May The King Come Soon to Four Lakes

Next Tuesday through Thursday our rented truck will proclaim a theme in colloquial Taiwanese in keeping with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem in the days leading up to his suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection from the dead:

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea. --Zech 9:9

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices shouting in heaven: “The world has now become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.”--Rev 11:15

Copyright permission was obtained for the colorful print above by  Keni Arts, as well as the rights to use the  majestic song “You Sit on the Throne” by River of Life Christian Church Music Ministries (click below to listen).

 

Happy Easter!

While I hope we have the time soon to put together a more generic recording that can help people here understand the larger biblical context for the resurrection and kingship of Jesus Christ, I nevertheless feel that getting something out is better than doing nothing this time of year—our most important holiday! May we have something else for next time that can be used multiple times throughout the year!

Happy Easter to everyone reading this blog as you earnestly await His Second Coming in glory.

Sharing Appropriately While Serving the Community with Excellence

Yesterday while waiting to get in to see the doctor, I was once again impressed by the modern facilities at the new Chiayi Christian Hospital building which opened a year or so ago across the street from the older facility.

Outside this faith-based hospital, you will not find cultish missionaries riding their bicycles around and around in squares at stop light intersections pretending to be going somewhere in order to pounce upon unsuspecting victims (you know who I mean if you’ve lived in Taiwan for any period of time). Neither will you find well-intentioned evangelical Christian workers approaching you to directly share a gospel tract (there are, however, proper venues for this). Or Christians who pressure you into saying a prayer as you wait to see your doctor. Rather, at Chiayi Christian Hospital, what you do find is first-rate medical service which gives glory to God primarily by doing just that: “offering high-quality medical care and holistic care” (as emphasized by their founder back in 1958).

While the hospital’s principle mission is to glorify God by being a good hospital, it does not shrink from sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ as appropriate. In this regard, most evident and impressive to me in the new facility are all the large flat screen TVs one finds in multiple locations in front of every  outpatient service waiting area.

In one small square of the screen is health information, in a smaller rectangle the date and time, and in another a separate scrolling message. The majority of the screen, however, is devoted to programming from Taiwan’s Christian TV station, Good TV.

Some of the programming might appeal more to upper middle class Christians whose ancestors came over from mainland China many years ago as opposed to grassroots Taiwanese. And yes, the guy who sang the Beatles’ song “Yesterday” so passionately in English on the tube last night probably did not connect in a spiritually-meaningful way with anyone at the hospital  (including me)! Nevertheless, I did note that some of the programming seemed oriented to the elderly, grassroots Hoklo speakers who  were sitting all around me. This is huge because many of those waiting ---some  were probably illiterate – were intently tuned into the singing and especially the stories and personal testimonies. 

How does this relate to us in our community as we wait on Jesus to plant His church? I want to continue to include a Christian song, bible story and a brief prayer near the end of our weekly Children’s English Club in order for kids to be able to know and relate to Jesus, His Spirit, and our Father in heaven in their native languages.  However, I do not want to give anyone in the community the opportunity to accuse us of proselytizing  by manipulating kids into raising their hands to pray to know Jesus as part of games we offer, by using the appearance of teaching English while not actually teaching it (or teaching very very little), etc.

If a parent sends their child to us, I want them to know up front that  they can trust us with him or her. Christian content in their native tongue will be a small part of the total package, but the larger product is intended to immerse their child into the holistic English speaking environment of games, singing, and story-telling (however amateur we are as teachers or for however brief the time).

Back at the hospital, if someone is a devout Buddhist or Daoist, they can choose to go to another hospital or to sit further away from the television sets on the walls. Similarly, if someone does not want their child exposed to the brief Christian content we offer every week, they can choose to send their kid elsewhere and tell their child not to partipate in the prayer, etc. However, for those who do choose to allow their children to come and participate, we can be used of God to influence entire families incrementally closer to Christ.

If we can teach English with excellence, then God  ultimately gets the glory—both in our Children’s English Club activity as well as in the lives of the children and their families. And if we ever have the chance to start a more traditional “Good News Club”—but promote it as being precisely  that--- then Lord Jesus, in the words of Jean-Luc Picard, please “Make it so!”

