After 9 months, it's time to leave Taiwan

Me and my housemates at our graduation. I'm gonna miss these boys.

It's hard to believe, but the time has finally come for me to leave Taiwan. It has been an incredible blessing and privilege to be able to live in a different country with a completely different culture. There have been some ups and downs when it comes to living here, but overall it has been an awesome experience and I thank God that He brought me here for this season of my life.

It's been interesting digesting and processing a bit what we've gone through these last 9 months. I realized today when we wrote a test that 2nd year theology students write as a final exam just how extensive all of our biblical knowledge has become. The opportunity to spend all day, 6 days a week for 9 months straight  in God's word is an amazing privilege and is such a unique thing that I still don't quite grasp the significance and depth of doing it. Not many people get a chance to do this and it's important that I remember everyday how blessed and privileged I am to have gotten to do this. So to all of you who have played a part in making this happen, whether through financial support, prayer support, or just encouraging me as I did this, THANK YOU. You have given me an amazing blessing that I am forever grateful for.

The fact that I don't have to wake up tomorrow and start an outloud or colour code or PTs or chart or anything is a strange feeling that I'm not quite used to. We've lived an extraordinary life these last 9 months and now regular life just seems foreign and strange, but I'm definitely looking forward to it, even though I will only be able to really experience it for less than 2 weeks before I leave home again and head to Australia to help students through a similar, but shorter 3 month journey through the bible. It will be awesome getting to finally go to Australia and to be able to help teach the bible and to train for leading the school in New Zealand, but I am definitely looking forward to having a bit of a break after it in April.

As I thought about the fact that I now get to not only continue to study the bible, but also teach it as well as lead a school teaching it I am still blown away by how amazing God is and how He has really blessed me with an amazing life and an amazing opportunity to spend the next few years studying His word. I am part of a small percentage of Christians that will ever get to study the bible this extensively and I know that this is something that many people would do anything for, but don't have the opportunity, and that many people would love to do, but cannot (my Dad is pretty jealous. lol). Being constantly exposed to God's truth and seeking Him through His word is one of the most life-changing and life-giving things that I have ever done in my life, and it has really shown me who God is and how awesome and great and powerful He is, and how small and insignificant we are, yet He still loves us more than we could ever comprehend. It has amazed me how humbling studying God's word is and it was awesome, although a little difficult at times, how God revealed my pride to me and worked with me so that I could give it to Him. If I had to say what the best thing that happened to me during SBS was, it would definitely be how God humbled me and showed me areas of pride that I never knew I had or never knew were pride. His truth is so amazing!!

Well it's getting late, so I should head to bed for the last time here in Taiwan. I hope and pray that you all are well, and I look forward to possibly seeing those of you who are back home in London. Thanks for following me on this journey through SBS, I hope and pray that it was a blessing for you, and please continue to follow the journey that God is taking me on. It means a lot to me to know that people care enough to take the time to read my posts, especially since they tend to be long and can sometimes ramble on. So thank you so much. God bless.

Finally some clarity on the future

The Sunset View from the Library at the University

So a funny thing happened today, I realized that in 3 weeks, I'll be back home in Canada sitting in front of the fireplace at my parents place watching football in HD on their beautiful TV. Oh, and I'll be hanging out with my awesome family and catching up with them a little. The nice thing is that I finally know how long I will be home for because I FINALLY know what I'm doing after SBS.

It's been a bit of a lesson in patience and in giving my future over to God over the last month as I awaited word on my application with YWAM Oxford (NZ). I'd be lying if I said I didn't question once or twice if I had heard God's voice right with applying there, but now that I finally have confirmation I see that He definitely has put this together better than I ever thought it was possible.

When I had first contacted the base about staffing their Biblical Core Course (BCC), I asked if they needed staff and they said that they were looking for a new leader, which I basically just shrugged off as just them giving me as much information as they could and figured I'd pray for them that they would find a leader. Well, apparently God didn't just shrug it off because when I was praying about whether or not to apply for Titus, God basically said to me that I never looked into the opportunity of leading the school. This was something that seemed absolutely insane to me since I had never staffed a school and didn't feel anywhere near ready to lead a school, and didn't even think it would be possible for me to lead without staffing first. A big reason that I was applying to Titus was that I felt that God wanted me to trust Him and do things that intimidate me, which teaching the bible does, and while I was praying about it He showed me that I had got the message correctly, but the application wasn't for Titus, it was for leading the BCC. After wrestling with Him for a little I finally agreed to send an email to the Oxford base telling them what I thought God was telling me to do, while telling them I may be crazy at the same time because I thought I was crazy and that they'd just kinda laugh at me, a guy with no staffing experience, inquiring about leading a school. Well, it turned out that I wasn't as crazy as I thought because after sending a number of emails back and forth and after some waiting I got an email from them offering me the BCC school position.

So the details are that I will be going to Perth, Australia at the beginning of January to train during their BCC so that I can see how the BCC is run and also to be trained how to lead the school. After that finishes at the end of March I will probably come home for about a month so that I can see my family a little and relax a little since I'll only have about a 2 week break at Christmas between SBS and going to Perth. Then I will head to Oxford, NZ to meet my new YWAM family and get settled in at the base that I plan to be at for most likely at least the next 3 years. Then I'll have about a month and a half or so to prepare for the school and our BCC will start at the end of June and run until the beginning of September.

It's been amazing how God has pieced this whole process together in a way that only He could, and He has really set me up for success better than I ever thought He could. The former leaders of the BCC will be staying on staff at the base and have said that they would be willing to help me out where needed, and there are a couple current BCC leaders at other bases that said that they are willing to help me out over skype or phone when needed. So although I am still a little intimidated by the idea of leading, God has done a great job of putting people around me to support me in leading, and I know that He will definitely help me in leading the school.

I hope to also staff the Backpackers Discipleship Training School, which starts at the end of September and was what originally led me to their base, but I will have to see if that is still possible or not. God's made it pretty clear that He wants me at their base and wants me to lead the BCC, so I'm gonna start there and see what else He has for me there as I go. Either way, I am super stoked to head out there. I don't know what it is about New Zealand, but since I first got there last year for my DTS, it just felt like home and I had a feeling that God would bring me back there, just never thought it would be this soon. I'm also really excited to get a real start on my "YWAM career" and get settled into one place for a little while.

As with all YWAM positions, I need to raise all of my own support to pay base fees, as well as for any outreaches that I go on, so please be praying and asking God if you are supposed to support me in this, any support is helpful, even if it's just a little. The nice thing is that because I will be full time staff, I should be able to start getting people tax receipts through a YWAM base in Canada soon, but I still have to look in to how it works.

As for SBS, things have been going steadily and we only have 3 weeks now. We just finished the book of Daniel, which was an amazing book, and prior to that we had what may be the most exciting books of the Old Testament in Ezra and Nehemiah. At first glance, Ezra and Nehemiah may not seem like the most exciting books, but when you think about the fact that the Jews had gone through their exile and were finally seeing the restoration that God had been promising them through the prophets and really try to get into the head of the original hearers who took part in the returns to Jerusalem, it's really exciting. They are also books that give amazing examples of leadership as you look at Ezra's and Nehemiah's examples, and God's sovereignty has been very evident in all three of those books, as well as Esther.

We've now just started Ezekiel and only have Zechariah, Haggai, Malachi and Matthew left. It's been an amazing last 8 months and I can't wait to see what God has in store for us over the next 3 weeks, but I'm definitely looking forward to being done. It's hands down been one of the best if not the best thing I've ever done, but it's also been one of the hardest things I've ever done. I'm really looking forward to having some time to relax and enjoy the holidays with my family and not have another book looming over my head.

Hope you are all doing well, and I'll definitely send out another update before I leave Taiwan.

God bless

Can't believe it's almost November - Only a month and a half left!!

Well it's been a little while since I've posted anything, so I figured I'd give you all a quick update.

Things have been going great here, and God has been continuing to teach me and move in my life. We're kinda on a wave of hard weeks followed by easier weeks, with major prophets one week, followed by a couple minor prophets the next. Right now we've just started Jeremiah and will have our first teaching on Monday morning, which I'm really looking forward to. After just reading the book a couple times, my first impression has been how amazing Jeremiah's faith and endurance were to keep preaching even though nobody was listening to him and were persecuting him for preaching against them and preaching a message of judgment for their continuous turning away from God. I can't wait to dig in a little deeper and really see the full message that God wants to bring me through this book.

Last week we did Micah and Joel, which were both great small prophets, but I think I enjoyed Micah the most. Micah was considered kinda like a little Isaiah. He had a similar message to him, but most likely operated outside of Jerusalem and didn't have the same type of access to the king as Isaiah was. He did bring a similar message though, in that he spoke against the injustice that was happening among the people and among the leadership, and of course, about their coming judgment and the restoration that would come. The main thing that I got out of Micah was regarding leadership and the injustice that was happening within the religious leaders as well as the rulers of the people. It really showed me the importance of being a godly leader and of always looking to God to show you how to be a godly leader and also the importance of having people around you that will help keep you accountable and will help ensure that you are leading in a godly way.

