Dear Friends,

About 2 weeks ago, I (Erich) joined a group of guys from our church, and went river tracing south of Taipei. Basically this involved picking your own path following a branch of the Xin Dian river upstream. Sometimes the water was shallow and fast, at other times deep and calm. It was a sunny day, so dipping into the cold water felt great!

Towards the end of our short adventure, we came upon a man-made waterfall. The water below seemed deep enough, so we decided to jump off the edge. It took some courage to make the first jump. But after the initial shock, the water below sure felt great!

This got me thinking about risk-taking. As I thought back on our short missionary career I recounted some of the big risks it took for us to get to the place we are today. Among these are:

• following God's leading to long-term service in Taiwan, instead of North Africa (which very much surprised us, as we're sure it did others too!)
• trusting the Lord to help us raise the support needed to begin our long-term missionary service in Taiwan in just 4 months!
• selling all our belongings except some clothes, books, and laptop, to move halfway around the world to embark on an adventure of loving those different from ourselves

We were not guaranteed success for taking any of these risks. But we know for certain how deeply we would have regretted not having taken them in favor of a more safe and comfortable life.

If you are in the place we were a few years ago, with God asking BIG things of you, take courage! Living in the center of His will is the best place to be, after all - even if getting there feels like jumping off a 30 foot waterfall.

My dad commented on the below video:
"Looks like you had a lot of fun jumping down that waterfall.
  It’s almost a metaphor for the Christian life."

- We couldn't agree more :D

Dear Friends,

In hopes of giving you all a better window into our daily life we have video recorded our daily bike ride to our Chinese school. We apologize up front for the bumpy ride you are about to begin, but hope that riding with us will give you a better idea of our surroundings. Right now we are in Chinese class from 12:00pm - 3:00pm every weekday afternoon, with a few hours of additional homework every day. Studying Chinese at this intensive level is already opening up many doors for ministry among Taiwanese people, and we thank the Lord for our progress!

Thanks for all your prayers and for showing interest in our lives and ministry!

Blessings,
Erich and Kelley

Dear Friends,

We wanted to share some recent prayer requests the Lord has answered with a YES.

Our church is currently in a 40-day prayer and fasting season, which is something we corporately do 3 times a year. This means that each member is encouraged to fast 1 meal a day, and donate the money saved to our church's cafeteria, which serves meals to poor people for free. While the idea of a church-wide fast might seem unusual to our Western mindset, it actually makes a lot of sense here in a collectivist, hierarchical culture. It's refreshing for us to experience such unity in the church body, as it's a great encouragement to fast and pray together.

One of the things we have been praying for during the last few weeks is our finances. As you know, we are $400 under-supported monthly, which always makes itself felt when our tuition payment for our Chinese classes comes around every 3 months. It's about that time again, and we have been praying for the Lord to provide some additional funds to meet this need. Also, our computer is about 4 years old now, and getting very slow, so we were praying for the funds to purchase a new one in the Fall.

You can imagine our excitement when we received notice that one of our supporters had given us a $1,000 gift for our recent Birthday! In addition, another friend gave us a $600 gift! Their generosity makes it possible to pay for our next quarter of tuition. Praise the Lord with us for His kindness - He is a God of power who answers prayer!

As to the computer, our home church in the US, Mount Calvary Church of Elizabethtown, recently gave us $1,000 in extra support towards a new computer. We are so grateful for a church family that cares about the needs of their missionaries!

Thanks to all of you who pray for us regularly, and who give to the Lord's work here in Taiwan!!

Blessings,
Erich and Kelley

Below you'll find a video that gives you a window into Truth Church during their Sunday morning worship time. It's always a joy for us to worship together with our Taiwanese brothers and sisters, and to see their love for Jesus. Most of them have come out of traditional Buddhist backgrounds, so participating in worship with our Taiwanese family in Christ is such a testimony to the transformational power of our Lord. To God be the Glory!

At the very beginning you'll notice the worship leader telling us to say something to the people around us. This is an encouraging part of almost every service. What he says in the video is: "Tell your neighbor: Let's glorify our God together!"

Hi Everyone,

We are happy to report that our site's video content is back online. For those interested in the technical solution, I switched from using Kaltura's video hosting service to using the SWF Tools plugin for Drupal, which allows us to host our video content on our own server.

Thanks for your patience as we got this sorted out, and please check back often for fresh video content :D

Blessings,
Erich and Kelley

Dear friends,

Due to restrictions set by the service we use to host video for this website, our videos are currently not available. I (Erich) am working hard on getting our videos back up and running as soon as possible.

Hope you understand - thanks for your patience!

Dear Friends,

This is just to let you know that our latest prayer update is online. You can access it by clicking here: http://www.crossing7.com/reachtaiwan/content/schindler-update-20100703

Also, feel free to browse our past updates by clicking on the "Past Updates" link on the left-hand menu.

Thanks so much for your interest and support for our ministry here in Taipei!

