2004-05-16

May 16, 2004

Jackie & Fran Bell
With the IMB in Taipei, Taiwan
“That All Peoples May Know Him???
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Dear Family & Friends,

Your prayers have surely supported us over the past few months. We appreciate so much how we get an occasional word, learning how some of you pray for us daily, some of you pray for us weekly in a group, and some of you pray often, just because you love us!

We are in our final two weeks of BSF, and we both admit we are ready for the break. Although we will miss the weekly contact with our Chinese brothers and sisters, we know the break from a committed ministry like BSF will be used to refresh both them & us and to bring us back fully charged for next fall’s study of Acts & the Apostles. The Israel & Minor Prophet study has been a challenge to our friends as they study in a second language, but it has been a challenge to us too as we seek to teach practical applications from this study. We look forward to hearing the many testimonies on Share Day, as they each will have an opportunity to share how the study of God’s word has impacted their lives and drawn them closer to God.

As for our Chinese Language Study Classes: Jackie studies 6 hrs a week, and me, well… I have only been able to take on 4 hours a week. However our summer sessions will begin soon and we both will take 10 hours of class each week. Please pray that we would learn and be able to practice what we learn & hopefully it will stick. We are both challenged, as our hearing doesn’t quite catch all the tones, which makes a lot of the words sound like duplicates to us.

Recently I was asked to speak at a little church that has a different guest speaker each week. The fellowship has only been gathering about a year. They are mostly Chinese who have lived in the USA recently. They have now returned to their homeland – here in Taiwan, yet their children were raised in the US and only speak English. We visited several weeks ago to get a feel for the congregation and enjoyed those we fellowshipped with over lunch. Then on Mother’s Day, I shared a message that God laid on my heart after they had assigned me the topic “love???. Again, after the service we had a great time of fellowship over lunch with some of our new friends. We would love to become a part of that little fellowship, but it isn’t very close and weekly involvement seems impractical. I admit, being so busy on Mother’s Day helped make the day easier, as holidays are the most difficult to be away from family. We did get to speak to Paige and Travis and both our Mom’s that weekend, and they are all doing well.

Surprise! Both of us recently applied for and passed the test for a Taiwan Drivers License! That’s right, we can get out there on the streets with all those scooters and buses and pedestrians and try to make our way through the maze of tall buildings. For our maiden voyage, we set out a couple of weekends ago and went south to Taichung, one of the other heavily populated cities on the island. The mission has several older model cars and the one assigned to us overheated, which prolonged the return trip. Thankfully, Jackie being mechanically minded was able to keep it running for our journey. The car overheated just as we arrived, so we made it just fine, and stayed overnight in our mission’s guest housing. The Courson Family (fellow missionary friends) fed us and showed us around for a great time. We visited the Taichung Bureau of Culture Folklore Park and museum. It always helps us understand the culture when we visit historical cites. We attended a Chemistry presentation by the science students at Morrison academy, and later in the evening we visited a beautiful new city park situated high above the city for some city light views. The high light of the trip was to visit a church started by the mission’s student ministry. The locals are newly trained and have stepped into leadership roles. We enjoyed the bi-lingual worship in song because they had the words written out in Pinyin – the Romanization that we are currently studying. We didn’t understand all the words, but we could pronounce the words and that was very encouraging to us. We knew the words were about our Lord, so we were able to worship in song with the local people and our fellow missionaries. One of the new believers gave her testimony how God has turned her life around. It was her birthday and she was rejoicing because one of her friends had accepted Christ and was to be baptized that day. We had heard that they normally baptize in the bathtub of one of the student missionaries but this day they handled it a little differently; they used a local indoor public pool for this baptism. We tagged along and were blessed as we observed the negations for the use of the pool, then to hear scripture read by several students (in Chinese) and then to observe from a second floor deck as this new believer was baptized – making a public proclamation of her faith in Jesus Christ. When she came up out of the water – she was smiling such a joyful expression! This is just a glimpse of the work that many of our mission personal are involved in throughout Asia, and we are reminded how we are blessed to be a part of the logistical support team that frees others to be involved in frontline ministry. Praise God for his Spirit’s movement on this side of the world!

Again, we appreciate your prayers. Here’s some new ways to pray:
• Stamina to finish BSF responsibilities to the praise of God’s glory – Jackie teaches 3 seminars this week
• Renewed energy/focus for June responsibilities towards the annual East Asia personnel budget requests
• Guidance for involvement with locals for the summer
• Divine Intervention – enabling us to progressively learn Chinese

We hope all is well with you and we would love to know how we could be in prayer for you.

To the praise of His glory,
(Ephesians 1:11-16)
Love,
Jackie & Fran