Powerpoint to Video Conversion

This evening I spent an hour or so playing around converting a powerpoint 2010 presentation with embedded audio and video to video which might be posted on the internet for others to view. For comparison purposes, I tried two different methods:

1. The first method involved (1) saving my powerpoint  2010 slides as “jpeg file interchange format” instead of as a powerpoint presentation. Then I(2) copied the slides in one fell swoop over to Windows Live Movie Maker, (3) added a song, for which I then (4) under “project” fitted the slides to the music with one simple click (I didn’t bother to add the extra video at the end, but this would have been a simple matter of copying over since that’s what movie maker is known for in the first place). Here are the results published directly to youtube from moviemaker:

2. A handy service called authorstream allowed me to directly upload the powerpoint presentation without fretting the details. It handle the conversion itself and allows posts to facebook, etc. although it didn’t place the audio and video quite right. It also lost page transitions. Still, not bad! You can view the results for yourself:

western yunlin four lakes work

More PowerPoint presentations from Mark

Conclusion: Either way gets the job done, although there are different loose ends which need to be tied up (not done here) depending upon which path one chooses. I think I still prefer method 1, however.

True Prosperity

The True Jesus Church, according to Wikipedia, is a “non-denominational Christian church that originated in Beijing, China in 1917.”  Here in Taiwan, some say the True Jesus church denomination (it has many churches) is  a pseudo-Christian cult since the very name itself implies that other groups do not know the “true Jesus”, belong to the “true” church, etc. I have only had limited experience with its adherents (mostly  children living temporarily in a tent city with their families in DongShi, Taichung county after Taiwan’s notorious 921 Earthquake), so I will not comment further about this here.

However, over the years I have often driven by the True Jesus Church along the intersection of ChongHua and GongYuan Roads in Taichung City. Finally yesterday I was able to take a picture:

Here’s a close-up of the poster, which has always caught my attention in light of the context (others have probably written about this in years past as well):

In the bible verse quoted above, Job 22:21 says: “Submit to God and be at peace with him;  in this way prosperity will come to you.”

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, someone failed to notice that the one making the statement in the statement above was Job’s poison-dart throwing “comforter” Eliphaz the Temanite. I remember as far back as high school being told by my English teacher, that, when reading Job, be careful to note who is saying what!

At the end of the book, after the LORD speaks to Job, he says to Eliphaz the Temanite: “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7). Unfortunately, this group has unknowingly posted a statement over their main entrance about prosperity which comes from the mouth of someone who misrepresented God’s truth.

What does the bible say about blessing and prosperity? For one, it’s in a Person and not our possessions. Here are some statements coming from places in the Good Book the veracity of which no one would doubt:

Taste and see that the LORD is good;  blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. (Ps 34:8)

Praise the LORD.  Blessed are those who fear the LORD, who find great delight in his commands. (Ps 112:1)

May you be blessed by the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. (ps 115:15)

Jesus said: "I have come that [you] may have life, and have it to the full." (John 10:10)

And finally, Jesus said: 
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴ Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
⁵ Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
⁷ Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Let’s seek God instead for this kind of prosperity, as difficult and agonizing as it may sometimes sound.

Noisy Birds

It’s been a while since I blogged, and even longer since I wrote anything about my three pet birds “Precious” the Quaker parakeet (Monk Parakeet) from South America, “Sek-khia” the Indian Ringneck from, um, India, and “Frank-Frank” the Ducorps Cockatoo from the Solomon Islands. The clip below captures a moment of their lively speech earlier today (some of the background noise filtered out). All three birds contributed, although Precious usually has less to say:

Thankfully one set of neighbors is only home at night…

Which of the following phrases can you detect in the above recording?

1. Argh! A roach! A! U Kā-Choa̍h！ 阿！有蟑螂！ (In Taiwanese)

2. How are you? Nǐ hǎo!你好！ (In Mandarin Chinese)

3. You are so cute! Nǐ hǎo kěài! 你好可愛 (this phrase taught by previous owner- Mandarin Chinese)

4. Don’t sleep! Mài khùn 不要睡 (Taiwanese)

5. “Precious” BǎoBeì 寶貝 (Mandarin)

6. I love you! (English)

7. Hello! (English)

Unfortunately, due to the annoying frequency of the first phrase above, I probably cannot ask my friends at the restaurant to take care of my birds next time I am away from home. Wish I had thought of that before I taught “Frank-Frank!” to say it!

Speaking of “Frank-Frank”  the Cockatoo, here are some basic tricks (shake hands, turn around, wave goodbye) I taught him  recently. He learned each one in about 10 minutes: