A Team Effort

Thank you for praying for our Easter services. At Dali Faith Baptist Church we had a combined English and Chinese service with several first-time visitors. With people from Russia, Romania, Italy, India, Malaysia, Thailand, the Caribbean Islands, Canada, the Philippines, Taiwan and the United States, it was definitely an international service. Praise the Lord that our people invited some of their Catholic friends also so they were able to hear the gospel instead of just attending their traditional Easter mass. It is sad that they are blind to the truth and just want to confess their sins to the “priest” for supposed temporary relief even though we show them they can have real and complete forgiveness through Christ.

The Easter service at Lighthouse was very different as Lisa and I were the only foreigners among about sixty-five Chinese people who attended. Again, we were blessed with a great service and a good group of visitors, including several parents who came to see their children perform and sing. However, the greatest blessing came before the service started when Frank Lee (Lee Dz-fan), a teenager, prayed to accept Christ as His Savior! Frank has been attending services at Lighthouse for a few years starting with the Wednesday Children’s Bible Class and then the youth meeting. We could tell that he was listening with great interest and so one of our teenagers, Judy He, really began witnessing to him and encouraging him to get saved. Then Lisa “chatted” with him through an online instant messaging service and he acknowledged that he wanted to get saved but still didn’t understand what to do. Lisa told Frank to come early on Easter Sunday so Andy could help him and so you can see how the Lord used our “team effort” to accomplish His purpose. What a joyous Easter!

Spiritual Warfare

Recently, Andy began preaching and teaching a series on “Spiritual Warfare”. Several of our people had questions in this area and were falling prey to false ideas that are prevalent in Taiwan where idol worshipping is dominant and demon and ghost stories abound. Once, we had a lady who claimed to be a Christian supposedly fall under “demon possession” while in church. Another lady was afraid to sleep in a bed in her factory dormitory because the previous occupant had died, and she was told noises coming from the bed were the person’s haunting ghost. As we teach them that the only effective way to confront Satan and his evil is with the truth of God’s word and help them to follow the instruction of James 4:7, please pray that they will grow stronger and more stable in the Lord.

Changes

The results of Taiwan’s presidential election are in, and the opposition party has reclaimed the power they lost eight years ago. What does that mean for the work in Taiwan? Hopefully, there shouldn’t be many changes as we continue to have freedom to preach the gospel. One possible change could be that we might have more open relations with Mainland China allowing Taiwan to become a greater staging area for missionary work there. It also might give opportunities to reach Mainland Chinese who come to visit Taiwan.

Finally, several churches have asked about the financial situation in Taiwan as the US dollar continues to weaken around the world. We have seen the dollar plunge from almost US$1 = NT$34 to a present low of US$1 = NT$30. However, currently we are doing well and praise the Lord that our supporting churches continue to be faithful despite experiencing challenging times themselves. We count it a privilege to represent you in Taiwan and are praying for the Lord to bless you for your faithfulness!

For souls,

 Andy & Lisa Simpson