The 10th week of our ALPHA course marked the end of a wonderful season. Instead of one of us Western co-workers giving an ALPHA Talk, we celebrated all that God had done during the course.

The evening kicked off with the final part of our weekly ALPHA Skit, in which Sam and Jim (played by Julianne and Erich) reflected on how their friendship had grown during the previous 10 weeks of ALPHA. After recalling some of the great times they had together, the skit concluded by Sam sharing about how he has really been affected by Jesus' claims, and inviting Jim to go to church together.

After the Skit we enjoyed a special musical treat - our friends from the Transition Band played two of their songs for us! "Real Dreams" is about a person longing for his/her friend to exchange their 'distorted dreams' for real ones. The message of "Hope is Coming" is that we are worn out of living a shallow kind of faith, and desperately long for true satisfaction - not just for us, but for those around us! Transition had us singing along, pledging ourselves to bring the Hope of the World to others.

Next Rhys had us all get out of our seats, and play a crazy game in which we had to pretend to be different animals competing against each other in playing "Paper, Scissors, Stone". The more people you beat, the higher you evolved, from an egg to a chicken, to a monkey, and finally to a T-Rex! It only took a few minutes of frenzied competition until we had a horde of T-Rexs roaming around the room. Great times :D

Kelley led the next activity, which was designed to lead into our small group discussion time. She placed stacks of sticky-notes on each group's table, and had us writing notes of encouragement to others, then sticking those notes on their back! After a while everyone's backs were covered in messages of encouragement, which we then shared in our discussion group time.

ALPHA Week 10 ended with an extra long discussion group time, in which we could encourage each other, share about our ALPHA experience, and plan how to continue meeting in the future.

ALPHA is over - what now?

There are several ways we can keep discipling our new friends. Often our new friends from ALPHA are simply invited to join the church cell group led by their ALPHA Course group leader. That way they already know at least one person in a Truth Church cell group, and can integrate smoothly. If several members of an ALPHA group are all willing to continue meeting, their ALPHA group leader can just continue meeting as a church cell group with these members.  Many times the ALPHA co-workers will also meet with a new friend from ALPHA one-on-one to lead them through our church's "New Life Book", which teaches basic Christian doctrine, and leads up to baptism.

For those new friends from ALPHA who either don't have the time to continue meeting regularly, or who simply aren't spiritually ready yet, the ALPHA co-workers will stay in touch with them, and invite them to church outings, meals, etc...

Please pray for us!

Overall it was a great season, in which we touched the lives of over 100 non-believing friends! We co-workers learned a lot, and have lots of new ideas to improve the next season (starting in October 2010).

Even though this season is over, please continue praying for our team of Western co-workers at Truth Church. Some things you can pray for are:

• We need to preserve unity as our numbers grow (altogether we're at around 16 people now!), and our cell group transitions into a larger fellowship.
• As our numbers grow, so will our opportunity for service. We are praying about other ways besides ALPHA to reach out to the community of Westerners living and working in Taipei. We need to receive direction from the Lord before we can go forward.

This week’s Alpha was all about hearing from God and acting upon it. Following another delicious meal from the cooking team at Truth, the groups played a game of Catch-Phrase, led by Hannah. Afterwards, Julianne and John presented a sketch in which Julianne’s character, Sue, talked about a new car she was desperate to  which buy, but about which she had some misgivings. This led nicely into Joanna’s talk about how God guides us in our everyday lives.

The daughter of missionaries, Joanna first experienced God’s guidance through her parents’ decision to move to another

continent (an event that would recur a number of times throughout her childhood). She then discussed different ways in which God shows us his will for our lives (e.g. the Bible, the counsel of brothers and sisters, our circumstances, or direct revelation) and talked about how she learned to experience God’s guidance for herself. As it happens, a number of us foreign co-workers have had to make some big personal decisions in the last week, so Joanna’s talk couldn’t have been more timely!

The discussions that followed were lively and interesting, and the table leaders afterwards reported that many participant were becoming very open to the Gospel. Let’s keep on praying that God gives them the courage and faith to commit to a life lived for Christ!

On the weekend of the 1^st/2^nd May, over sixty Alpha participants and co-workers set off for a Christian conference centre on the beautiful northern coast of Taiwan. Since we had planned a number of outdoor activities we prayed that the weather would be neither too not, nor too cold. God gave us the ideal combination, and that Saturday we were able to enjoy a mild, sunny afternoon at the beach.