Erich and Kelley

Dear Friends,

Remember us mentioning a while ago that we had started a recruitment website to call new missionaries to join our ministry here in Taiwan? Well we're proud to announce that our first official 2 missionaries arrived in country just a few days ago. Their names are Robert and Lacey, and they are planning to live in Taiwan and serve with us at Truth Church for the next 3-5 years! Robert recently graduated from Columbia International University in SC, and Lacey is a Toccoa Falls graduate. During the past few days we helped them find an apartment, begin the process of getting cell phones, and start finding their way around Taipei. They are even learning some simple Chinese characters already!

Tomorrow being Sunday, Pastor Moses is taking them along to a daughter church plant of Truth Church, where he is preaching. The reason for Robert and Lacey going along is that they will be teaching an English Bible Club in this small church plant for 5 weeks during the summer. Going with Pastor Moses will give them a good chance to see the church and meet the co-workers that will help them teach the English Club.

We also have another couple living at our house right now, whose names are Ben and Beth. They arrived the same day as Robert and Lacey, and are hoping to teach English while doing ministry here.

Please pray for these two couples to make a smooth transition into the Taiwanese culture, and for them to be open to new challenges as they seek to serve our Lord in Taiwan!

Thanks for your prayers, and for keeping in touch!!
Blessings,
Erich and Kelley

P.S.: To read more about Robert and Lacey, please visit our Crossing 7 Taiwan ministry blog at: http://www.crossing7.com/taiwan.

**written by Kel**
Taipei City is full of Night Markets. Some are big, some are bigger. They best way to describe a Night Market is to picture a ton of food vendors and clothing shops lining narrow streets and then throw in a hoard of people. Some also provide games to play which give it more of a carnival feel. They are the central hub of Taiwan's night life and usually provide one with a good experience. However this past Saturday night I went with two friends to one of the biggest Night Markets in Taipei, Shi Lin Night Market. After throwing baseballs and darts, we decided we were hungry and quickly decided we wanted some Ji Pai (deep fried chicken) and Chua Bing (shaved ice with fruit and condensed milk on top). Great combo, right? Well, it all went down nicely but into the wee hours of Sunday morning we all (unbeknown to each other since we were all in our respective beds) had  the familiar "some-night-market-food-is-making-my-stomach-very-unhappy" feeling set in. First your stomach starts to gurgle. Then the pain starts shooting. Then you know you better hit the bathroom before it's too late. Unfortunately, our choices of deep fried chicken and shaved iced turned out not to be so good and we all wound up with food poisoning, I with the most severe case. Not sure if it was the chicken or the milk poured over our ice was bad. Either way Sunday was rough and only after many trips to the bathroom, sleeping for 16 hours, and re-hydrating my body with fluid did I began to feel better. Oh, the joys of eating in a Night Market. Would I eat there again? Most definitely :)

Shi Lin Night Market

Mango Shaved Ice - yummy!!

Another typical Night Market scene in Taiwan

A huge piece of fried chicken!

Dear Friends,

We wanted to share this video with you. It's from Fabiana, a Taiwanese girl whom we first met while teaching an English Bible club a few years ago. Through the care of Christian friends around her she gave her life to Christ not too long ago. The video was made in appreciation of her friends. We are in a few of the pictures, and thought putting this video up might give all of you an idea of some of the different ministries we have been involved in.

Besides us, some people you might recognize in the pictures are:
- our cell group members Hannah and Julianne, Rhys, and Rosanna
- our pastor's wife Joyce
- Alicia

Here's an approximate translation of the Chinese text at the beginning:

"I have been looking for some kind of truth for a while, but it has never appeared to me.
Once you appeared, fullness of life came."

Enjoy!!

Dear Friends,

This is just to let you know that our latest prayer update is online. You can access it by clicking here: http://www.crossing7.com/reachtaiwan/content/schindler-update-20100601

Also, feel free to browse our past updates by clicking on the "Past Updates" link on the left-hand menu.

Thanks so much for your interest and support for our ministry here in Taipei!

Erich and Kelley

This past week we escaped into the mountains of Taiwan for a 3 day mini vacation. We had a week off of classes, so we took the opportunity to get out of the city and recharge, both physically and spiritually. It was a much needed time, as our daily life is very busy and extended times of rest are often far and few between. The place we stayed was on top of mountain in a little wooden cottage. It was refreshing to not hear the noisy sounds of the city, and to be completely surrounded by nature. The time away provided us with opportunities to read for pleasure, talk and pray together, and get lots of sleep! Below is a short video we made of our time away- enjoy!!

Well, the last 10 weeks have flown by, and it's hard to believe our Spring 2010 Bilingual ALPHA Season is coming to a close next Friday! The great news is that it's just the beginning of a life with Christ for many of our new friends. As the ALPHA course ends, our new friends who are spiritually open are invited into Taiwanese cell groups. We are very excited to see how the Lord is going to keep working in many lives over the next weeks and months. Below is sort of a picture story of last week's Alpha. Enjoy!!

