BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s army recruits can look forward to a better night’s sleep thanks to a new regulation banning chronic snorers from joining up. One of a raft of physical and mental traits banned from the army, the new standards governing recruitment into China’s military schools also blacklist drug-takers, tattoo-wearers and overweight applicants, Chinese newspapers reported on Monday.

“Given that chronic snorers’ sounds disturb the life of others, a new regulation … has been added,” the Beijing Times newspaper quoted army official Li Chunming as saying.

Prominent tattoos are also banned in the 2.3-million-strong People’s Liberation Army, the world’s largest standing force.

“Recruits with any marks, words or designs exceeding two centimeters in diameter on exposed parts of the body when wearing short sleeves — and harm the army’s image — do not qualify,” said the Beijing Times. “Tattoos on other parts of the body are limited to three centimeters.”

Also on the hit-list are the short, the skinny and the fat. And applicants will sit written psychological tests and have their urine tested for evidence of drug-taking.

The purpose of the new regulations is to bring modern recruitment procedures tailored to the new youth of today’s society, the Beijing Times said.

“Along with social and economic development and improvements in people’s living standards, young people’s physical and mental growth has experienced vast changes,” the paper said.

A week of many blessings. That is how I would describe the days from Good Friday through the following week. Our Good Friday worship is unique in Taiwan. I know of no other Christian churches that have a Good Friday worship opportunity in Taiwan. We always have worship on Friday evenings and so we are yearly blessed with the chance to observe and review what all our Lord Jesus did to redeem us. How can you celebrate on Easter without having spiritually passed through Good Friday?

This year we did something different for Good Friday. One of our members made a styrofoam cross that stood 8ft high with a cross beam that was about 5 feet long. When worshippers came to church I gave them instructions for spending some pre-service time in meditation and confession and then asked them to confess their sin to God by writing them down on a red ribbon of paper. They were not to sign their names and were assured that no one would read them. Later in the service each worshipper came forward, nailed their ’sin ribbon’ to the cross and then the communicants recieved the Lord’s Supper and the others were verbally assured that in Jesus their sins were forgiven. Following the service we viewed the ‘Passion’ movie (Mel Gibson). It was midnight when I returned home.

Saturday AM our members boarded a bus for the mountians near Taipei for a joint Easter weekend worship service. It rained all weekend! We first stopped at the zoo for a few hours and then went to the retreat center on Yang Ming Mountain. Saturday evening we had a praise hour of singing songs and then Evangelist Chen DyanMing shared two doctrinal powerpoints he had prepared. One was on the doctrine of justification and the other on original sin. It was nice for me to hear him verbalize his understanding of these Bible teachings. He did a very good job, though it was not perhaps the most exciting activity for some of the kids and some of the adults. It was helpful for me however to see where he was at with his understanding of these important doctrines.

Easter Sunday morning I was up early to work through my sermon for the morning worship service. I thank God for the opportunity to share with the 100 who gathered for worship from our 4 churches in Taiwan. Christ is risen and because he is forgiveness, a meaningful life now and forever in heaven are ours. The Easter gospel is good news we have and must share that others may also come to know Jesus as Savior! Share it! God bless!!

The body is gone! How ironic that on the day after Easter I myself would see an empty grave. Let me explain. Following our Easter worship service, Sarah and the kids dropped me off near the CKS international airport in Taiwan. I had an early morning flight the next day to Hong Kong where I was to meet with our One China Team. I checked into my hotel in the afternoon and then wanted to take a walk. I could see a pagoda in the neighborhood and so I grabbed my camera and went for a walk in that direction.

Pagodas are used as mausoleums for storage of cremated remains AND for storage areas for the urns that contain the bones that have been collected from those who were buried in a coffin. Let me explain. In Taiwan, most people are cremated. It is cheaper. Others who have more finances will bury with a coffin, though the gravesite is mounded and not flat like is the case in the Midwestern US. In Taiwan you rent the gravesite for 6 years. Then what?? After 6 years you hire a bone collector and one family member will go with the bone collector to the gravesite. The coffin is unearthed and opened. If the body has decayed enough, the bones are removed and placed in a 24″ high urn and then the family buys a permanent resting place in the mausoleum where the bone urn will remian. Some families have their own private crypt for the bone urns and generations of family members are then placed next to one another in their urns. See photo album for family crypts.

