SQJ Taipei

I had a great summer serving in numerous ways and in numerous places. Before I went on the trip, I spent four weeks traveling to Christian summer camps as part of the Ozark Christian College Camp Team ministry. With this job I spent time ministering to high school and junior high students with hopes of them leaving the camp changed and motivated for a stronger walk with Christ. After camp teams, I had 7 days to rest and get ready for the big trip to Taiwan. This is, after all, my first ever missions trip. During my quiet times, I felt called to read the entire book of Exodus and I dug in to the book and it felt like I was reading the book for the first time. I was amazed again at God’s love and faithfulness to the Israelites and I was hurt and angry with the Israelites’ decision to worship an idol after God had redeemed them. I can only imagine how much God was hurt after knowing about their sin. On our first day in Taipei, our team went to an idol temple for the first time. It was the only time in my life where I felt no spirit, I just felt death. Walking around the temple in heavy rain with thunder louder than an imploding building, the setting of the temple was heartbreaking. The very first thing I saw when I walked into the temple was a golden urn with incense sticks inside of it. It reminded me instantly of the golden calf the Israelites worshiped. Then I saw it: two teenage girls worshiping an idol with the prayer blocks. My mind was filling with all the hard questions teenagers asked me when I was at camps earlier in the summer. The hardest questions in life cannot be answered by man or anything man-made. The hardest questions in life are to be answered by the living God, when He sees fit.

Even though my time in the temple was hard, it did give me some encouragement. I remember seeing a group of people worshiping an idol as the custodians at the temple were cleaning the idol and making it look prime. God does not need us, the last chapters in Job prove it. God did not need my wisdom to make a foundation for human life. God will never need me, but He will accept me.

There is one final lesson I learned while in Taiwan. Our team had the privilege of going to the top of Taipei 101. I had some alone time on the top and my Bible was handy, so what is the best passage to read on top of the world’s tallest building? I read Genesis 11, the story of the Tower of Babel and while I ate into the short story, I could not lose my focus of the words of those building the tower: so that we may make a name for ourselves.

Taipei 101 was an architectural masterpiece and is made to last; but the building will come down some day. Before the Tower of Babel, God just destroyed the world with a flood, so these people building the tower are all closely related in some way. They were to go and spread God’s glory. God had chosen them to be the foundations for His glory in the renovated world. They were living a life for themselves trying to make the best of their life. Here’s a good scripture that best explains my thoughts on top of Taipei 101: “Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything” (Hebrews 3:3-4).

I left Taipei 101 reflecting off of that passage and its context of the flood, but it didn’t hit me until I went home. I visited my grandmother and she took me out to eat at a casino for lunch. All I saw were these elderly people sitting in front of slot machines trying to hit the jackpot. The next day, I began working at my high school job: a waiter at a truck stop. It still struck me seeing the same people come in and drink coffee and waste the day away thinking that’s what they are meant to do.

I’m sitting in my dorm right now with classes starting tomorrow morning and I still cannot stop replaying the most important message I learned from my experience in Taiwan: GO!