Photo Albums

FYI, you can check out my latest photos at the following link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/andersondoug

My July Prayer Letter

It’s been one month since I arrived in Taipei and I’m starting to make this my home. I have spent this time studying Mandarin. Truly, I am making good progress and I really get to practice what I learn with the people I meet. Only Monday, the 29^th, I came back from a short trip to Singapore. I had to renew my visa and it was a good excuse to visit my girlfriend Dorcas there (picture 3). We had a wonderful time together but are sad to be apart again. Now I am back in Taipei with a 60-day visa. Hopefully, that should be enough time for me to find a job and process a work visa. I have been blessed to be living in the same place for almost a month now, and by God’s grace, I don’t have to pay for rent. So I thank God for all of this and pray that he would help me to be a blessing here.

Nevertheless, it has been challenging for me in many ways. The first thing that hit me was the language barrier. I did not know Chinese and few people know English. Once when I first came, I got hopelessly lost and could not navigate buses, ask for help, or even communicate with a taxi driver. Now I am more acclimated in that regard, but now I am struggling in the slow process of developing relationships. To some degree, I am out here on my own. So pray that God would help me to participate more fully in my church community and my Bible study (picture 2), and also to develop friendships in other contexts. In a very real sense God has been taking care of me, but please pray for me to persevere in Christ every day, not to be taken in by the devil’s temptations but to know and share abundant life in Christ (John 10:10).

I am grateful for your prayers. I know that your prayers have played a role in sustaining me thus far. Please pray for discernment in finding the right job; there are so many different positions out there and I pray God would lead me to the right one. I also pray for guidance how I might work for God’s kingdom in Taiwan, specifically with my Bible-study group.