If after the 6 years the bone collector opens the coffin and the corpse has not decayed enough then the family member is faced with the decision to re-bury the coffin for 2 more years OR pay a large fee to have the bones removed from the body. Unfortunately we have a Chinese Christian member that went to collect her father’s bones and he had not decayed enough. She had to make a few cell phone calls and explain to the family the situation. They paid the fee and had the bones removed from the body. It was a horrific situation for our member and we spent time working through the aftermath with her.

While walking the cemetery there were graves in various states of repair. Some were immaculate, others poorly tended, some were cavernous holes, others had been recently opened to collect the bones. See the photos called CEMETERY for a tour.

Death is feared by the Chinese. They avoid seeing it and will send their kids inside if they hear a funeral procession coming. They avoid talking about it and when they must they will use other sayings so that they do not say the word ‘death’. The number 4 (sz) in spoken Mandarin sounds like the word for death and so hospitals have no 4th floor and many apartment buildings re-number the floors skipping all the 4’s. There may be no 4th, 14th, 24th floors! Research was done showing that more Chinese people die on the 4th, 14th and 24th day of the month compared to other countries. Researchers claim it is due to the fear of the sound of death in the number 4.

Western people don’t relish death either. Those who know Jesus can face death because Jesus, through his cross and resurrection, has removed the everlasting sting of death. Thanks be to God, he gives us the victory over death through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because He lives I can face tomorrow; because He lives all fear is gone.

It does not happen often enough! Tee it up!! Peter Chen (left) and Noah Chen (right) joined us in Taichung for worship. No, we were not worshiping on the golf course! We have worship on Friday evening and on this particular week Evangelist Peter Chen was to preach in Taichung. We had invited Noah Chen and his wife, Angela to come to worship so that they could get to know our Taichung church a little bit. You see, in the very near future, Noah and Angela, God-willing, will be coming to Taichung to work with us and then to transition into leading the Taichung Gospel Center. Noah is still taking some classes to reach a level where we could ‘call’ him as an Evangelist to serve in Taichung.

Noah and Angela accompanied Peter from Taipei to Taichung, about 2 hours by bus. They came in the morning so that the men could have a ‘meeting’ and the ladies could ‘do lunch and chat’. Our ‘meeting’ went quite well! We enjoyed our time of fellowship together and were able to discuss some important ministry items while following the ‘little white ball’.

We have known Noah and Angela for some time but these past 4 years they have lived in the USA and just recently came back to Taiwan to visit their newest grandchild. Sarah and Angela also had a nice afternoon and were able to begin to build a stronger relationship.

At this time, it looks as though Noah and Angela will be joining us in Taichung sooner than we had planned. The thought is that the sooner they join us the more time together we’ll have to help transition them into the ministry here. Pray for this transition. Pray for Noah and Angela as they face another ‘move’ from the USA back to Taiwan ‘for good’. They have mainly lived in Taipei so moving to Taichung will be a new change for them as well

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Hannah has had her last track and field day as a Middle Schooler. She is growing up too fast! During PE class this past month they practiced high hump, long jump, shot put and discus as well as running, all in preparation for the track and field day. At her school, Morrison, they combine the elementary and middle school kids and have teams with all grade levels represented on each team. The older kids get to help out the younger ones.

She enjoyed participating in the high jump and especially the discus. After the discus competition was completed, the high school track coach asked Hannah to take a few more throws. She ended up throwing the discus beyond the distance that won 1st place in the actual competition!!! The coach encouraged her to consider coming out for discus during track season this next school year when Hannah will be a 9th grader at Morrison. Hannah was excited about her throws and is interested in doing discus next year. It was a fun day!!

SEE MORRISON AT: (http://k8.mca.org.tw/ OR at
http://k8.mca.org.tw/2005-2006/ms/class/8A/index.htm
Click on ACTIVITIES and see photos of Hannah’s class outings!)