A whole month's worth of update

Ah, my readers! How long has it been? You’ve grown! Just kidding. You’ve probably gotten a haircut though. Probably. Unless, of course, you didn’t get a haircut.

A lot can happen in a month. The moon can go around the Earth once, you can listen to 4 new Sunday sermons at EBCB, you can eat something like 90 meals at regular intervals, you can read through the letters to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, both to the Thessalonians, and one to Timothy at the MacArthur recommended read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year pace, you can count to something like 1.3 million, and, if you are a photon of light, you can travel 483 quadrillion or so miles. Point being: a lot can happen in a month.

Work.
I’ve come to realize that the place I work at is, in many ways, a very obvious blessing. As far as I can tell, nothing really shady goes on. Wages are paid on time and are taxed, things go through levels of administrative accountability including hours worked, there is some mutual encouragement and help between the workers, etc. In fact, it’s pretty impossible to be shady because there are security cameras installed in every room and hallway of the school that record all activity all day long. The real-time display is available for anyone to see.



Since last month, I’ve committed to reducing my preparation time each day to 2 hours each day in the morning before class. There have been several barely successful instances of me having to prepare for lessons in less than 20 or so minutes, but, I think I would ideally allocate a chunk of time in order to strive to be a more than satisfactory teacher. All this, of course, is a recent development. Until recently, I thought very little of anything besides trying to survive. Praise God for answering your prayers in such a way and helping me adjust!

There is probably little more that is as encouraging for a teacher as receiving praise from your students (although this is not always the case).



Along with being more keen about my responsibilities at work regarding work itself, I’ve been beginning to consider, a bit more thoroughly, how I can witness to my co-workers actively. This is not at all pie because I’m kind of an oddball in terms of my background. I’m not exactly Taiwanese (all the Chinese co-teachers are) and I’m definitely not Caucasian and from Canada or New Zealand (like all the English teachers are). Plus, I’m pretty much halfway (in terms of age) between the students and the other teachers.

But who cares right? Well, a bit of spiritual pride mixed with seemingly good intentions amounted to a heated debate with a co-worker of mine a few weeks ago. Let’s say his name is Gary. Honestly, I was slightly shocked by my first lengthy conversation with him. Being around Taiwan folk for awhile, I did not expect to witness such direct attacks on the Christian faith. He is totally convinced and openly blatant about how Christianity and the Christian church is stupid. Having studied acting at the university level, he is also a very animated and expressive man – which adds to the intimidation factor.

Well, like all things, God has turned what I thought I had messed up into good. I have now been able to meet with Gary every Monday for half hour or so each time to discuss things over coffee. In particular, he asked me how a university graduate such as I (assuming that I am relatively educated) could believe in God. Seriously. How much closer of an opportunity am I going to get to “give an account for the hope that is in [me]?”

With this great opportunity I was also greatly challenged to refine my apologetic and examine the convictions upon which it is based. I’m a very prideful person when it comes to defending the faith. I can say that I’ve put a lot of trust in my own roundabout ways of trying to prove that God exists, using evidential arguments. Many times, I think I can easily deceive myself into thinking that I can have rational intelligibility apart from God – that there somehow is a higher independent absolute standard to evaluate and analyze God and find that He is real. In the end, I have changed my thinking. Finally, what I’ve learned in ET2 has kicked in and I’m realizing that though evidential arguments can be valid and useful, the truth is that the fear of God is the absolute beginning of knowledge and that the world and anyone who foolishly tries to prove God apart from God will ultimately find themselves in total absurdity.

I know that a lot of you may be feeling a bit timid towards some of your more outspoken and anti-Christian co-workers – and I’m not saying to go looking for a fight – but when people question your faith you better be ready to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. It is not us that have compromised intellectually but them! We must strive to glorify God and love Him with all our minds by defending His infinite honor and glory. Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar!

Please pray for me, in this respect, that I would be able to glorify God with my mind and my actions while sharing with Gary. My ultimate goal is, of course, to bring the discussion to a point where the gospel can be shared effectively so pray for wisdom and complete reliance on God's power to save!