2010_05_21 Alpha Week 9 Erich leading the game, with Calvin translating 2010_05_21 Alpha Week 9 Top acting :D 2010_05_21 Alpha Week 9 Stage performance 2010_05_21 Alpha Week 9 Sharks attack 2010_05_21 Alpha Week 9 Kelley and John performing our weekly ALPHA Skit 2010_05_21 Alpha Week 9 Julianne speaking on "What About the Church?" 2010_05_21 Alpha Week 9 A girls' group listening to Julianne; Calvin translating

Often our blog posts are centered on recent ministry events or language learning. And, while both are those things are important, this time we wanted our blog post to be a little more personable. So, we thought we write about what a day in our life looks like, giving you a window into our world here in Taiwan.

Yesterday, Monday, marked the beginning of a new and busy week, just like everywhere else around the world. Since our weekends are typically very full, Monday is more of our Sabbath day, although we are often still quite busy! After coffee and breakfast at home, our morning was spent writing reports for Chinese class and reviewing characters. This is typical of most mornings, not just Mondays :) We left on our bicycles for class around 11:40p.m., quickly realizing as we stepped outside that summer is fast approaching (we were both quite sweaty after only a 10 min ride!) We made a quick stop at our language school's cafeteria to pick up lunch (which we eat everyday during the two 10-min break periods of class). Yesterday's lunch was from the vegetarian buffet. For $1.20 one can get rice (the healthy purple colored rice!) and their choice of 4 different vegetables or fruit. It is then packed tightly into a paper lunch box, which we then take to class. Our class begins at 12:00p.m. and goes until 3p.m. By the end of the 3hrs., our heads often hurt from all the Chinese!

After class a quick stop was made by the local grocery store to pick up a few items for dinner and to make a dessert for that evening's English cell group, which is held in our apartment. So, after returning home, Kelley quickly got busy in the kitchen and within a couple hours had made a few dozen Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (all baked in an oven about a foot high and wide, with no mixer!) and prepared an Indonesian dish for dinner called "Rin Dong". This dish contains potatoes, carrots, snap peas, onions, all stewed in a special Indonesian sauce then eaten over rice. Yum! While Kelley was cooking, Erich was busy studying, and listening to a seminary lecture.

Our cell group begins at 7p.m. on Monday nights, but between the afternoon and 6:40p.m. we learned that over half our group was either sick or unable to come. So, we met with the 3 who came, but rather than following our typical schedule, we enjoyed an evening of fellowship, brainstorming ideas for when several new people arrive this summer to join us in ministry, and munching on cookies.

Around 9:30p.m. our house was once again empty (our house guest is traveling the island this week!), and we used the time to call the States and talk with some family. The later hours of the evening quickly passed by and before we knew it, it was mid-night, way past our usual bed time!

So, that's what our yesterday was like. Hope it helps give you a better picture of life here!

Dear Friends,

We wanted to share some pictures from last Friday's ALPHA course. The topic for the night was "How Does God Guide Us?". We enjoyed an excellent dinner, which is specially cooked for our ALPHA by our church's cooking staff in the basement cafeteria. Eating together is such a great way to get to know our new friends in ALPHA better. After dinner our British co-worker Hannah led us in a version of Catch-Phrase (see pictures below). This lets everyone move around after dinner and have fun together, using English! Following the game, we enjoyed watching a short English skit, put on by our co-workers Julianne (UK), and John (US). The skit was about searching for God's guidance in making a major life decision. Then our good friend Joanna gave the ALPHA talk for the evening, in which she shared about her personal experience with God's guidance, and how the Bible teaches us to discern God's will in different situations. The last 45 minutes were spent in our small groups, discussing how the ALPHA Talk applied to our lives. From the feedback at the co-worker meeting afterwards we heard many exciting things about how our new friends are opening up to the Gospel!

Thanks for your continued prayers for our ALPHA Ministry! A big prayer request right now is that many of our new friends would be willing to continue meeting together with their ALPHA groups once the season ends in just 3 weeks. Our goal is to have each ALPHA discussion group continue meeting as a regular church small group, in which our new friends can be discipled in a deeper way.

Blessings,
Erich and Kelley

ALPHA Week 7 Big Group ALPHA Week 7 Kelley's Group Playing our ALPHA Game ALPHA Week 7 Kel having fun with her group ALPHA Week 7 Trying to guess the English word ALPHA Week 7 New friends of all ages playing together ALPHA Week 7 Skit time ALPHA Week 7 Joanna giving the ALPHA Talk, with Joyce translating into Chinese ALPHA Week 7 Rhys' Discussion Group ALPHA Week 7 Julianne's Girls' Group ALPHA Week 7 Animated discussion going on in another guys' group ALPHA Week 7 All throughout our meeting the ALPHA Admin co-workers are interceding for us