Grubb Mission
Report August 2017
“Go into all the
world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).
A Work of the
Chestnut Mountain Church of Christ, Chestnut Mountain, Georgia USA
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PLEASE PASS THIS
REPORT TO THOSE YOU THINK MIGHT HAVE INTEREST IN OUR WORK!
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Taiwan Trip
July 11-25
This marks the date for my 64th mission
trip. I had not originally planned to make a July trip to Taiwan, but one of
the mission students at Memphis School of Preaching, Scott Ingram, is showing
interest in working there in the future, so we have planned this trip to give
him an idea of what will be involved.
This trip marked some new “firsts” in my
travels. Because Delta Airlines no longer goes to Taiwan, we had to change to
China Airlines in Tokyo for the final leg of the trip. That meant riding a bus
from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2. When we return back to the states, we will
reverse the process. When we arrived in Taiwan, after clearing customs and
picking up our luggage, I had another new experience (all of the experiences
were new for Scott). You can now take the MRT either to Taipei or to the
Taoyuan High Speed Rail (HSR) Station. We took it to Taoyuan so we could head
to Taichung. From the time we landed in Taiwan until brother and sister Yo
picked us up at the HSR station in Taichung was two hours. What a great
improvement over methods used in the past.
Because I was able to get quite a bit of
sleep on the flights, I was able to get up Thursday morning after four hours of
sleep. I was able to get up and get my walk in before breakfast. We spent the
day getting oriented to the local time and environment. We were able to enjoy
the day with brother and sister Yo.
On Friday, we went to make a couple of
visits with some limited sightseeing and eating the best beef noodle soup in
the world. We also took Scott to the night market for the crowd experience.
On Saturday, brother Yo took us to a
nearby city that specializes in wood carvings. In the evening, Scott taught a
Bible class lesson from 2nd and 3rd John. The class was held at the house of
one of the members of the congregation.
On Sunday morning, we had a worship
service at the nursing home in Taichung. I spoke in Mandarin and brother Yo
translated into Taiwanese. At the services at the church building, Scott
presented a lesson on the “Beatitudes of the Revelation.” I translated his
lesson into Mandarin. The one lesson was used in both the Bible class and
worship.
In the afternoon, brother and sister Yo
took Scott and me to the city of LuGang for some sightseeing. We finished up
the day with dinner at the Food Republic in the Top City Department Store in
Taichung.
On Monday morning (our last full day in
the city of Taichung, brother Yo drove us to the Taipei Language Institute
(Taichung branch). I took Scott up to get some information about studying
Chinese there sometime in the future. Lots of things have changed since I
studied there 34 years ago. Of course, the cost is much higher today than it
was then. All the teachers are different and the school is housed in a high
rise building in the city.
As I talked to the secretary about
various details (she did not speak English), I mentioned to her my Chinese
name. She said, “Oh, I know you.!” She then said, “when teachers have students
who are not applying themselves in the right way, they say you need to apply
yourselves like Gu Yue Han!” I thought she was kidding, but she was very
serious. Needless to say, it made my day.
In the afternoon, we went to lunch with
my daughter’s aunt and also went to visit brother Yo’s mother.
On Tuesday, we took the High Speed Rail
to Taipei, then took another train to Hualien. This was about a five hour trip.
We had planned to eat at my favorite wonton soup restaurant, but they were
already closed for the day. So, we ate at Subway.
On Wednesday, we took Scott to a famous
breakfast restaurant where he tried various kinds of breakfast items there.
Afterwards, we made visits at the Assisted Living Home and the hospital. Right
before lunch, we went to the train station to meet Jane Foo who is from
Singapore. We went to a hotel for a buffet lunch with brother and sister Wu,
brother and sister Wang, Amy Yuan and two of her children. After lunch we went
to visit a Japanese-built building that has been preserved. I had never seen it
before.
Wednesday evening, we had midweek Bible
study in Hualien. We had a good turnout for the midweek class. Scott taught a
lesson from Revelation chapters two and three and I translated them into
Mandarin.
On Thursday morning we went to the
Assisted Living Home for the regular Thursday Bible class. I taught in Mandarin
and brother Wang translated into Chinese. In the afternoon, we did the same
thing at the other Assisted Living Home. Thursday night, we went to dinner then
to the night market.
On Friday, we got up early to go to
Toroko Gorge – Marble and Granite mountains near Hualien. After eating lunch,
we rested for a couple of hours before going to the Pacific Ocean. We finished
up with a meal at the church building with some of the members.
On our last full day in Hualien, we saw a
member of the church from Singapore board the train to head back to Taipei and
then on to the airport to go back home. Later in the morning, Scott and I went
downtown to look around and do some shopping. We ate at a Mexican restaurant
run by a man from Vancouver, Canada. We also used part of the day to rest and
get our luggage ready to leave the city right after morning services on Sunday.
It was extremely hot during the whole time we were in Taiwan. We ended the day
with my favorite bowl of wonton soup.
During “down times,” I would work on
various translation and material presentation projects for future events.
As usual, Sunday was a very busy day. It
started at 5:50 in the morning, going to the Assisted Living Home for morning
worship there. (Normally, I would also go to the afternoon service at the other
Assisted Living Home, but I would be on a train to Taipei.) After this service,
we headed back to the church building for morning Bible study and worship.
Scott presented two lessons and I translated them into Mandarin.
After the morning services, Scott and I
boarded the train for Taipei for the three hour train ride to that city.
Brother Jao met us at the train station, took us to drop off our luggage at the
hotel then took us to the location for the worship service in Taipei. Normally,
they meet in the morning, but they changed their services to the late afternoon
on this day because we were coming to the city. We met Marcus Chui, who was
visiting from Singapore.
On Monday, we did some last minute
shopping and sightseeing before packing up our bags for a 6 AM departure, on
Tuesday, from the hotel to the airport.
Fortunately, the flight home was
uneventful. We even arrived back in
Atlanta a few minutes early. Even though immigration was busy, we were able to
get through in good time. I headed home and Scott headed to his concourse to await
his flight back to Memphis. He and his family were reunited later that night.
It is my hope and prayer the trip Scott
Ingram and I made was beneficial to the brethren in Taiwan as well as to Scott
for his consideration of future mission work. For a first trip to Asia, he did
very well. He worked to try to improve his Chinese and made some good progress
in that regard.
I will be going back to Taiwan in
December to speak on the lectureship in Taichung as well as going back to
Taipei and Hualien. Before that, I will make a trip to China and two trips to
Singapore.
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USEFUL WEBSITES
http://www.grubbchinese.org
http://www.wvbs.org
http://www.gbntv.org
http://www.ibtministries.org
http://www.oabs.org
http://ChineseBibleSchool.org
Grubb Mission
Reports can be read here: http://grubbmissionwork.blogspot.com
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SPEAKING
SCHEDULE
2017
Aug. 19-23 – PTP
Mission Presentations
September 6 –
October 6 – China
October 6-10 –
Singapore
7th Lim Ah Pin Chinese service
Oct. 28-29 –
Richmond Hill Lectures
November 23-26
Singapore
November 27-29
Batam, Indonesia
December 1-19 –
Taiwan
2018
Feb. 6 – Mar. 8
– Indonesia
April 15-19
Gospel Meeting – Shelbyville Rd.
Apr. 22-25
Gospel Meeting – Collinsville, IL
May – June –
CABL and Malaysia Venues
– John M. Grubb