The week before, we did Isaiah, which was a tough book for me, and was actually the first book that I didn't completely finish. My goal in SBS had been not to let this happen, so I was pretty disappointed, but it was something that God helped me accept and really taught me through.

The good part of it was that I was still able to interpret the entire book and was able to do my final application, but I wasn't able to all the insides on my charts and I missed about half of the New Testament references in the book, and there's a lot of them because Isaiah is the most quoted OT book in the NT. The neat thing was that God really taught me a lot about humility through not finishing the book and through being able to accept that I wasn't going to finish and changing my goal to reflect that so that I would still be able to get something out of it and not just go into auto-pilot trying to finish it. For me, this is a pretty big thing because I've had issues with being performance focused and a bit of a perfectionist in the past, so the fact that I was able to give that up and say that I was alright with not finishing so that I could really try to seek God in the text instead of just trying to power through it and not getting anything out of it was a pretty big deal to me and really showed me how much God had taught me through it.

The other lesson that God taught me, through my small group leader and one-on-one Brent, was that although I am a great finisher and always work hard to the very end and won't quit - which was something I was happy with myself about because I didn't just give up and accept not finishing the book, but finished it as well as I could - I don't always work hard throughout the whole process, especially in the early stages of big books. I tend to be one of those, work well under pressure guys, which is good, but God really showed me that I need to also learn to have the discipline to go hard all the way through and to have the sense of urgency that I have at the end all the way through as well. I also learned that I need to set myself up to be able to work hard, which I didn't do in this book because I stayed up to watch the Falcons game on Sunday night, and I ended up getting a little sick because of it and wasn't able to work as hard as I would have been able to if I got enough sleep.

So although I didn't finish and failed the book, I still was able to get a lot out of it and God really taught me a lot about myself, which really is a huge part of SBS, but I'm definitely not going to let it happen again and will learn from my mistakes (that's the good part of SBS, there's always another book to put what you learned into practice).

Starting tomorrow, we will officially be into week 6 of SBS, and I will only have a month and a half left in Taiwan. I still can't believe how fast it has been and it's hard to believe that I will be leaving my family that I've had here the last 7 months, but all good things must come to an end I guess. I've been trying to spend as much time with my classmates and to go for lunch with a lot of people in this term so that I can really connect with people and we can bless each other and speak into each other's lives, which has been awesome and I hope to do it as much as possible over the last month and a half. I'm also starting to have church with some guys on Sunday mornings in the coffee shop near our place where we just read through part of the bible a discuss what jumps out at us. Today was my first time joining them, and it was awesome. We went through Romans 1-7 and had some awesome discussions about it. The discussions that I have with people here is something that I'm going to miss so much because I've been able to learn so much from my fellow classmates just through discussing what we've been learning.

I was hoping to finally know what is happening after SBS for this update so I could let you all know, but unfortunately things are still up in the air. The only update that I can give you guys is that I am no longer doing the Titus Project (where we go teach the bible in 3rd world countries) after SBS as I had planned. I had applied to Titus, but I heard that they probably weren't going to be able to accept everybody, and since I wasn't sure I would be able to do it or not depending on when the Biblical Core Course that I'm planning on staffing in Oxford, NZ starts, I figured I would withdraw my application so that someone who will be doing it for sure could have my place. Also, as I been praying about it, and even when I originally applied, I just really felt that God was taking me in a different direction and that I wasn't supposed to do Titus at this time.

So right now I am still waiting on my acceptance with Oxford, as well as waiting to find out how it's all going to work out with me going there, but I'm just trusting that God has it in His hands and that He will work it out the way that He has planned. Please be praying that I will have peace while I wait to hear from them and that it won't distract me from my work at all.

Anyways, this ended up being a longer post than I planned, as usual, so I should wrap it up, but I hope that you are all doing great and that you're keeping warm as winter comes. Things have gotten a little cooler here, which is awesome because I no longer sweat just sitting around my house, but it's still fairly warm when the sun is out and I was still able to get out surfing with surf ministry this weekend. I will definitely update you all when I know more about the future and how it's going to look.

God bless

Through the first week of 3rd term

Sandiaoling Waterfall

It's hard to believe that we've already started 3rd term. I have already been in Taiwan for over 6 months, and they have been probably the most difficult 6 months of my life, but it's been an absolutely amazing experience and privilege to be able to spend this time studying God's word so closely. The last 3 weeks of 2nd term we did Samuel, Kings and Chronicles (that is not a typo, those 3 monsters in 3 weeks), which was like having a mountain as the end of a marathon. It was insane and I almost felt like giving up one day during Kings, but it was definitely worth it and was amazing to see how God moved throughout the time of the kings of Israel (and Judah) and how even though it sometimes seemed like He wasn't there, He was always moving and active and sovereign throughout it.

Break was definitely a VERY much needed rest. I didn't do anything too crazy, basically just went rock climbing a few times at a bouldering wall that's in a park in Taipei and went on a couple hikes, one of which was an amazing trail with 3 waterfalls that was actually a real hike on a dirt trail, which is rare for Taipei area (usually it just consists of paved or stone trails with lots of stairs). Other than that I did some relaxing and hung out with my friends and with Jesus.

The bouldering wall in Neihu Sports Park

We now have just finished the first week of 3rd (and final) term and it has started off with a bang with wisdom literature. We started out with Proverbs, and it was probably my favourite book that we've studied so far, and probably will be my favourite out of the entire SBS. The former SBS leader, Scott, taught the book and he brought the truth big time and really dug into it and didn't dodge any of the hard and convicting wisdom in the book. We had two mornings of teaching (6 hrs), and throughout the teaching I was loving every minute of it. Studying Proverbs really showed me how much I love wisdom and how much I desire more and more wisdom from God, which was especially cool because I also realized how much God wants us to seek wisdom and loves to see us desire it (Prov 1:7 and 9:10 say that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom/understanding). On the second day of teaching Scott wore his "friendly shirt" because he was going to be delivering some hard truths from Proverbs regarding teachability, money and diligence/laziness, and the whole class I just sat there loving every minute of it and cheering him on in my heart. It was amazing to see how God had put wisdom in my heart and how it made me love it no matter what it meant for my own comfort and no matter how convicting it was. I can't say enough about the book of Proverbs and I 100% recommend each and every one of you take the time to read through it, and better yet, spend some time meditating on different passages. For our assignment we had to choose 4 themes to track throughout the book and do 5 interpretations for each theme. I chose reproof/discipline, pride/humility, the fear of the Lord and anger/temper as my themes, and I plan to colour code all the different themes in my bible so that I can have a quick reference guide to the main themes Proverbs deals with and spend time every week meditating on different passages depending on what I feel God wants to speak to me about.

The 2nd half of the week we studied Job, which was a lot more intensive than we all thought it would be. We did another special assignment for Job where we went through the discourse that Job and his friends had (and Elihu's response to it) and identified passages that we felt were biblical and ones we felt unbiblical, using verse reference outside of Job to support our views. We also had to identify areas where his friends' arguments were biblical, but were just not applied with wisdom. It was a difficult assignment, but was a really good way to go through the book and see how important it is to use wisdom properly, and was a good way to put the knowledge that we've gained about the bible into use. I just wish I would have had a bit more time to do it (may be something to do again in the future).

This week is going to be a bit of a break for us. We are having some mandatory volunteer training as a requirement of getting our Alien Residency Card, so we'll still have classes a couple days for Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes, but we don't actually have an assignment for them, so it'll be a nice little break for us. We also will be starting the prophets with the introduction to the prophets on Friday and our first lecture for Amos on Saturday. It's kinda funny how having a full 6 day week of classes and training is considered a break for us, but that just shows you how intense and busy this school has been for us.

Please be praying for me over the next week or so. In my last post I posted what I felt like God had for me for the future, but this last week when I was about to hand in my Titus application I felt a huge check in my spirit and felt God asking me if I was absolutely sure that this was what I'm supposed to do next. This led me to hold off on applying and spending time in prayer about my future, and I ended up sending an email to the Oxford YWAM base and it's now a possibility that I may be going there in January instead to staff the Biblical Core Course (basically a 3 month version of SBS) as well as the Backpackers DTS in September. So right now I'm waiting on an email back from the Oxford base about some questions that I felt God wanted me to ask before I made a decision, and I should know by the end of the week what the plan is. I still applied for Titus because the application was due on Saturday and just made them aware of my current situation and that I'm not 100% sure what God wants me to do yet, but that I'll let them know as soon as possible. So if you could all be praying that God really directs my path as I plan for the future, it'd be really appreciated. My heart is just to do what He wants me to do and not to do anything just because it seems good or because others think I should do it. He's planned my steps so far, and I can't wait to see the path that He's chosen for me. I'll definitely write a post when everything is finalized to let you know what's happening.