The weekend started off with us playing games and singing praises to God during a refreshingly energetic time of worship, before Pastor Moses gave the first of a series of four talks on the Holy Spirit – the theme of the retreat. Further talks from Moses and his wife Joyce followed, with a time for discussions in our small groups afterwards. This was a good opportunity for our non-Christian friends to reflect on and ask questions about what they had heard and experienced over the weekend.

In between the talks there were regular intervals for food and games. Kelley and Joanna organised a series of relay races, which involved getting a ball from one side of the “pitch” to the other in bizarre ways (e.g. two people had to run back-to-back with the ball wedge between their two bodies!). Julianne’s game, which involved opening a bar of chocolate and eating it using only a pair of chopsticks, understandably went down well too.

Following the Saturday evening talk, there was an extended time of prayer and worship, in which God spoke clearly and powerfully to many people. At the same time, a number of people commented that they really felt at peace during this time. Following the Sunday morning talk, there was a time for testimonies. One man said that before coming to the weekend, he had been very sceptical about Christianity and indeed any kind of faith. He then shared that the Holy Spirit, and the love of the brothers and sisters around him, had really opened him up to the possibility of belief. Please keep praying for him. Another woman had felt very guilty about coming to the weekend, as it would mean spending time away from her children, but in fact she felt the Holy Spirit reassuring her, and bringing healing to areas of her life that needed to be dealt with.

This week at Alpha we looked at the role of prayer. John S. gave a wonderfully anecdotal talk on what prayer is and why it's important. One story that particularly stood out was that of a young academic John knew, who was a virtual genius (she graduated from University at sixteen and was given an award by the President of America for her work), but still felt lonely and insecure. She did not used to be a believer, but decided to carry out a number of "prayer experiments" which were answered in very concrete ways, which led to her becoming a follower of Christ. Another involved a friend who had lost his notebook whilst travelling in the countryside with the names and addresses of all the people he knew, in the days when people didn't have mobile phones or computers as back up. There was no way of getting hold of it, but he and his friends had faith enough to pray. Lo and behold, in the next few days the notebook was posted to his house.

John's talk made a real impression on many of those who attended, and his wonderful examples led other Christians to share with their friends personal stories of how God had answered their prayers in powerful, concrete ways. I think some of the seekers who attended found this refreshing and surprising to hear. One girl joked that she always called her university supervisor "God" because he was "unreachable". Please pray that she and others discover that God knows her better than anyone else in the world and always hears her prayers. In fact, her group is praying for a specific problem that she is facing - please pray that she sees God's power and amazing love in this situation, and that other seekers who have given prayer requests would see very definite answers to these prayers.

Looking back at the last few weeks, we can be really grateful to God for the way in which he has very evidently guided each of the speakers, for the many friendships that have been built and are deepening, and for unity among the co-workers which has enabled us to work well to bring all the different aspects of the Alpha course together, and pray for our new friends with one heart and one purpose. It's brilliant to observe!

What can you do in twenty seconds? People who attended the fourth week of Alpha had a chance to find out in the “twenty second game”, which saw the group members swapping clothes, dancing like chickens and feeding their referees whatever food they could lay their hands on (even if that was a teabag!).

The skit that followed saw Adam taking on the mantle of the conflicted Jim, whose passionate feelings for his objet d’amour appeared somewhat less convincing when we found out he had yet to talk to the girl in question. Exasperated, his interlocutor, played by the beguiling Julianne, asked how he could possibly have a relationship with someone he never talks to. The theme of this short sketch, penned by Rick, led seamlessly on to Hannah’s talk, which dealt with the issue of faith.

Hannah likened faith to a marriage relationship. How do you know whether you have faith? Well, like a marriage certificate, the Bible is written proof of God’s promises to us. Just as a marriage takes place on a certain date in history, so history tells us how Jesus died and rose from the dead so that we might have new life. And just as a husband and wife experience marriage – the wedding vows lived out – so the Holy Spirit works in us realising the promises of God. Hannah also shared powerful stories of how God has worked in amazing ways in her own life, and the lives of others. A number of people attending commented that Hannah’s examples really spoke to them, especially since everyone has had experience of relationships, whether with other people or with God.

The Alpha weekend is coming up soon, when we’ll travel to the seaside for a couple of days to learn about the Holy Spirit in particular. Many of the non-believers attending have expressed interest in going. This will be a fantastic opportunity for them to experience more of what it means to follow Jesus, and for us to spend time getting to know them. Please pray that many people can make it, and that they really encounter God’s glory and love on this weekend.