My last blog I left off at the beginning of Taiwan and fully investing myself to life in Gods Kingdom. That blog and coming up to that blog was not an easy process. I’ve learned so much these past four months. So many revolutions and eye openings. My heart has been set free and on fire. Every step of the way matters including getting to where your going. We lived with 20 people in a three bedroom place for a week or so. We left Taipei City and moved to New Taipei. We get off the train waiting for our host Rich to pick us up. He texts my team leader and says he just had a grandson born right when we get there. So beautiful, so we wait at the station. We went to a Taiwan hospital to visit the baby later! This is the first time we have been together as a team. Just me, Jordan, Leah, Heidi, and Ari. Wandering Children is our team name, we came up with it at training camp. We’re sitting at the train station and I look around like man I don’t know how I feel about this. I’m with people I don’t even know if I like or am comfortable with. We do a “feedback session” witch in the world race we do often. At the time I thought it was terrible idea and hated it. It’s calling each other higher by saying things people need to improve on and encouraging each other. Rich picks us up we go to our place and it’s a very spacious place. Lots of room and I feel very comforted by that. We meet the father of the baby that night awesome guy named Matthew. We get settled in and do more team involvement activity learning what kind of ministry we’ll be doing. I feel an awkwardness in our team, I always felt so insecure about being a “baby Believer”. I didn’t believe in the cross till mid Japan. I normally stay quiet, and every now and then come out of my shell. I open up to the team with my smoking/chewing addiction I ended right when we left for Japan. Letting them know helped me so much, it took away many temptations. I start opening up a little more and more. We work with a church that is in three different city’s one Being called Fulong Church. We played dodgeball with kids, teach English, and run church services. We got to pray over a cancer patient. So impactful and beautiful. Our relationships with the family’s of the church are like a family to me. I loved everyone even though I was struggling. It was amazing learning how to live in Gods kingdom. Missions is not just volunteer work. It’s a huge kingdom. Volunteering is just a spiritual discipline. There is so much more to missions and Gods revolving World he created. Getting to know these people at this time in my journey was beautiful. I love everyone of them. So beautiful. I felt dumped most of the time and can’t seem to find rhythm. I feel like my team is so individualistic and I don’t feel like I’ll ever get them. I’m reading scripture everyday and learning. I listen to more podcasts. I start to come alive and working out everyday. I feel something changing inside of me. We are doing so many awesome, amazing, huge things in these city’s. We meet Milu and she was working for the church. She was a beautiful spark of life. It was just an awesome group of people from Joesph, the son of Rich. That boy was hilarious. To all the kids in the church family. We became a little family over our time being there. Milu took us for an awesome hike and it was so cold and rainy. There was a cop at the top telling us to go down because the wind was so wild! Such a great memory. I bought a pair of rollerblades back in Taipei and I do some of my best thinking on wheels. I feel like I’m at a breaking point in Taiwan, I know something has got to give. I’ve always had been struggling to find any sort of balance to my life. I keep searching into this God I didn’t quite come to know yet. I’m also getting pounded with the best information a man could ask for. It was so beautiful and so hard at the same time. I felt like I got lit up when I heard something in church, scripture, podcasts that kept me involved. I was starting to get what this was all about! My heart is changing and I can feel it. I keep digging and digging and feel lighter every time I hear God’s voice or a message becomes clear. So beautiful. I had gotten lunch with a girl I had a very rocky relationship with before I left. We we’re still talking and very much soul tied. I knew if I wanted freedom I would have to let her go. I keep listening and I ask my team leader JD what he thinks. He says if it feels like you need to and it’s holding you down. I thought I have to be ready to let go and I feel it’s right. My emotions are all over the place and twisted. I do it and make a very hard phone call that breaks me. I don’t even know how or what to feel. Me and her had conversations like this before, and this one I know is real. I sit on it and all day and night I can’t know what to think. She has an amazing heart and I know this is the best for both of us. She is going to do incredible works in her life. I wake up to a workout and scripture the following day. I haven’t been real with my team and really fully involved. We are at a meeting and I word vomit everything that is going on l. That I am going through a breakup, addiction withdrawals, and letting them in on my feelings. It was like a 20 pound weight lifted off my chest. It was either choose God or live in my own world of repetition. I kind of dwell on it for a day still trying to find a rhythm for my life. We keep doing church services and activities with Rich. It’s very easy to open up in a place full of believers searching for God as well. I’m starting to get things that are coming back to me. I was still living off my own flesh and trying to run my own life. As the week ends it becomes easier and easier. Taiwan is beautiful. I love the food in Taiwan. We eat like the locals and they have amazing food. One of my favorite parts of the World Race is that we visit these places that a far away from tourist areas. There is literally Gold lit up in these streets. Praying for all the streets that God brings light to the darkness. I’m also struggling because I live off the budget and we get $5 USD a day. We can get out spending money but, I feel God calling me to keep solid to the ride. It was a great decision. I slowly start to come to more and more of who God is and who I am. God is lighting me up. The more knowledge I have the more I fall into God. I start asking questions and at a church service we see another team who was in a different part of the city. I see my squad leader JD and tell him I’m deciding to choose God over myself. He tells me that’s awesome and I should look into getting baptized and doing a deliverance prayer. The next two days I go to church and find out that there’s a baptism next week, and he asks if anyone in the church wants to go. I feel my heart beating and I stand up and tell Rich I want to. When I thought of getting baptized I thought of a little something at the end church that a baby did. I go through the week and we went for hikes, walks, clean the church, and prepare food for after church. Saturday night I do a deliverance prayer witch is calling on any spirits holding you down in your body. That was a wild ride so much brought up and lifted. I come to Sunday I don’t feel ready to get baptized because I don’t really know. I was suppose to get baptized in the ocean. It was raining and people in Taiwan think there hair will fall out if rain lands on there heads. We do it inside and I do it with a guy that is my age and has the same past as I do it seems. So beautiful. We we’re both searching and I felt a connection to this man. I give a speech on why I’m coming to God. I had no idea that a baptism was such a big impact when you do it later in life. I’m with my squad leader JD so I step closer to the water and it’s freezing. I mumble a little cuss word, and writing this about a month or two later coming to realize that was the last time I really swore. God is forgiving! I am fully ready at that point I feel in my heart that I am ready. I do it, and feel so much relief. It was a big day. The next couple days pass and before I know it we’re packing up and leaving for Hong Kong. I’m coming a live in my heart and start feeling like I’m ready to come out of the stresses of this world.
God is so Good!
