Solitary Soldier

Yesterday afternoon I drove my scooter over to the local park. I brought along my pet cockatoo as a conversation starter. Before I even got off my scooter, I was greeted by two sets of parents whose kids we teach every Saturday at our Children’s English Club. I exchanged small talk with them for 45 minutes or so as their kids spoke with the cockatoo.

Then an elderly gentleman approached and sat down next to me. We exchanged greetings and a few words of casual conversation. The two couples moved away 5 yards or so almost immediately and continued their conversation with each other in the middle of the courtyard. Why did the parents  gradually move  away?

In the town where I live there is a man who – as far as I know -- lives isolated emotionally and socially from almost everyone in the community. I first met him 6 years ago. We were checking out the viability of this area for a church plant, and I wanted to pay a visit to the old Presbyterian church which was founded here 60+ years ago (It’s housed in a tiny house and has never had more than 7 or 8 adherents—Presbyterian leadership welcomed and encouraged us to come here as they had no leader and no plan for the church at the time).

On that day 6 years ago I knocked on the door and met a kind elderly brother. However, I could hardly understand a word he said. Since then I came to know that he was a soldier in the Kuomintang army which retreated from China after having lost the Chinese Civil War which ended in 1949. His dialect of the Chinese language is very different from those which are spoken here. As far as I know, he has never had any family – other than his own church family in this community.

On an earlier occasion last summer in the same park, we were playing football and frisbee with some other kids we know from the English Club and elementary school. When this elderly brother approached, the kids confided in me they could not understand a word he was saying. So apparently lots of people keep their distance from him. Although I saw no one being rude to him, the situation seemed sad and perhaps a little cruel.

As an international worker with only a high-intermediate level of proficiency in Mandarin, and a low-intermediate grasp of the Taiwanese Hoklo language, I can certainly relate to this gentleman’s situation. I often feel similar feelings of emotional and social isolation, largely due to the cultural and linguistic barriers. Oftentimes people don’t have a clue what I am trying to communicate, or they assume they cannot communicate with me and do not even try. One man even used this language barrier as an excuse to try to steal our church people.

On the other hand, I am fortunate here in that there are a few other foreigners around I can communicate with, as well as a small but growing family of believers we are working with. Furthermore, because we are the only westerners here in this town (and I’m taller than the average Taiwanese) most people are generally friendly to us. We tend to stick out in the crowd! It’s not easy… In summary, let me just say I admire this gentleman’s continuing perseverance and reliance upon His God these 60+ years.

The Relationship Between Prayer And Action

One of the core values of the Christian organization I work for which has based me here in Taiwan is that “PRAYER IS THE PRIMARY WORK OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD.” Here are some reflections on that core value and how it relates to another important topic, namely, ACTION (Most of the thoughts reflected here are not original!)

Prayer without action can be like never putting a vehicle into gear. The engine will keep on running without the car actually going anywhere.  On the other hand, action without prayer is like trying to drive a car without adding any fuel. The car will likewise not go anywhere. A balance has to be struck because prayer and action go hand in hand.

A web article asks if Christians promote prayer over action. Some people have the impression that Christianity tells people to pray for those who are sick or in need at the expense of doing something practical about their needs. This impression is incorrect in two ways: its substance is incorrect, for the Bible teaches us to act as well as to pray, but it also mistakenly assumes that prayer is ineffective. The Bible emphasizes in several places that one must put faith into action by deeds, not just praying or thinking nice thoughts or saying nice things (eg. 1 Jn 3:17-18; James 2:15-17).

Similarly, Jesus' life included both prayer and action. If God meant for us to spend all of our time praying, Jesus would have spent all his time praying for people instead of going out to help and teach them. Although Jesus devoted plenty of time to prayer, it was not the only thing he did. In fact, he taught that we should not pray long redundant prayers (Mt 6:7-8, Lk 20:47).

Why then does the Bible emphasize prayer? When we pray, God is interacting with us and teaching us about Himself, that He loves us and cares for our needs, that He is faithful and will respond when we ask him for what is good (Matt 7:7; Mark 11:24).

Prayer, however, requires action. What do we do after we have prayed? Sit around and wait on God by doing nothing? Sometimes perhaps, but prayer most often demands some kind of action on our part. Is God able to answer our prayers supernaturally? Of course! But since we pray out of faith, true Biblical faith requires action.