Also, I'm coming home for Christmas this year! I'll be home December 18th, and depending on what I do after SBS, I'll either be leaving January 2nd if I'm doing Titus or 22nd(ish) if I'm staffing in Oxford, so if you're in London, let me know if you want to get together for a coffee or lunch and catch up.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read my blog and keeping me in your prayers, it means so much to me.

God bless!

Almost through 2nd term and getting His vision for the future

Well it's been about a month since I posted anything, so I'm a little overdue. Things have been going great lately. It was a battle, and there were some sleepless nights, but we got through the Pentateuch, and it was awesome. We're now in the promised land and through the time of the judges, and we're just started on 1&2 Samuel. It has been an amazing journey seeing God's faithfulness and grace throughout the early history of Israel, even though the people were not faithful at all for the most part. It's also been pretty amazing to see how God was always never only for Israel, but chose them to reveal Himself to the world so that everybody had a chance to choose Him. It's so easy to forget the fact that a mixed multitude came out with the Israelites, that God used Rahab, a pagan prostitute who was accepted and lived with Israel after she helped the spies in Jericho, and that Ruth, a woman that had an entire book written about her and named after her, was a Moabite. My whole life I always thought that God only chose the Israelites and that all the other nations were screwed, but it's been awesome to finally look at it and realized that God used Israel so that the other nations would see that He was God and to draw the other nations to Him, only they didn't listen for the most part and continued to live in their wicked ways, which led to destruction. This term has been extremely busy and difficult, but it has been absolutely amazing and I can't wait for what the next 3 weeks hold with Samuel, Kings and Chronicles.

Something that God has really been speaking to me about the last little while has been my own insecurities. He's really been showing me my insecurities about my future ministry, as well as my insecurities about hearing His voice. In Joshua I was so amazed with Joshua's faith in God and in his ability to do amazing things through God. Joshua was thrust into a leadership position with HUGE shoes to fill, and rather than focusing on his weaknesses, he was strong and courageous (a command he gets from God a few times and then the people when he is being commissioned to lead), and had faith that God would fight for him and he walked in that faith. This really spoke to me and showed me the kind of faith that I need to have and how I sometimes focus on my weaknesses and my insecurities when thinking about the future and about what God's calling me to do rather than focusing on His power and His ability to do amazing things through me. This helped me realize that I had kinda been talking myself out of doing the Titus Project outreach after SBS because of my insecurity when it comes to teaching the bible, and had forgotten about my desire to do it and the call I had from God to do it from the very beginning (more on that later).

When we were doing Judges, the story of Gideon really spoke to me. When God raises up Gideon to lead the people, several times Gideon asks God to confirm and reconfirm that He is with him, and at first when you read it, it's easy to shake your head at Gideon and think he's foolish for wanting to test God so much when He had already spoken to him and told him that He was with him. As I read it and studied it, it made me realize how we are so similar and we do the exact same thing, we're just blessed that nobody is writing down what we do. It showed me how I always want so much confirmation from God before I do something rather than just trusting in His voice and having faith that I'm hearing Him, and doing what He's told me to do. This kinda showed me how I had lost confidence in my ability to hear His voice and that led to me looking for so many confirmations rather than just stepping out in what I believe He's telling me to do and to have faith that if I'm not doing what He wants me to do, He'll show me and redirect me back to His plan for me. This lack of confidence didn't just affect my being able to follow His guidance, but also affected my faith that He would bring me a wife at some point and that I would be able to have a successful relationship when He brought her along to me. During DTS I a speaker at our base meeting gave me a word that God wanted to restore my confidence in hearing Him that I lost through my broken relationships, and God reminded me of this and showed me that I had lost this confidence because of my past mistakes and how I had thought I was following Him in the past, only to have everything blow up in my face.

Through all this, God's really been showing me that I need to have faith in Him and lay down my wounds and my fears and everything at His feet and trust that He will lead and guide me and will bless me. I need to realize that the mistakes that I made in the past wasn't because I wasn't listening to Him or wasn't hearing Him right, but was more that I stopped listening to Him and that through the hard times He was teaching me and forming me into the man that I've become. He showed me that if I'm following Him and have a heart that only wants to do what He wants and not what I want, then He will give me the desires of my heart and that I can't go wrong. As long as I continue to seek after Him with all my heart, He will lead me and will correct my path if I start to stray. This is something that I'm going to continue to pray into, and if you all could be praying for me as well, I'd appreciate it.

So through all of this, God has really been giving me an amazing vision for the future, and has really showed me what I believe He is calling me to do for the next couple years or so. After God showed me that I was being stupid and just being insecure about doing Titus, I realized that I definitely need to do Titus and that it will be an amazing opportunity to travel to more countries and to give people a chance to learn the bible and to get a greater understanding of who God is.

Since most of you don't know what Titus is, I'll give a quick overview for you. The Titus Project was started by a woman that is actually on our base as an outreach program for after SBS. It consists of a one month school where we'll learn basically how to teach the bible effectively, and learn how to create sermons and teachings. Then we'll go on a two month outreach to go to teach pastors and church workers about the bible. This is an amazing opportunity for both us and them because the lack of biblical knowledge is a huge need in the developing church (one of the things that led to the starting of the Titus Project was a woman went and did a sermon in a church in a developing country and the pastor came to her and said that they loved her sermon, but his only question was who King David was). So this is going to be an amazing way to apply the things that I've learned during my 9 months in SBS and to gain some valuable practice and teaching on how to teach the bible and how to write sermons. It will also be an awesome way to give out what I've learned and to use it to bless others. (For more info, check out the website http://ywamtaipei.com/us/training/titus.html)

After Titus I'm planning on going to Thailand for a few weeks to connect with the YWAM base in Thailand as well as to go down to southern Thailand to see the climbing community and to learn a little bit about the area around Railay and Tonsai beaches. The reason I want to go there is that Thailand is a place that has always had a place in my heart, and I really believe that God has spoken to me about using rock climbing for His glory and that southern Thailand may be the place that He brings me to in the future to do that. It will also be an awesome opportunity to reach out to some travelers (since that who God has really given me a heart for), and will also be a nice and much needed break after such a long stretch doing DTS, SBS and Titus all in about a year and a half.

After that I will come home and hopefully get a job and work for 4 months so that I can reconnect with people back home and make some money to use for my next step, which I believe will take me back to New Zealand. I've been in contact with a YWAM base down in Oxford, New Zealand, and they offer a backpackers DTS that I really feel God is calling me to staff. They focus on using things like camping, hiking and rock climbing, as well as staying in hostels and doing the more European type backpacking, to reach out to the travelers that flock to NZ in the summer months. After reading their website and talking with them a little, it really seems like their heart is very similar to mine, so in September (2012) I plan to go down there and staff there for at least a couple years both in their backpackers DTS and in their Biblical Core Course, which is basically a 3 month version of the School of Biblical Studies that I'm doing. This will keep me busy for most of the year, but will also give me a chance to come home and visit in the summer. (For more info on the backpackers DTS and YWAM Oxford, check out the website http://www.ywamoxford.org/backpackers/)

So, it's definitely been a great last month, and sorry that this ended up being such a long post. Please continue to keep me in your prayers that God will continue to speak to me and continue to give me the strength to continue going strong in SBS. Please also be praying for me about finances. Right now I will have more than enough to finish SBS, but I won't have enough to pay for Titus. Because of outreach costs, Titus will cost between $2500-$3000, and as it stands now with the regular support I get, I will only have about $1000, so please be praying that God will bring in some more supporters (ideally regular supporters, but I'll take whatever I can get), and if you're willing, please pray and ask God if you are supposed to support me at this time.

One last thing I forgot to mention, I will be coming home for Christmas this year! Unfortunately it will only be for about 2 weeks, but my Mom gave up an opportunity to come down to Taiwan to visit me so that I could come home for Christmas instead. So hopefully I can see some of you while I'm home (even though it's a busy time).

Love you and miss you all, and I pray that God is blessing you all wherever He has you.

Prayer Requests

• That God will continue to speak to me and my classmates as we study His word and that we won't let it just become an academic exercise
• That God will continue to give me confidence in hearing His voice
• For finances for all the people in my class that are struggling to pay for their tuition and for their food
• That God will provide the finances I need to do Titus
• That my entire class will have the strength to finish this quarter strong (it's going to be busy)
• Praise Him for how He's working in my life and speaking to me and for giving me His vision for my future

Almost half way through, and loving it even more!

Well, it's been a couple weeks since I've written, so I guess I'm a little overdue. I guess maybe a post every other week is a bit more of a realistic goal.

