today. On the tour we saw an enormous Taoist temple. The temple was ornate, and interesting to view. At the same time it reminded me of all the work that needs to be done to further the Kingdom in Taiwan. I look forward to seeing how God will work throughout the coming year.



On a practical note, right now my computer access is not as good as I envisioned it to be. This will change in the coming weeks, but my apologies if my blogsite and communication is a little lacking in the mean time.

Prayer requests for the coming days.

Pray that God would prepare hearts and minds of people I will be witnessing to in the coming weeks and months.

Pray that the me and the other eight new missionaries would get over our jet lag and become accustomed to our new home.

4 comments:

sky pilot said...

Hey Mark!
Glad to see you got there safely. I am just trying this out to see how it works. Sleeping til 8 a.m. and STILL needing an alarm clock! What a life!
Dad

ashley said...

Hey Mark! Glad that you and the team arrived safely! I feel like the only one of the 65 that hasn't left yet! anyway, tell everyone "hi" for me! I have tried to get on and post on people's blogs, but my internet access is similar to yours right now. oh well. anyway, i will continue to keep you in my prayers! good luck over there!

Kris said...

I'm so glad that you made it safely...it was a little weird not having you at church starting off the fall semster. My prayers are with you Mark.
God Bless,
Kris

Mark said...

The people at the temple were pretty religious. It is hard to gauge right now. The 3rd or 4th day we were here was a major religious day. It was a "ghost day" where people set up little altars and burned fake money to ghosts/ancestors. These were all over the streets and local shops, and thus it seemed rather prevalent. At the same time, it could have been a social thing like Halloween or Christmas for us.

I have met a couple of buddhists. But have yet to have a serious conversation with them. Still building relatinships, but I do realize that I will have a lot of opportunity in the coming year.