Friend,

The mission teams are all back home, the interns have gone, and it’s just me left in the apartment. Crista has gone ahead to take care of Malachi while Ashlyn begins a new job. That’s a Taichung summer ‐ a few non-stop weeks from morning to night, and then in a moment it’s over.

Let me tell you what happened.

Many of you have prayed for my friend Eragon for over ten years. And most of you have never met him, yet.

Brian Lee came to Taiwan on a summer team in 2015, right after I met Eragon, and he was there at the start of Eragon’s long journey to Christ. Brian is now the youth pastor at New Hope in Tarrytown now and this summer he brought his own team back to lead our TIF Youth Camp ‐ one of seven teams, seventy people in all, from Hawaii to New York. Ryan Miller was on that same 2015 trip. This summer Ryan’s 17 year old son, Elijah, spent five weeks here as an intern.

About a month ago, Eragon told me he was ready to be baptized. So Brian, who came in 2015, and Ryan's son both were able to be part of celebrating with him and our church.

That is what these teams are accomplishing. Some plant, some water, but it's God who gives the growth. Every group plants something they most likely won't see grow. But sometimes...

Many young people heard the gospel for the first time this summer. And we tried something we have never done before ‐ we turned some of the visiting teams loose to practice their evangelism in the wild.

Here is why that works. Everything we do runs through a church. TIF, Hope Fellowship, All Praise. When the visiting teams fly home, the home team is still here to carry the ball.

Asa Roberts, our gap year intern from Fremont, Nebraska, has gone home. He arrived with long hair and a challenge for our students: memorize a whole chapter of Scripture, and if enough of you finish it and quote it in a worship service, I’ll cut it off.

That’s what a year of somebody’s life looks like when you give it to Christ.

Our internship program is thriving. A gap year before college, a summer after high school, a semester as a college or seminary student ‐ we will build it around where you are. And because everything here runs through a church, you stay long enough to see what happens after the visitors go home. A short trip cannot give you that. If you know somebody who should be here, send them to missiontaiwan.org/serve-in-taiwan.

Andy and Elaine have started counseling and are making real progress toward being ready to join us in an internship. And this past week Wenlun and I sat down with another seminary couple, Willie and Joy, pictured below, who we plan to bring on as seminary interns this fall.

That part never photographs well. Nobody takes a picture of a Tuesday meeting with a seminary couple. But that meeting is how there’s a church in Taichung ten years from now.

Thank you for being a part of the Mission Taiwan team. Everything you gave this summer had a real impact on people.

Todd & Crista Blackhurst

Mission Taiwan