Things here have been great these last couple weeks. It's been awesome going back to the beginning of it all in Genesis and Exodus and seeing how God's promises continued through the generations. It's really been interesting reading about Israel growing as a nation and has made me realize how, even though we hate to admit it, we can be really similar to them. We, or at least I, always look at Israel after they come out of Egypt and always think, "How can you guys be so stupid?" when I see them grumbling and not having faith and turning away from God, but how often do we in our lives do the exact same thing? I know, they've just seen God do some amazing things and have no reason to doubt God, but when you think about it, they're a people who have been living in slavery all their life and haven't really had much to believe in about God other than some stories about their ancestors. Not to mention the Egyptian gods, who don't care about man and definitely aren't trust worthy, who have formed their mindset about what God would be like, so it's kinda understandable that they would have some trust issues with this God that has allowed them to be in slavery for hundreds of years. Meanwhile, I've grown up in a Christian family and know all about the character and nature of God and have seen Him do some awesome things in my life and in providing for me, yet I still have a hard time trusting Him sometimes about finances and about Him providing for me as I follow Him. I'm doing the exact same thing that the Israelites were doing, just in a different way and in a completely different situation. It's really interesting when you step outside the situation and really think about it.

Anyways, it's definitely been an interesting journey these last couple weeks, and I can't wait to continue it with Leviticus this week. We started it at the end of this week and are through our first few reads, and the more I read it, the more excited I get about it. I know this may sound crazy to those of you who have read it before, I mean, all it is is a bunch of laws, but it's the message behind them that's the exciting part about it. All of the laws that God gave them wasn't just so that they would live a certain way and act the way that God wanted them to do, but they were all put in place to protect the Israelites from disease, falling into the wickedness around them, to prevent any sort of idolatry or pagan worship, etc. The laws on their own can be a bit dry, but when you start to see the heart of God behind the laws, that's when it gets really exciting, and I haven't even really started digging into it and haven't had a lecture to understand the laws better yet.

I must admit that things were getting a little dry for me when we were getting close to the end of the New Testament, but since I've really gotten re-focused these last couple weeks after God smacked me around in Revelation, it's been awesome! I've definitely gotten a new found joy in doing my work, even when I stay up all night doing it (pulled an all-nighter the last 3 books.....oops), and the further we get into the Old Testament, the more excited I get. It's definitely like nothing I've experienced before when I read the bible. It's amazing how much God has shown me that when I read my bible before I never really got the point of it, but now that I'm actually understanding that it wasn't written for me but was written for people who lived thousands of years ago and am starting to look at it from their mindset, even the most dry books just come alive!! Please be praying that this continues the deeper we get into the OT.

Other than school work, things have been pretty awesome here. I just celebrated my first birthday away from Canada. It was a little strange, and to be honest, a little tough at times leading up to it cause it kinda made me suffer from a little bit of homesickness (first time yet really, so not too bad), but it was still an awesome time and I was able to skype with my family and some friends, which was definitely a blessing and helped. A really exciting thing for me is that I've found a bouldering rock climbing wall in a park in Taipei that's free to use, and pretty legit too. It's amazing. It's really helping me enjoy being in Taiwan that much more, and although my hands were like little girls so they are pretty torn up right now, it's been awesome. I'm planning on going pretty much every Sabbath, since it's only about 1hr away using the public transit, and it's a nice way to get out of Dan Shui and just spend some time in the outdoors since I'm inside basically all week, and it's rock climbing, which I missed terribly.

Anyways, it's getting late here, so I should head to bed, just wanted to send you all a quick update first. I hope you guys are all doing fantastic back home and that God is blessing you all. Please be keeping me in your prayers, it means so much to me knowing that people are praying for me back home.

God bless.


Prayer Requests

• That God will continue to refresh me and to be speaking to me through the Old Testament
• That God will be speaking to and empowering our staff as they teach us
• That God will be with our school leader Lachlan as he goes home to South Africa for a couple weeks
• That I will be able to connect with some of the rock climbers here and that I will be able to build relationship with them and share the gospel with them
• That God will be working through our surf ministry and that He'll be giving Chris His vision for what they are doing and how He wants them to reach the surfing community in Taiwan
• For Taiwan in general that God will be breaking down the barriers to Christianity here so that they can be freed from the bondage of their ancestor worship
• That God will be protecting our school from sickness (a lot of people still getting sick, but nobody's been to the hospital lately - Praise God)
• That God will just really be blessing our entire school and that we'd all be giving Him our 100%

Getting refreshed with a new start in the Old (Testament that is)

Hey everybody, hope you're all doing great! Things are going awesome over here. We've now finished the New Testament and have gone from the end (Revelation) all the way to the beginning of it all (Genesis). I has been an interesting week and a half since I last posted, and God has been teaching me some lessons and has refreshed me and given me a renewed zeal to study His Word through them.

Revelation was an amazing book, but was a difficult one for me. We had a lot of time to do Revelation, and because of that I did exactly what I didn't want to do, I slacked off....a lot. But God is good, and He taught me heaps through it, and was faithful to help me out of the hole I dug for myself after I repented and laid myself at His feet again. It was amazing going through Revelation and seeing it in a new light and realizing how wrong I had been in how I had looked at it before. Going through the bible this way has made me realize how silly it is to try and just take the things written in the context of our culture instead of focusing on what it meant to the original reader, and showed me that I have always done that with Revelation, which led me to not understand it at all and just get confused and avoid it. Through studying it this time I was able to see how it is basically a rallying call to the Christians  to continue to persevere through the persecution and suffering that they were experiencing (most likely under Domitian) because Jesus is victorious and we get to join in His victory (it actually says twice "Here is a call for the endurance of the saints" - 13:10; 14:12 ESV). It was an awesome experience to get a better understanding on one of the most misunderstood books of the bible, even if it wasn't the easiest book to get through.

If you've been reading my recent posts you know that I I've been thinking a lot about the future lately, and that I strongly feel like God wants to use my passions for rock climbing and the outdoors for His glory. This is amazing news and is really exciting, but it was because of this that I got myself into a hole with Revelation. I had been thinking about the future so much and starting to look at rock climbing websites and videos so much that I started to lose focus on what God was doing in my life NOW. I was starting to focus so much on the future that I wasn't giving my all to SBS and was starting to look at it as a stepping stone or something I had to get through before I could go onto bigger and better things.

Thankfully, God is faithful and last Sunday He showed me how I was doing this when I was slacking off instead of working since I had pretty much taken Saturday as my Sabbath because I had surf ministry last weekend. God really convicted me about how much I had been paying attention to rock climbing and was showing me that I was even starting to covet rock climbing and was starting to wish I was already done SBS just so I could be rock climbing. So that night I spent some time praying and humbling myself on my knees before Him and repented of how I had let rock climbing almost become an idol to me by focusing on it too much.

The next morning at base meeting one of our base staff, Martin, spoke about giving God our first fruits and giving God our current situation and being 100% where He had put us. This spoke directly to my heart and completely connected with what God had been speaking to me the night before. This really helped me realize that I had been focusing on the future so much that I was completely missing out on the present and was missing out on the amazing gift that God has given me in allowing me to do SBS and study His Word as a full time job. This definitely refocused me, and really humbled me and helped me to get back on my knees at His feet and admit that I was weak and needed His help to finish the work that I had to do.

With His help I was able to finish Revelation, even though I had to pull an all-nighter. He definitely gave me strength when I was weak and enabled me to get it done on time and still be able to do my outloud read for Genesis and study for our test on the entire New Testament the next day, which I did great on. Praise God.

Through this experience God really showed me how He is faithful to help us, even when we mess up and dig ourselves into a hole because of our own stupidity. He also showed me that I really need to stop thinking and praying about the future for now and just trust Him that He will bring it together in His timing, and to really focus on the amazing gift that He is giving me over the next 5 months in SBS.

Because of all of this, I've decided that I'm not going to pray about the future until the end of this term, and am going to try not to even think about it until then. That will still give me enough time to figure out if I'm going to do Titus Project (http://www.ywamtaiwan.org/us/training/titus.html) after SBS before the deadline to apply, and will help me to stay focused on what I'm here to do. I've also realized that I need to not allow rock climbing to distract me from the work that I'm doing, so I'm going to limit myself to not looking at any rock climbing websites or videos or anything except on my Sabbath. I know that this may sound kinda silly to some people, but God has really reminded me through this how easily I can get consumed by my passions and how I tend to have a hard time waiting to get the things that I want. These are things that I have always struggled with and that I need to continue to give to God and to look to Him for strength in.

Through all of this I have really been refreshed and have gotten excited again about studying the bible, especially with us starting the Old Testament. I can't wait to see how everything connects to the New Testament, and I'm already starting to see how God had a plan from the very beginning to redeem us and that the bible is just one big love story between God and the people who didn't deserve and often didn't even appreciate the love that He gave them. It has also just been an awesome change to get into some stories and narrative since the New Testament started to get a little repetitive by the end of it since as you study it more closely you can see how it is basically just telling us about God's love and about how we need to show that love by putting others first over and over again. It has been an amazing gift so far being able to understand the bible so much better, and I'm so excited to see what else God has for me through the rest of my time here.

