This year, i42 Taiwan STM was invited to run an English camp for about 60 students, ranging from 2nd grade to 5th grade, at Dong Yang Elementary School in XueJia, a small town on the outskirts of Tainan city in southern Taiwan. Our team had partnered with Pastor John, who had been sent by Village Gospel Mission to establish a church not far from this school.
Every morning, we started our day with personal devotions at 6:45AM, after which we had breakfast, packed up our equipment for the day, and arrived at the school by 8:00AM to set up classrooms and prepare for the day. Each day of camp began at 9AM with the main event, which would start with us singing the American national anthem, followed by the Taiwanese national anthem. Afterwards, we had them learn some fun dance moves to get them warmed up, and then we taught them the words and hand motions to songs like “Deep and Wide”, “Deep, Deep”, and “Every Move I Make.” After leading them in singing these songs, our team would present a different Bible story through a creative acting and storytelling in order to teach the main idea for that day. Our theme for this camp was “Run,” and we shared about “Running Into” difficulties in life, “Running After” the right things, “Running With” the right friends, and finally “Running Well” through believing in Jesus.
After the main event, the teams would rotate through the four classes for this: music, games, crafts, and English. During these classes, we had many opportunities to share about God’s love. For instance, the English class helped reinforce the Bible story for that day by teaching vocabulary words from the story. In music class, we taught more children’s worship songs and talked about what the songs meant and why we sang them. In addition, we also had a chance to share our testimonies. For example, our music teacher Candee shared her testimony about how God healed her cancer, which really helped our students understand the meaning behind the song “Our God is So Great!”
In the evenings, we had dinner together as a team and then split off for home visitations. During these home visitations, we had a chance to get to know the parents and share our testimonies with them. For many of our team members, the home visitations were the highlight of the camps, as this was when we really got to reach out to these children and their families. For example, at one of our home visitations, Aaron Ho shared his testimony of how God had healed him from serious health condition. The mom shared with our team members that Aaron’s testimony really resonated with her, as she also had a similar health issue. This visitation team was able to share the good news of Jesus with this family and to pray for the mom’s healing. At another home visitation, Amy Chen shared about the struggles she faced because of social media and peer pressure, and how she found peace and healing through Christ. We thank God for the opportunity to sow the seeds of the gospel with these families!
On the last day of camp, we invited parents to come and see what their children had learned through the week. It was wonderful to see the children so proud of what they had learned, and the parents and relatives so grateful to see their children filled with joy because of what they had experienced at our camp. Afterwards, the elementary school’s administrator treated our team to ice cream to thank us, which was a welcome treat after four days without air conditioning.
Thank you so much for supporting this year’s team! Through your prayers and with your support, we believe this camp has helped Pastor John and his church’s coworkers earn the trust of many families in XueJia. However, we know that much work needs to be done, so we ask for you to remember Pastor John and the children of DongYang elementary school in your prayers!
