July 2nd-6th:
Something that I didn't fully realize and comprehend until I was back in the states was the way my spirit connected with the worship songs. All of the worship songs were in Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese. Worshiping to songs where you do not understand the words simply because they are in another language is very different than when you can understand the words. Understanding allows your mind to decide what is important for you or not as well as to tune out from the meaning of the song. When you have to depend on feeling the Holy Spirit inside of you and what he is emphasizing for you, it removes any hindrances you may put up. I didn't realize until I got back to the States and would hear the worship songs in English, recognizing their tunes, and hearing the Taiwanese/Chinese in my head the meaning of the song. I then realized that the meaning was exactly what I was feeling as I was dancing and worshiping in Taiwan! Needless to say, it brought many tears to my eyes here in the States realizing how much Jesus loves me and cares about me and how near he is to my physical frame that he could talk to me through words and music I could not understand linguistically.
This also happened when we would dance. For the harp and bowl sessions (basically like a 2 hour set in the prayer room where it cycles from worship to prayer to worship to prayer) we would dance. We divided the room up into 4 sections so each section followed a person on stage. It was really cool to see the whole room dancing together or in groups! Several Taiwanese leaders would come up to us and be like, "You won't believe it, but when they were singing, you were doing those exact movements to match those words! How did you know what they were singing?" It was cool to see the Spirit using our dance as well without us even knowing.
Since the conference was in Taiwanese, we would typically grab one of the 222 student leaders and have them translate the announcements, sermon, prayer facts, alter calls, etc....One time I had 2 people translating! =) The speaker was preaching in Taiwanese, so one girl was translating into Mandarin. The next girl was translating the Mandarin into English. It was pretty funny to see us sitting in a line playing telephone. =) Each day we were busy dancing, serving, helping, praying, hanging out, and loving on the kids from 7am to about 11pm or later. It was a tiring, but really good, week. We even got to share some. Jenna shared her testimony during one of the sessions about purity. Many of the kids related to her story and came up for prayer. It was powerful! Most of our meals consisted of the 7/11 gas station convenient store foods or what they call box lunches. It's a box that has rice, a type of meat, and 2 or 3 veggies in it. Super yummy!!!
One of the really cool memories I have is of us dancers waiting on stage for our music to start for one of our evangelistic performances. The kids were cheering and screaming at the top of their lungs because by this point they had grown to be friends with us and loved seeing us dance. That feeling of tempting power and fame and popularity was so close and it was a very tangible, scary presence too! As I groaned inwardly and every part of me wished that Jesus would cause them to stop clapping for us and stop seeing us as famous and popular, I realized that all of us dancers were all praying under our breath. It was really a blessing to see that Jesus was the main desire of our hearts and our main goal was that they would see Jesus in us and not see us at all. It was so cool to see that our hearts were united in the same goal and reach, joined by the Holy Spirit inside of us.
We arrived back in Tainan on Friday evening (5th) and returned to the Huang house to gather our laundry and pack. Saturday (6th) after a quick debriefing with the Living Waters leadership we left on the high speed rail for Taipei, Taiwan due to having such an early flight on Sunday (7th) for Korea and then New Zealand. Taiwan is so dear to my heart! I love the Chinese/Taiwanese people groups and I love the people of Taiwan. I miss seeing my friends, laughing and hanging out with them. Being in Taiwan and among people where my heart feels so at home, made it difficult to leave. But I know eventually, in God's timing, I'll be back in Taiwan. Jesus, release your presence over Taiwan. Touch the Living Waters Church, All Nations, and the kids that got saved. God, visit Taiwan with a mighty wave of glory and revival. Let them join in saying, "Come Lord Jesus!"
I didn't want to get locked out because my room mate was in the shower,
so I was laying all comfy half-in/half-out of my room. =)
Everyone would sit on the luggage one behind them
so it made a train and the last person was pushing them all.
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