As I mentioned earlier, I am now doing surf ministry with a couple guys from our base that head up Christian Surfers Taiwan. I go for 6 hours every other week, and last week was my first week. Unfortunately there was basically no surf, but we had an amazing time hanging out with some Taiwanese people and I was able to meet a couple really awesome Taiwanese and spent the day just hanging out with them and showing the love of Jesus to the people we came across at the beach and the surf shop. I'm really excited to be a part of this ministry and to learn more from Chris and Zack about how they use their passion for surfing to spread the gospel, since this is something that God has put on my heart to do with rock climbing. It's also just an amazing atmosphere to meet some Taiwanese people that may not have ever heard the gospel or even met any Christians before, and show them God's love through friendship and fellowship. Chris has made some amazing relationships with the surfers here over the last few years, and I'm blessed and excited to be a part of it.

This week we're studying Genesis all week. We started it on Wednesday, and have had 1 lecture so far and still have 3 more to go. This is a really big book and is done a little differently than we did the New Testament, so please be praying that God will help me to get through it and will help me adjust to the new style of charting and the new style of writing too.

I hope you are all having a great summer back home, and thanks so much for spending the time to read my blog. It really means a lot to me. I love you and miss you all.

God bless,

Matt

Prayer Requests:

• That God will help me to stay focused on what He has for me now and that He will be speaking to me through my studies
• That I won't get overwhelmed by the size of the books in the OT, especially since we go through them really quickly
• That I will adjust well to the change from the NT to the OT
• That I will make good connections with people and will show God's love to the people I meet in surf ministry and throughout my time in Taiwan
• That I will continue to focus on God and to be willing to learn everything that He wants to teach me through this time
• For my Grandpa who just had open heart surgery that he will have a quick and full recovery (and thanks that he was able to get in so quickly)
• That God will comfort me when I'm missing home or feeling lonely
• That God will be empowering and leading our staff as they help us through SBS and teach the different books (for the schedule of what books were studying, see my last post)

A little overdue for an update

Well I just realized that it's been almost 2 weeks since I last wrote an update, so I figured I should probably let you guys know how things are going.

The last couple weeks have been pretty good, but really busy as well (of course). The rest of the break was a great time, and God really reenergized me and really spoke to me and showed me how He has been speaking to me and continued to motivate me to spend more time with Him in prayer. After the break we started up hitting the ground running with the gospel of John, which was difficult because we only had 1 week to do it, and unlike most books where we work on the Saturday to get started on the book, we didn't start any of the work until Monday morning, which made me feel like I was behind from the beginning. I also had some struggles with getting my mind back in to charting mode after the break and had some kinda unproductive days, which led to me getting really behind and having to have a HUGELY productive day from Friday to Saturday. This was a little draining and killed me a little, but in the end, I think it was a bit of a blessing because it showed me how I can pound out a ton of charts in a day, which has given me confidence for the Old Testament. This is really good because I was a little worried and intimidated about the Old Testament because how big the books are and because of how quickly we move through books (I'll post our schedule at the end of my post, it's INSANE, but it's gonna be AWESOME!!!).

We just finished 1 John on Tuesday morning and since 2 and 3 John are both so small we did something a little different for them and rather than charting the books we had to prepare a small 20 minute sermon from a passage in one of the books. It was a lot of fun and was a great change from charting. We were able to choose a hypothetical audience and had to write a sermon to meet a need that they would have. For my sermon I decided to speak from 3 John vs5-8, chose my audience to be DTS students, and spoke on the subject of supporting missionaries and asking for support. This is obviously something that is close to my heart since I've been praying about support, which made it pretty easy to speak for 20 minutes about it. I basically gave the biblical basis of supporting missionaries, then spoke about being obedient and diligent in raising support and finished it off with a bit of application, like writing a letter to share with people what God is calling you to do and asking them to partner with you in it. It was a fun experience and I was able to get some good pointers and constructive criticism out of it. It really showed me how much I want to spend some time staffing some DTSs and discipling younger people in living their lives for God, even if I wasn't actually speaking to an actual DTS.

We're now just starting on Revelation, which is going to be a huge and heavy book, but I'm pretty excited for it. I've just read it the first time through today and am about to do my colour code and read it again and I'm already realizing that I have no idea what it all means, but am super excited to dig into this and try to get a better understanding of the revelation that John had. So please be praying that God will speak to me through this book and will give me a revelation (haha) of what it all means and what it means to me in my life.

Other than that, there's nothing too exciting going on, which is probably a good thing since it means things are getting better. My Grandpa just had open heart surgery yesterday, so please be praying for him for a quick recovery. The surgery was a complete success with no complications, so hopefully that stays the same with the recovery process and he's able to get around better after he recovers. Also, we had 3 people leave SBS at the end of the break, my buddy Breno that I mentioned last post, and a couple named Calvin and Camille, who were also good friends. They've all gone over to the Kona YWAM base, so please be praying for them that their transition will go smoothly and that God will be using them mightily there. This has also been difficult for our staff because it's always difficult to have students leave the school, so please be praying for them as well that God will be affirming them and that He will be speaking to them and filling them so that they can pour into us, especially in this difficult term that we have ahead of us.

Finally, I also want to mention that my friends Jari and Tanya Koivu who work with YWAM Alternatives Network in Toronto are preparing for a Supernatural Ministry DTS, which starts in September, so please be praying for them that God will be sending them the staff and students that they need and that God will bless the school and will use the school to touch many lives. If you want any more information or if you or someone you know may be interested in the school, either as staff or students because I know they have room for both, check out their website at http://www.ywamalt.net/dts/dts-overview.

I hope you are all doing great. I love and miss you all. Also, I don't think I've mentioned this before, but it looks like I'll be home at least for a few weeks, or maybe even longer, at Christmas, so hopefully I can connect with some of you then. Thank you so much for reading my blog, your prayers mean so much to me, and if you ever have any questions or just want to say hello, feel free to email me at stelps1@gmail.com. It may take me a little while to get back to you, but it's always great to hear from people back home and I definitely will get back to you.

God bless

Prayer Requests

• That my Grandpa will recover well from his heart surgery
• That Breno, Calvin and Camille will have a smooth transition to the Kona base
• That God will continue to speak to me through my work and will continue to change me into the man that He created me to be
• For Jari and Tanya and the school that they are preparing for
• That God will continue to send people to support me (and praise Him for sending some support since my last post!!!!)
• For our staff that God will continue to bless them and fill them up and equip them to be a blessing to us
• That God will help all of us to be able to understand Revelation and that God will be speaking to us through it

Schedule

Here's the schedule for the second quarter, in case you're interested. It would definitely be appreciated if you could all be praying for us as we finish the different books and for the speakers that will be teaching them to us.

• July 7-13 - Revelation
• July 15-23 - Genesis
• July 23-29 - Exodus
• July 29-Aug 4 - Leviticus
• Aug 4-9 - Numbers
• Aug 9-16 - Deuteronomy
• Aug 16-20 - Joshua
• Aug 20-25 - Judges
• Aug 25-27 - Ruth
• Aug 27-Sept 5 - 1&2 Samuel
• Sept 5-12 - 1&2 Kings
• Sept 12-16 - 1&2 Chronicles
• Sept 19-23 - BREAK!!!!!!!!!

Taking a break and spending time with God

Hello everybody!

I hope you are all doing fantastic! Things here are great. We have just finished our first term of SBS, and are on our week long break that has been very refreshing so far. I was able to get out camping for a night, which was brutally hot and I ended up sleeping outside on a picnic table, but gave me a chance to spend some time at the beach with some friends and we had an amazing time. The rest of the break so far has just been relaxing, spending time with my classmates and enjoying each other's company and fellowship, and really trying to spend some time connecting with God.

I've really found it difficult connecting with God on a deep level since I've been here and my prayer and worship and study times have been a little dry. I've struggled with making my studies into a homework assignment and just trying to get through books, which is difficult because we are so crazy busy and always moving, and have really been trying to hear God through His word. It's great to get the head knowledge of the bible, but the real reason I'm doing this is so that God can continue to make me into the man He created me to be. So I've really been trying to seek God and really see how I can connect with Him more deeply and personally and to really be seeking Him through my work. So far the time I've been spending with Him has been great. I've been reading Can you hear me? by Brad Jersak, which is a great book on hearing God that I started reading a while ago, but never finished, and have just been spending time each day praying and worshipping Him. It's been great kinda saying alright God, I want to hear you like I used to so lets get back to the basics, which is also kinda humbling for me too since I used to hear God pretty well and may have taken that for granted.

Other than that, I'm just really reflecting on first term and really focusing on getting reenergized for our second term, which I've heard is the toughest term of SBS. First term was an amazing time and even though my studies did seem a little dry and trivial at time, I did feel God speaking to me and changing me and doing work in me, and I can't wait to see what else He has in store. I have been able to make some great connections with people here, despite being so busy, and have really been forging great friendships with people and have been able to enjoy living my life here, even if it is crazy sometimes and I struggle with the language.

