Blessings!

It has been a while since we’ve checked in- busyness!!  Lots going on around here- but that is the life of a Serve Asia Worker!  It is difficult to summarize what has been happening… a couple of things come to mind. 

Language study- has been challenging, fun, and REWARDING.  Mandarin is such a beautiful and intricate language, and we feel so privileged to be able to learn it.  We are picking up and understanding more and more words in conversations, and sometimes even phrases or sentences!  I (Gretchen) had a really cool moment while doing crafts at the Pearl Family Garden last week.  I was just sitting and listening to another missionary talk with a Taiwanese woman, and I was actually catching the drift of what they were saying! It was just such a neat feeling to realize that this language, which at first seemed impossibly difficult, is actually soaking in!  These past couple weeks we have even been learning several written Chinese characters.  So exciting! We can have simple conversations with each other and others (emphasis on SIMPLE).  Step by step we are getting there!  A missionary friend of ours told us she thinks we have a gift for learning this complicated language- which is SO encouraging to hear.  

On the topic of friends, God is so good to us.  When we first arrived in Taiwan, naturally it was quite lonely.  However, we have made some very kind and godly friends and role models.  We are so grateful because these people don’t HAVE to befriend us. We’re only here for three short months, and they don’t know if we’ll ever be back.  However, they get to know us, encourage us, include us, advise us, help us along, and even invite us over for dinner.  These friends really know what community is and strive to live it out.  We are so grateful for this blessing!

Just a side note- we are so grateful to have raised about 75% of our financial support for this time in Taiwan, as well as abundant prayer support!!  If you feel God leading you to partner with us, either prayerfully or financially, please contact us - mgdominowski@gmail.com.  Emails from home saying hello are really great too!  We would love to hear from you and any prayer requests you may have!

We are so blessed to be here - Thank you, senders!!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone-  praise God from whom all blessings flow!

We will be celebrating here with grateful hearts… and beef noodle soup. 

再見  Zai Jian!  

Settling In

Hey guys!

Let’s see, what is new since we last updated…

We have been here for five weeks already!  Time crawled by before while we were in that difficult adjustment stage, but now it seems to be flying by.  We are really enjoying our time here, and want to make the most of every day.  Living here is starting to feel… quite normal (and fun!).  God is faithful.

Two interesting things we saw this week that we would like to note:

1. A furry spider in our apartment that was about the size of a post-it note (talk about an early-morning adrenaline rush!)
2. A guy wearing a Green Bay Packers hat!

Two weeks ago, we started our Mandarin language studies at the Taipei Language Institute.  It is a lot of work and sometimes exhausting with all the other activities we have going on, but we are enjoying it.  It is very exciting to be able to use Mandarin to do things like order our meals! 

Our ministries have been going quite well despite our language barrier with the people we interact with.  The English class we teach on Thursdays has been going great.  We have 5-6 boys every week, and they are so much fun to teach and spend time with.  Some bad news: the boy we mentioned in previous posts who was attending the Yi Guan Dao cult meetings has decided to switch off between the Christian kid’s club and Yi Guan Dao meetings every other week.  This is a very common problem in Taiwan- people will profess Jesus as their Savior and Lord, but they will continue to worship their old gods as well.  Please be in prayer for him and others in his position, that they would understand that Jesus is the one true God, and they do not need any other.

The park outreach on Saturday afternoons has been AWESOME!  We so much enjoy the relaxed atmosphere where there is plenty of time to play with the kids and chat with the adults.  This ministry definitely fits our personalities.  Last Saturday I (Gretchen) had the opportunity to share some pictures of life at home with some of the elderly people at the park.  A Taiwanese coworker did all the talking. :) During this time, we also got to pray for a few different ladies.  One of them said she did not know how to pray, and as we prayed with her, she started crying!  It could very well have been the first time in her life that someone ever prayed for her.  This ministry is growing through the Holy Spirit’s power, and it is so cool to see.  Relationships are being built and God’s truth is being shared.

Take some time and check out our pictures we linked to in our previous post.  We hope they can give you all a good visual of what life and ministry is like here!  

Thank you so much for partnering with us.  You all have given us such a wonderful opportunity, and we hope to make the very most of it.

Wan an!  Goodnight!

M&G