Over the past couple of weeks, the stories are building of how generosity is being multiplied in the Northland of Kansas City and beyond. You can check out Restore's Big Give Facebook page here. Got a very cool letter from some friends who are in Taiwan and taking the Big Give there. Read below.
It's early Monday morning in Taiwan, but we've got a great story to tell you. Last week we got $20 from the BIG GIVE. We got matching donations to make it $120. We asked Tianchyau Church in Tainan City to select someone in their community in need to receive the gift of NT$4000. They selected Sister Chen (not a Nun) who has survived throat cancer from multiple surgeries including a tracheotomy. She now suffers complications that have caused her to lose her voice altogether. Her youngest child is a downs syndrome with all those challenges added. She is the only Christ follower in her extended family having been baptized a number of years ago and being very faithful, but even in a country where Christianity is growing faster than any other faith, it's very difficult for people to change. She continues to work to bring the rest of her family to Christ. We attended service yesterday in hopes of meeting Sister Chen and being there as they give her the gift. She was there, but so was a television crew. This turned out to be a Sunday where this church's service was nationally televised. The service was RESTORE like, very exciting with about 1,200 in attendance (out of a membership of about 2,200). During the sermon, the pastor lifted up this woman and family and talked about the BIG GIVE gift. We couldn't understand what was being said, but pretty soon the cameras swung around and she and us were on TV! It get's better. Towards the end of the sermon, the pastor reiterated their excitement for the BIG GIVE and said their church leaders have decided to do their own "BIG GIVE" (in fact they have coined the term in English for themselves) next Christmas and have pledged to raise enough to give each of their members NT$1000 (about $35 x 2200 members) to have it re-multiplied and then given away to help bring people to Christ. He did this on National TV! By the way, Tainan City and Kansas City are sister cities since about 1987. We feel as though Restore and Tianchyau are now sister churches. The good will and enthusiasm was not to be believed. We were only messengers from RESTORE, but we felt like we got a front row seat when Jesus fed thousands with a few loaves of bread! When you gave the money to us last week, you said we won't believe the conversations we'll be blessed with or the impact it will make on peoples lives. That was an understatement! we've seen some of the other fantastic stories already coming in. By empowering the people, RESTORE has really done a good and wise thing.
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