Something that has been really tough for me is that my best friend that I've made here, Breno, who I've spent a lot of time in prayer with and talking with has decided to leave SBS. He was having trouble focusing on the work a little, and although we both believe that God brought him here for a reason, through prayer and discussion with friends and family, he really feels like his time here has passed and that he is supposed to move on from SBS. This has been really tough for me, because as I learned at the end of DTS, one of the hard prices you pay with being in YWAM and missions is that you make these great friendships and then are split up from the people you just became so close with. So it's been hard seeing my friend go through a difficult decision and letting go of him and encouraging him in moving on, but I know that this is all part of God's plan for him and I really feel like we became close friends for a reason and that God will use that friendship for His glory.

So please be praying for me that God will be speaking to me and guiding me and that through this break our relationship will be refreshed and renewed and that He will fill me up and give me the energy and focus to have an amazing second term. Please also be praying for Breno as he seeks God's vision for what's next and follows Him where He leads, that God will be opening doors for him and will be speaking to him and really just filling him with His love and joy during this time of transition.

Please also be praying that God will continue to provide for me, and maybe even pray about if God wants you to help support me as well. I actually just found out how to add a donate button to my blog, which is kinda exciting for me because it gives people a quick, easy and secure way to donate money to me using a credit card or paypal instead of the only way to support me being to send a cheque or cash to my parents. So if you want to make a donation to help support me, even if it's only a dollar or two, every little bit helps and is greatly appreciated, just click the donate button on the right side of my blog. Like I've said before, unfortunately tax receipts aren't available right now because I'm only a student with YWAM, but hopefully in the future I should be able to start providing people with receipts because I'm starting to think more and more that God is leading me to start staffing DTSs and to help disciple people into following Him and experiencing the joy and love that He gives.

Another thing that is kinda exciting is that they've recently added the ability for people to subscribe to receive blog updates through email, so for those of you who would like to receive my updates, but don't have a gmail account that allows them to just click follow, you can just enter your email address where it says follow by email.

I hope you all are having an amazing summer, and although I miss home an it's really hot here and we don't get to use A/C during the day, I still know 100% that this is where I'm supposed to be and am so excited to see what God is going to do through my time here.

God bless you all. Love ya.

Prayer Requests:

• That God will continue to give me His vision for my future
• That God will be speaking to me through my work
• That God will help me with my time management and that I will be diligent with the time I have
• That this break will revitalize and refresh me and my classmates and our relationship with God
• That 2nd term will be a blessing even though it looks like it will be very busy
• That God will send people to support me (especially regularly) as I follow His call
• That God will be speaking to and guiding Breno as he continues to follow Him

Almost through first term

First off, I have to apologize that it's taken me so long to post again. I know that I said I'd be posting every week on my last post, and although things are busy it's something that I intend to do. I know it's important that I keep you guys up to date on how I'm doing so you don't forget about me, but also because I need you guys keeping me in your prayers cause I need them to help me through the tough times that arise during SBS.

Things have been a lot better these last few weeks. Romans was definitely a difficult week for me, and God's really been teaching me lately to be focusing on one thing at a time, and also about expectations and performance issues that have been causing me to have difficult times in my charting and have contributed to me feeling overwhelmed at points by the enormous amount of work that we still have to do in SBS, which makes it difficult to get work done. I got some amazing encouragement from my checker after he had gone through my Romans and my 1 Corinthians, which were the books that I was really feeling like I was struggling in, and he let me know that I actually did a great job on the books and really spoke truth into me and encouraged me and let me know that I gotta make sure that I don't have unrealistic expectations of myself. He really helped me realize just how much pressure I put on myself and how I seemed to think that I had to have huge epic interpretations for every observation instead of just asking God to speak to me through the text and to write it down.

Through that talk and studying 2 Corinthians, which has a lot about weakness, God did a lot of work in my heart and helped me realize that in SBS and throughout the future, the only thing that matters is that I am following His call and being faithful with what He tells me to do. He's really been teaching me that if I am going to make it in the life of being a missionary that I have to completely forget about what the world thinks is successful and thinks that I should do in order for me to be "successful", and just look to Him and realize that being obedient is what it means to be successful in my life. Especially with looking at the future and thinking about support and everything, I was starting to think more about what the world was thinking of my role in ministry and it was starting to affect my work here as well. So God's really been speaking into this area and helping me to realize that I don't have to have some epic crazy ministry in order to be successful or for people to support me, but all I have to do is follow Him and share with people what He's doing in and through me and why I'm doing what I'm doing, and I will be successful.

Another thing that God's been speaking to me about is doing my part while trusting Him to provide. When I started on this journey of following God wherever He led me, I really felt that He was telling me not to really ask anybody for money, and that He was just going to provide for me, which was awesome, because I'm more of a giver and I hate asking for things. But now that I'm almost a year into things and am definitely in this for the long haul, and plan on living my life following Him, I feel like He's telling me to start doing my part to seek out support now. Something that God's really taught me over the last year is that in following Him, you sometimes have to step out of your comfort zone, whether it be preaching the gospel or asking for support or calling out someone on something they're doing or not doing or whatever. God's really shown me that I need to show my dedication by swallowing my pride, stepping out in faith and asking for help.

The reality of my situation is that I basically have two supporters, one being my parents and the other being our next door neighbour who I almost feel bad taking money from because she is a widow and doesn't work or anything, but she still wants to support me, and that's it. This definitely isn't enough for me to live on long term. I've gotten by well so far because when I left for DTS I got an amazing amount of support from friends and family, I've received some support from some people during the time I've been gone, and I've basically sold all my possessions and got a great tax return back this year because of my old job. These sources of money have now gotten low and I basically should have enough for my next term of SBS, but definitely don't have enough to support myself past there.

I know that some people may be thinking that because I'm doing school and not out in the jungles preaching the gospel, that I'm not really a missionary yet so I should be paying for my schooling myself, and I don't blame them because from an external point of view that makes sense, especially since I had a good job before I left. I know that I could have waited to go to DTS and worked another year and saved up heaps of money and probably been fine for money for the entire DTS and SBS, which was actually what I originally planned to do, but the problem with that plan was that it was man's plan and not God's plan. God told me to go right away and to put my faith in Him and trust that He would provide for me, not only for DTS, but for my entire life. So I did the only thing that I could do and I followed Him and trusted Him, and now I'm living in Taiwan, which is actually a surprisingly unreached area and actually is a very spiritually dark place, and am spending my time studying the bible because God told me to so that He could equip me for what He has for me next, which I don't even know what it is yet. I know that in the world's eyes, I may not be doing things "the right way" or how some people think I should and that I should have a long term plan and should know exactly what I'm going to be doing, but God didn't tell me to wait and do it that way, He told me to go and trust Him. All that I know is that I'm doing what God wants me to do and am trusting Him to lead me to what He has for me, to make me into the man that He wants me to be so that I can do that, and that He will provide for me whatever I need.

So what I'm getting at here is I am asking you all to spend some time praying for me and asking God about partnering with me and supporting me in following God's call. It doesn't even have to be much, it can be a one time gift or a regular gift, whatever you can give will be appreciated; even $10/month would help and make a difference for me. I don't want anybody to give out of obligation, I'm not writing this to guilt anyone into giving, I only want you to give if it is something that you want to do and feel like God wants you to do.

Unfortunately, because I'm not a full-time staff member with YWAM, there is no way that I can get anybody tax receipts, but hopefully that will be an option in the future. Right now, basically the best way to support me is to send a cheque or money to my parents so they can put it into my bank account. Their address is

Jack and Alice Stelpstra
48 Tweed Cres
London, Ontario, Canada
N5X1Z4

I also definitely need you all to be supporting me with prayer. Like I said earlier, Taiwan is a very dark spiritual place where Christianity is not followed much, so I need as much prayer support as I can get. Specifically if you could be praying for me that I won't get overwhelmed with the workload that we're going to have second term, which is considered the hardest term since we're starting the Old Testament and the books are much longer than the New Testament. Also please be praying that God will be speaking to me and giving me more of a vision for my future, and that He will also be filling me up and giving me peace when I'm missing my family and friends back home. This adventure has been amazing so far and I wouldn't change my decision to leave for the world, but it can sometimes be very difficult living far away from your loved ones in a place where you can't even really speak the language. Please also be praying that God will be helping me with my time management so that I have enough time to get my work done and still have time to work out and to spend time in prayer and to even have some chances to relax other than just one day a week on my Sabbath.

Sorry that this was another long message. I will definitely be updating my blog in the next week or so because I have my week off between terms, so I will have some time to relax and be refreshed and let you guys know how it's going. Hope you all are doing great.

God Bless!!


Prayer Points

• That I won't get overwhelmed with the workload in 2nd term
• That God will be giving me more of a vision for my future
• That God will be giving me peace and filling me with His love in times when I miss my family
• That God will help me improve my time management
• That God will continue to teach me to be alright with not being perfect and have realistic expectations for myself

2 months into the roller coaster that is SBS

Wow....it's hard to believe it's already been 2 months since I've been in Taiwan. It's been a great 2 months, but it's also been interesting at times and just plain hard at other times, but God is faithful and He's been with me the whole way!

Like I said in my last post, God has been smacking me around a little and teaching and humbling and correcting and directing me over the last couple months. Acts was a really hard book for me, but not so much because of the book, but more because of what was happening in my life and because of what I realized was my pride.

