Time flies! Katrina had her seventh birthday today! She actually had 2 parties, one at school and another at home. At her school her teacher has one birthday party each month for the kids who had a birthday in that month. The party for March happened to fall right on Trina’s birthday, the Spring Equinox 3/21. Trina asked for a Mermaid cake and Sarah did her best to make it happen.

Trina got new wheels for her birthday! Taiwan is one of the biggest manufacturers of bikes in the world and Trina now has one, a Taiwan made GIANT! We went for a ride, the 5 of us. Trina did great with her new ride even with learning how to change gears as it has 5 speeds. Isaac was happy as well because he got a hand-me-down gift of Katrina’s former bike. We only went about 5km but Isaac did a great job of riding also.

Thank you to all who sent me cards and remembered my birthday!! This picture is a special “Do it yourself” pillow case. I can’t wait to color it!! Thanks Aunt Jean!

love, Katrina!

A Sweet Sound

I love you, Lord, and I lift my voice to worship you…take joy my King in what you hear; may it be a sweet sound in your ear. These are the words of a simple but beautiful song of praise. In this verse, we ask that our song would be a sweet sound to God. What is so great about singing? “I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me” (Ps. 13: 6)… “Sing joyfully to the Lord” (Ps. 33:1)… “Sing praises to God, sing praises” (Ps. 47:6)… “Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord” (Eph. 5:19)… The Bible makes many references to music and singing as an important way to praise and worship God; and rightly so. Often times it seems that music and singing can touch people’s hearts and give them joy in a way that normal words can’t reach. What a tremendous blessing God has given to us, with the gift of music.

In the past few months, our Taichung mission team has been blessed with using this gift of song for God’s glory. Because many of our English students love to sing, we were able to start a choir of about 10-12 students last September. They would stay after English class on Thursday nights to practice songs from 9:30-10:30 p.m. We started with 3 songs (including I Love You Lord), which we practiced for the first 2 ½ months every Thursday night.

Since this was the first time we had a choir and it was somewhat of a trial run, we were unsure of how the group would feel about singing in public. However, when the suggestion of singing for a church service was mentioned, they expressed much enthusiasm about a public performance. We jumped on this opportunity that God had given us, and scheduled a performance for a Friday night church service in mid-November.

The only small concern of our mission team was that students might not be able to come to the service, and that we would be stuck with only 3or 4 people who would show up to sing. This culture seems to be one of last-minute decisions and it’s hard to plan ahead, so getting the whole group to come to church on a Friday night could have been a potential challenge.

However, the Lord soon showed us that He is watching over us and we don’t have to worry. God repeats this promise to us so often–that He is in control and will always do what’s best for all of us; and yet somehow those comforting words seem to go in one ear and out the other. I’m fairly certain that at one time or another, all of us have tried to put our trust in ourselves and what WE do, instead of trusting in God, and it’s hard to accomplish much that way. Thankfully, we have a loving God who is forgiving and who keeps working in our hearts, and on the Friday night of our first choir performance here in Taichung, God showed us just how powerful and good He is. The whole group of students came, ready and excited to sing. We sang all three songs, and it was a nice treat for the members of church because this was new for them. The students loved singing the songs so much that we sang them all again at our Thanksgiving celebration, and we learned another song to sing for the Christmas service. For this song, one of the students even had a solo, and she sang it beautifully.

After a week of no classes for Christmas break, we started up again with class and choir in January. At our most recent choir practice, 15 people came. We even had 5 men, which was enough for them to have their own male tenor section. When we’d first started the choir, there was only one male voice. Right now we are learning a few songs to sing around Easter time, and we are also going to be working on some secular songs to sing for a talent show at the end of the term. This choir has definitely been one of the highlights of teaching here so far, and it’s been a great opportunity to share God’s love through music. I am so thankful that God has blessed the work over here. We have so much to praise and thank Him for, and it is my prayer that we can continue singing His praises and sharing with the world the sweet sound of Jesus’ love.

Kristin Lehmann

(Kingdom Worker English Teacher—Taichung, Taiwan)

(To read about the work in TAIWAN begin with TAIWAN 1 and read through to Taiwan 9 blog entry)

Welcome to Taiwan, the Republic of China, and our WELS mission work among the Chinese people. Taiwan, also known as Formosa, is a small island in Northeast Asia, only 240 miles in length from north to south and 85 miles wide at its broadest point. Taiwan is located 90 miles off the coast of southeastern China, with Japan to the north and the Philippines to the south.

The Taiwan population is just over 23 million people. 15000pp/mile in the area of Taichung Taiwan where we live and work. The 2 elementary schools near our home and church have more than 4000 students just in grades 1 through 6. The official language of Taiwan is Mandarin although the Taiwanese dialect, said to be the ‘heart language of the people’ is also used island wide. The Mandarin Chinese language is by far the most spoken language in the world.