If you are praying for God to heal your body, pray, but then do something about it. Go see the doctors and specialists that are out there to help you heal. If you are praying for God to help your church to grow, pray but then do something about it. Similarly if you are praying for God to meet your financial needs, pray, but then do something about it! Seek out successful men and women and get their wise counsel. Sit down and put a financial game plan together. Don’t bide time by doing nothing! Engage in those actions which you believe God would use for His glory. If you are praying for your marriage or for a relationship, pray, but then act! Seek out Godly counsel from your pastor or some other qualified Christian counselor.

To summarize, we are not just praying out of dependence upon God, but out of faith in God. If you really believe something, you will act in faith after you have prayed. That is because God honors our faith. God blesses our faith. We pray in faith, therefore, our prayers require action.

Never forget that prayer is not a passive exercise but an active one. We are active participants in God answering our prayers. It is God who is answering our prayers, but our faith almost always requires us to be involved in that process. Just as James wrote to believers that “faith without works is dead,” so prayer without action is powerless!

All Other Ground is Sinking Sand

In addition to other serious environmental issues caused by the presence of Formosa Plastics, Chiayi and Yunlin (as well as other counties along the western coastal plain of south-central Taiwan) are plagued by the reckless siphoning off of ground water for agricultural (and industrial?) use, with little or no consideration for future generations. The end result of this illegal aquifer over-pumping carries staggering implications (just as it is does elsewhere in the world, as described in books like Plan B 4.0). The land is literally sinking centimeters every year!

I took these pictures last week. I’m no engineer, but it looks like these technicians working under the shadow of Taiwan’s elevated High Speed Rail (HSR) track a few kilometers north of the Chiayi Station are concerned about this issue of sinking land too (Umm, I almost forgot, I used to be an electrical engineer, but that was many moons ago in a land far far away..).

From the pictures one can see what looks like small circular slabs which have been inserted above the square shapes to maintain the original height of the tracks. Anyone out there in blog land know anything more specific about precisely what’s going on?

Below are a few links to recent articles concerning the the threat of sinking earth in relation to the future of the HSR. I wonder which will come first, a major disaster, or the reclaiming of this land by the sea (underneath highway 61 a few kilometers to the west, many tombs can be seen which are underwater these days)? With work like the above going on, I wonder how safe riding this thing actually is???!!!

Sinking earth threatens Taiwan high-speed rail

Taiwan's fast rail saviour offers unpleasant buffer

Taiwan high speed rail 'sinking'

“Taiwan Prattler” Stats

Since Blogger has had stats available on its dashboard for a few years, this post may be nothing new to many of you. Nevertheless, I continue to be amazed at how this free service analyzes my blog’s posts, traffic sources, and audience.

For example, my modestly-viewed blog breaks down all-time pageviews according to countries as follows:

I never would have guessed that Iran would be in the top ten!

Nor would I have been able to guess that 108 of the all-time 146 views from France occurred in the last month:

There’s a list of most-viewed all-time posts (can also break down by month, week, or day). The unmerited controversy raised by the 2nd one below left me feeling a little unsettled at the time:

About 6 hours ago on this Saturday afternoon I sent out an email update to a group of 189 prayer supporters back in the US, Australia, Canada, as well as here in Taiwan. The email included two links to blog articles. I observe from the statistics that those two links have been viewed 13 and 5 times so far today: 

And the people viewing them lived in the following places: 

However, the sum of the posts doesn’t add up to the some of the audience pageviews, leading me to wonder if there might still be a bug in the service?

This article has been viewed 9 times since I published it a few minutes ago. Most of the views have come by way of the facebook graffitti application:

The other statistics speak for themselves. Again, not many people view this blog, but it’s nevertheless interesting to learn where the majority of them are and what kind of browsers and OS’s you use!

Maybe in a few more years the dashboard stats feature will be able to tell us what our blog readers had for breakfast as well as their social security numbers and dates of birth!

2011 Local Temple God Birthday Festival

Today shortly after our Children’s English Class ended a local god parade went by. Friends told me that the 4 or 5 men taking turns standing on the stand were from Taitung in the eastern part of Taiwan. When on two occasions I asked older gentlemen if there was a story or significance behind the event, what I heard them say is that a long time ago someone did something similar in order to ward off evil and bless/protect people.  Sorry I didn’t catch more of their Taiwanese so as to better relate the story to you!

Tonight my ears are still buzzing from the noise even though I  only observed from a distance for a few minutes. As I prepare to sleep, I’m glad that Jesus died and rose again from the dead, that his shed blood protects me from any similar evil that I need warding off from, and for his living presence which blesses me daily.