On April 19, I received some really tough news that my good friend Anna Booth, who was on my DTS passed away because of some lesions she had on her brain and the complications from her surgery. This was some hard news to get cause she was such an awesome person to be around and was a good friend that I joked around with all the time during DTS, and also because it was so sudden.

Then during Acts, we had been talking about sharing the gospel again and as I had been praying and spending time with God, He put a friend of mine on my heart, who had deleted me off of facebook and had completely cut off communication from me without any reason. I felt God was telling me to message him, so I did and I found out that the reason that he had deleted me wasn't because of something I did, but because of how I had changed and how I was living for God and he had been hurt by the church before so he decided he didn't want to be my friend anymore. This was really hard on me and was a huge blow because this was a really good friend that had been there for me during some tough times, and although I knew that he had cut off contact with me, I had never really had time to process it and hadn't thought about it.

So these two things together combined really hit me hard and made focusing so difficult and I was feeling overwhelmed and hurting and everything all together, but through this God was speaking to me. He helped me understand that I have to swallow my pride and share with other's when I'm going through difficult times and struggling. He helped me realize that by not sharing I'm actually preventing people from being able to pray for Anna's family and for my friend and I'm not just hurting myself, but others too. This was really big for me because I've always been one to keep things inside and to be "strong" and not want to burden others with my problems, but I never ever thought that could possibly be pride until now. God had been talking to me through others about being vulnerable, but I had never made the connection until all of this happened.

I ended sharing with my class what was happening, and I've started a Monday morning guy's prayer time to give people a chance to share with each other what they're struggling with and be vulnerable with each other and to support each other. So far I've only been there for 1 morning because I was in Hong Kong the next week, but I'm really hoping this will be a blessing to me and all the guys in our SBS.

This lesson also helped with my pride in another way, because I ended up doing horribly on my charts that week and I really felt God telling me to remember that it's not about marks or about how awesome of charts I have, but it's about hearing Him and learning from Him.

These lessons continued this week. We were doing Romans this week, and because of my trip to Hong Kong I was behind from the beginning, and it was a huge struggle to make up any ground. I was having such a hard time concentrating and could just feel a horrible weight and depression on me, and I just felt like I wanted to quit and give up and go home. I had no idea what was causing it, and I tried everything from repentance to making amends with someone from many many years ago to just crying out to God. This gave me an opportunity to put into practice what God taught me during Acts, and I sent out a message to my fellow SBS students and to my friends from DTS and to my church asking them to pray for me, and it was encouraging the response I got from people.

Things got better; it was still a struggle to get through the book, but through it God showed me how I am in a completely different world over here and it is a much different spiritual atmosphere that I'm used to. Here there are only a small percentage of Christians, and the majority of people worship their ancestors, which creates a very heavy and difficult spiritual atmosphere. Because of this, God showed me that I need to be taking care of my body mind and spirit better by making sure I get enough sleep, making sure I'm taking time to just relax and enjoy myself, as well as spending time with Him everyday in prayer. It was kinda surprising to me that I never realized or thought of how different things are here compared to Canada or New Zealand, but now that I do, I know how to prepare, and I know that God will help me and will protect me from anything the devil throws at me.

So now that you've heard all about the struggles I've been having, it's time to tell a little about the awesome things that have been happening. First and foremost, God has put some awesome people around me here at SBS, and we are forging some great relationships that will last forever. It has been awesome getting to know everybody, and although we are all different and come from all edges of the world, we are all so similar in different way and we have an amazing atmosphere in our class.

An exciting thing for me has been that God has been giving me a bit of a vision for the future recently, which is something that He hadn't given me until now. During 1 Timothy, I was really meditating on the passage where Paul tells him not to let anyone disregard him because of his age, and it made me realize that I had disregarded myself because of different things throughout my life, whether it be because of age or inexperience or whatever. While I was thinking and praying about this God gave me an amazing vision of pioneering a rock climbing DTS and using one of my passions to bring people into His kingdom! It was amazing to hear God so clearly again and it was a message that went straight to my heart and lifted me up completely, especially since pioneering was an area that I had been disregarding myself in. Also, I had been seeking God and praying for more a vision lately because it was a little disheartening to be constantly telling people that I didn't know what the big picture was when they were asking what my plan was, so this was an answer to prayer.

This long term vision gives me more of an idea of what I need to do in the short term, which is to learn the language. Unfortunately learning languages is another area that I struggle in and disregard myself in, but I think God is trying to teach me that the bible wasn't lying when it says thatI can do all things through Christ (Phil. 4:13). I have a strong feeling that this vision is to be based in Taiwan, and since I am here for a while, I'm starting to try to learn more of the language and to set aside a couple hours a week to learn it, but what I really believe God is calling me to do is to spend 2 years here after this school is done learning the language. This is exciting and scary for me at the same time, but I am trusting God that He will lead me and provide everything that I need to do this. I'm also starting to talk with some people around the base that have learned the language and ask them about the schooling and what kind of ministry they did during school and things like that. I've heard from one of the guys on our base that he's gonna be studying Chinese and while helping get a surfing ministry started, which is what kinda started my thinking about using passions to spread the gospel, so I'm also gonna meet with him and see if I could possibly get involved in that ministry too.

So it's been an exciting last couple weeks, and I'm still seeking God for confirmation about what is next, but there's still a long way to go in SBS, so God has some time to confirm what He wants me to do. If you could all be praying that God would be leading and guiding me and that I wouldn't let my own desires get in the way of hearing what He wants me to do.

I could go on and on about what's been happening over here, but this has been a long enough post already. A quick note though - I had an amazing trip to Hong Kong and had an awesome time meeting with an old friend of my parents' Gerry Denbok who lives with his wife and son in Hong Kong. It was really uplifting to hear from a fellow Canadian who has been living in Asia for about 15 years or so and to hear stories about what God's been doing in Hong Kong and China.

I'm going to leave you with some prayer requests because I've felt God telling me that I need to keep you all updated on how you can be praying for me, and I know that you probably want to know what to pray for as well. Also, I'm going to try to write an update every week so that it's not such of a novel for you guys and to keep you up to date better.

Hope you're all doing great, love you all.

God bless,

Matt


Prayer requests:

• That God will continue to show me His vision for my life and will confirm the next step He wants me to take
• That God will help me to focus on Him and not forget why I'm doing this school
• That God will continue to provide me with wisdom, revelation, close friendships, as well as financially
• That God will continue to empower me to be the man that He created me to be
• That God will help me be able to learn some Chinese
• That God will help me manage my time effectively
• That I will be diligent with all the resources that God has given me

Time to get serious about sharing the gospel

Well, it's been a few weeks since I've posted, and they've been some interesting ones. We've been studying Luke, Acts, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, 1 Timothy 1 Thessalonians and we just started 2 Thessalonians, and God's been smacking me around here and there throughout them, which is always good, but difficult. I was going to only write about the last few weeks all in one post, but while I was writing about what God was speaking to me through Luke I realized that it had to be a post of it's own, so I will write again soon to give the rest of my update.

Throughout Luke, there was a big focus on sharing the gospel and how we all are called to share the gospel, and not only through our actions. This really convicted me and made me realize how I am willing to sell all my possessions, give up my career, leave my entire family and all my friends and move to the other side of the world, but I'm afraid to go next door and tell my neighbour about Jesus. This is a big problem to me. I was amazed to hear that of all the Christians that live in this world, only 5% will lead a person to Christ. That's a shocking statistic, and it helped me realize that I have to be a part of that 5%, and I have to do all that I can to encourage others to change that 5% to 6, 7, 8 or 20%.

It got me thinking about why I and others have a difficult time sharing the gospel. We live in a world where people hate absolutes and your are even looked down upon by some if you do believe in absolutes. We like to believe more in relativism and in finding your own truth and what is right to you is right and nobody should ever tell you otherwise. Unfortunately that in itself is WRONG. Truth is not relative and what is right for you is not right. Those arguments are contradictory and do not hold any water. You want to argue with me whether right and wrong are relative to what you believe? Well how about I punch you in the face because it seemed right to me, do you still believe that?? No way you would. There is definite right and wrong and truth in this world no matter how much people like to think otherwise. It is because of these beliefs that many Christians never share the gospel because they are afraid to tell somebody the truth. To me, it seems ridiculous when I think about it, yet it is still something that prevents me from sharing. We are so afraid of offending someone because we are right and know we are right, but unfortunately because we don't have a scientific or mathematical proof, we are scared to tell people. That's the problem with the age we live in is that we've completely lost faith in everything and always want a complete and undeniable scientific proof, but you won't get that with God because that would make faith absolutely useless. We do however have historical proof.