These are some of the resources that I've been drawing from:
Paul’s letter to the Romans - infallible text
The Great Debate - Bahnsen vs. Stein
Greg Bahnsen’s debate with Dr. Tabash - a good follow-up to the Great Debate
“Why Bertrand Russell should have been a Christian” – an excellent essay response to Bertrand Russell’s “Why I am not a Christian”
A reason for the hope – A 3 part lecture series by Greg Bahnsen


Family.

In other news, my Dad went back home and my mom came! [edit: and left] A few days ago, my dad surprised me: my aunt with whom my dad had been staying the 6 or 7 weeks he was here had made a verbal profession of faith! Please pray that God would grow her faith and that her profession would prove to be genuine despite the decades of tradition and secular thought in her mind.

Also, please pray for me as I try to spend more time with my relatives here. I hope to talk more with the closer ones and perhaps start visiting them on a regular basis. There are still a bunch of relatives that I've only met once or twice that I don't know including these people:


Apparently, all the kids and their parents have the same first two characters (out of three characters) of their name as me. That means that they are my cousins and uncles and aunts from my dad's side (I think).

Bible study through the gospel of John.
I met Rivera nearly two years back on a winter missions trip with James Kang during which he committed his life to the Lord. Sometime between then and now he has begun serving and fellowshipping consistently with a local church body. Peter, Rivera’s friend from church, happened to find that his classmate, a girl named Ja-Nin, was interested in reading the Bible. It also happened to be the case that there were not many available sisters to minister to her, so Rivera and Peter proceeded to ask me if any sisters at EBCT could meet up with her. It turns out that Katherine and I were available so we were privileged with the opportunity to meet Ja-Nin. From the beginning, we decided to study through the book of John together. And from the beginning we shared the gospel. It is seriously amazing to witness the Word of God accomplishing its work. I won’t go into too much detail, but, by the grace of God, after a few weeks of confessing that she was not able to give up certain things in her life, she received Christ as Lord! Awesome. Please pray for God to continue to work in Ja-nin’s life granting her more faith that it would produce fruit 30, 50 and 100 fold! Pray for God to grant Katherine, Ja-nin and I an accurate understanding of His Word each week as we continue to meet.

My birthday.
I spent my birthday photographing my cousin’s wedding. It was really cool, though, because I had the chance to play around with a DSLR for awhile. When they originally made the request for me to do the shooting, I sent them some ideas for camera setups that they could look for to rent. Instead, they came a few weeks later having bought a variation of one of the setups. Cool. I was able to play around with it to photograph some things:




Bryan and I both agree that DSLR users are cheaters.


Anyway, I would like to share with you two interesting items I received on my birthday:

1. A blender.

Bryan and Matt thought that they would chip in to buy a blender for us to use. We are being healthier now! Matt has been using it to make really good fruit smoothies for us.

2. A Zhu-yin Bible.

Zhu-yin is the Chinese alphabet. This is a gift from the EBCT sisters and I love it! Although it makes me look like a little child holding it, it helps me tremendously with studying and even wanting to study for Chinese ET. Please pray for me to study hard to learn Chinese!

Planet Earth.

I’ve saved the most irrelevant bits of information for last. I highly, highly recommend watching this TV series. I bought the DVD set for about $60 to see the bunch of stuff on this Earth that I probably won’t ever get to see in real life. God is truly an amazing creator.



Camera Stuff.
You didn’t think I forgot all of you photographers on a broke budget like me, did you? No, no, no. This month’s trick is on improving lighting in a picture. Tired of unnatural direct flash? Can’t afford paying for a camera with a hotshoe ($600 for an XTi), a flash unit that swivels ($250 for a speedlite 430EX), and a diffuser ($13 for a Stofen Omnibounce)?


Well, I have good news for you! You can use your plain old point and shoot ($250?)! With the help of a piece of aluminum foil, a white piece of paper (1/5 NT?), and a friend to help you hold the paper (priceless?) you can get similar results!


Before:


After:



Grace and peace to you!