There are 4 detailed records that Jesus exists, they're call the gospels, the only problem is that people have decided that because they're in a religious book that they're not reliable, when in fact they are the most reliable historical books that we have today from that time period. The gospels were written as a record of the events of Jesus, Luke even states his purpose of writing an orderly account at the beginning of his gospel, and have the most manuscripts of any historical writing available. Not to mention, they were written astronomically closer to the dates of the actual events than any other literature of that time, which means that when they were written there were still eyewitnesses to the events around, yet they were not called inaccurate at that time, but now we decide that they are??? Interesting that we know what is the truth better than people who were actually there at the time. To argue that the gospels aren't reliable is to say that any history we have from that time is unreliable, yet people will agree with the writings of Josephus and other historians even though they were written way after the events took place and have very few complete manuscripts compared to the gospels. Basically to call the gospels inaccurate is absolutely ridiculous, and if you disagree I challenge you to read the book A Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, who is the former legal editor for the Chicago Tribune, who used to be an atheist but became a Christian when he started investigating Christianity because his wife became a Christian. Heck, even if you don't disagree I would still recommend reading that book because it is fascinating, but I also like that kind of stuff.

So if we can prove that Jesus existed, then why do people doubt so much? Some say that sure He lived, but He was just a great teacher and wasn't the Son of God, but if that was the case, then why did all but two (Judas killed himself for betraying Jesus, and John appeared to die of natural causes, but they tried to kill him and weren't able to so they exiled him to Patmos) of His disciples die proclaiming Him to be the Messiah?? If He wasn't really who He said He was, then what would compel them and countless others to proclaim His name until they were eventually killed?? I can tell you, it wasn't for popularity, read how many cities Paul is driven out of in Acts. It couldn't have been for money, the apostles didn't have many possessions and a lot of them sold what they did own and gave the money to those who had need (Acts 3:42-47, 4:32-37). And it obviously wasn't for power because you don't have much power in this world when you're dead. So if it wasn't for any of those things that men strive for, then the only logical reason they would ever do what they did is that Jesus died and rose again and was the Son of God. The greatest example that shows that this must be the truth is the account of Paul, who was formerly a Pharisee who tortured and killed Christians relentlessly and approved of the first Christian martyr's death, Stephen. This man who was out for the blood of all Christians was miraculously converted on the road to Damascus and made a 180 degree turn and went from persecuting the Christians to being the greatest evangelist that ever lived. If that's not proof that Jesus was the Son of God, then I don't know what is. And you have to remember that all these guys either were with Jesus when He was alive or knew the people who were with Him while He was alive, and all of this happened within 40 years of His death.

What I'm getting at, is why are we so scared about offending people by telling them that we know the truth, when we do in fact actually KNOW THE TRUTH?!?!?!?!? Just because they don't want it to be the truth doesn't make it any less of the truth. That's like being scared to tell a sports fan that their team lost the game because they don't want to upset them. Just because it's not what they want to hear doesn't mean it's not the truth. Anybody that goes and looks into Christianity with an open mind and really looks at the information should not in their right and logical mind be able to believe anything other than the fact that it is the truth. I think Lee Strobel (who was a complete atheist remember) said it the best when he said that after he had researched the Christian faith he realized that it would take more faith to not believe than it did to believe. Remember this isn't some guy off of the street, this is a man who has a Masters from Yale Law and won Illinois' top honours for investigative reporting during his 14 years as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers.

I know that some people will disagree with me and some may call me some not nice things because I'm willing to follow God and am willing to tell people that they should follow Him too, but that's not my problem. I know that this is the truth, and now I'm finally learning to not be afraid to say it. If you think I must be off my rocker and that I've been so misled, send me an email and I'll tell you what God's done in my life and how I know from my own experiences in my own life that He is the King of Kings, Lord of Lords and Creator and Ruler of this universe. It probably still won't convince you one bit, but I always enjoy talking about God and I'm not afraid to discuss some hard questions and even admit that I don't know all the answers, and I'm fine with that.

No matter what, I hope you all still enjoy reading my blog, and I promise that my next post will not have such a serious tone, but when God convicts you about something, you gotta listen to Him, even if it may not win you any friends.

Until next time, I love you and miss you all, and I hope that you are all having a fabulous May!

God bless!!

An update from Taiwan!

The outside of our classroom during a break

Well I’ve been in Taiwan for a little under a month now, so I guess I’m a little overdue for a blog post. Things have been absolutely insanely busy here, but it’s also been absolutely amazing!!!

I’ll start off with the rest of my time back home in Canada first, and then I’ll get to how things are here.

The rest of my time in Canada was awesome! I had an opportunity to speak at the London Christian Academy for their chapel service because my friend Laura is a teacher there, which was a pretty cool experience. I’ve never been a guest speaker before, so that was cool, and I’ve never really spoken to kids before, which was a little bit nerve racking because I was speaking to a wide range of ages and I didn’t want any of them to be bored, but it went really well and I even got a good review from one of the kids from my church who told her friend at church that she enjoyed it. I also was able to speak at my church, Thames Valley Vineyard, which was a lot of fun. It was great to just share with my family and friends about what God’s been doing the last 6 months as well as talk about my travels and the fun times I’ve had. My church has actually posted my “sermon” online, so if any of you want to hear it, here is the link to it.

Other than that, I was just spending time with family and friends, which was awesome. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to see everybody that I wanted to, but I was able to connect with a lot of people and my barbeque was a great success with about 60 people or so showing up. It was great to see my family, especially my nieces and nephew. It’s definitely been hard being away from everybody, so coming home for a month was a great recharge for me. Thanks to everybody that took the time to see me, and sorry to the people that I missed while I was home, I’ll be home again at some point in the future (most likely March or maybe around Christmas), so we’ll have to try and meet up then.

Anyways, I guess I’ll talk a little about Taiwan, since that’s probably what a lot of you are interested in. 

Like I said, things here are absolutely insanely busy. This school is really intense and takes a ton of work, but it’s definitely worth it. We’ve already gone through Galatians, Titus, Ephesians and Mark, and we just started Luke yesterday. The first few weeks have been really busy because we had classes everyday morning and afternoon and Saturday for the first 2 weeks and classes every morning last week, but starting this week we just have class 3 days a week in the morning because we’re used to the method and getting more used to what we need to do. In our classes we basically go through the background information for the book and go through the book and they help us with some observation and interpretation of the book. Now that we’re going down to only 3 days a week, it’ll be interesting to see how much they help us and how much more we’ll have to figure out on our own, which is nice but a little scary at the same time. lol. 

I know that some of you are wondering about the method that we use for studying the bible, but because it’s a little long, I’ve decided the best way to do that is create a 2nd post listing a “brief” overview of the method we use. So either scroll down to see the post, or click here.

As for how it’s been living here, I love it. It’s been interesting living in a completely different culture, especially since not many people speak English where I live, but it’s definitely awesome. There are many different sights and smells than what you get back home (stinky tofu is the worst smelling thing you can think of), but for the most part, the people are all very friendly, and other than dodging the constant traffic of motos (scooters), it’s pretty easy to get around. I’m living in Dan Shui (the spelling can differ depending on who you talk to), which is north of Taipei right near the coast and I live basically right across from the MRT (subway) station. Because of how busy we are, I don’t really get away too far very often, but we did go to Taipei 101 on our first weekend here, and last Sabbath (we are required to take 1 day off per week, so usually Sunday) I went to a beach that was about a 20 minute bus ride from here with some friends. It’s definitely way different from when I was living at Crystal Springs in New Zealand, because instead of living on a big base and having our own space, we all live in various different apartments around the town and walk (about 5 minutes or so) through town to our classroom. I live with 7 other guys in a 3-bedroom apartment that is actually pretty spacious. We have a pretty large living room, 2 bathrooms (one is in one of the bedrooms) and a kitchen.

The main street to our classroom

We tend to eat out a lot because it costs about the same, or maybe even cheaper than cooking your own food (usually about 70-100 NT per meal, which is between $2-3), also it’s a lot more convenient when you’re super busy to just buy food. The food is delicious, but the only complaint that I have is that it’s always super oily. They use oil in everything, so I’ve been cooking some of my lunches and dinner when I can (good old pasta with lots of veggies and chicken). We have a couple grocery stores right near us, and there’s a fruit and vegetable market just around the corner. Overall, the food situation is pretty good, and I was able to find brown rice finally, so I should be able to get into eating a little healthier, just gotta figure out exactly how to make the rice since the directions are in Chinese. haha.

Well this is getting to be a super long post, so I’ll cut it off here. I’ll try to post more often so that it’s not as much of a novel for you all to read, and so you won’t all forget about me. lol.

I hope and pray that you are all doing well back home. Please be keeping me in your prayers that God will not only help me to get through all the work that I’m going to be doing over the next 8 months, but that He will be speaking through it as well. I know that this is going to be not only a big step in the equipping process that God’s sending me through, but that it’s also going to be a big step in my relationship with God and how that is reflected in my thoughts and my life. I should probably mention too that pretty much all of our visas have now come in!! So thank you Jesus for that!! I still will have to leave the country next month and go to Hong Kong for a day with a bunch of my classmates to get my new visa, but at least we finally have all that we need!! 

I love and miss you all. May God bless you and keep you in whatever you are doing.