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September

2020

News from Pastor Michael & Jen-Yi “Irene” Paul serving our Lord in Taiwan michael.paul@lcms.org

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Pastor Paul’s Call

Pastor Paul is a theological

educator in Taiwan, serving

with the China Evangelical

Lutheran Church (CELC) and

China Lutheran Seminary

(CLS). He is called to teach,

write, and help plant and pas-

tor Lutheran churches.

In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as

holy, always being prepared to make

a defense to anyone who asks you

for a reason for the hope that is in you.

I Peter 3:15 ESV

Irene and I recently took a few days’

vacation in an out-of-the way moun-

tainous region. While chatting with

another couple staying at our bed &

breakfast, we are amazed to learn

that the husband, Michael, had

worked for the same Christian boss

some 20 years ago that Irene

worked for over 30 years ago. Mi-

chael had many good things to say

about his boss and his experience

working at the company, including

his learning much about the Chris-

tian faith. It had now been many

years since Michael had any contact

with Christians, though, and he even

complained that God had “stopped talking to him.” The next day he al-

most begged me to teach him about Christianity, but he felt bad that if I

did so it would surely be ruining my vacation time-off. I of course did

teach him, going through my “Stream of Life” pictures that teach our

need for Christ and how He has saved us. Michael’s wife, and even the

bed and breakfast owner and cook listened in…which in itself was an an-

swer to a prayer that Irene and I had--that we would be able to share the

Gospel with the owner and cook in an appropriate way. Although Mi-

chael and his wife live over an hour away from our Church, he expressed

interest in visiting, and I will certainly invite

him to come the next time I preach.

Bed & Breakfast & Evangelism

(left-right) Irene, me, Michael, his wife,

the cook, and the bed & breakfast owner

This semester I’m not teaching

at the seminary, but instead at

one of our Lutheran partner-Church congregations, in the

southern city of Tainan. In-

credibly, 23 members of that

one congregation (which wor-

ships usually 50-70 on a Sun-

day) signed up for the 15-

week, 3 hours per class, course

on the Book of Concord (the official Biblical teaching book of the Lutheran Church). Judging from the

students’ quiz results, it seems obvious to me that well over half the stu-

dents are carefully reading the book, which is not an easy read, especially

with the often-cumbersome Chinese translation they need to use.

What can you pray for?

Thanks for:

the opportunity to teach Mi-

chael and others God’s Word

in the mountains

Church members eager to

study God’s Word

Petitions for:

Michael & his wife to come to

our worship service

good teaching & learning in

the Book of Concord class

good participation from our

apartment complex children in

the Christmas handbell &

choir practice & performance

Our mailing address:

No. 98, 12F Lipeng Road

Hsinchu City 30072

TAIWAN, R.O.C

There are many

opportunities to serve as

short-term or GEO mission-

aries. Check out the current

list and download an appli-

cation at www.lcms.org/

service. Click on “Service

Opportunities.”

To support our work financially, you may make checks payable (memo line:

“Support of Missionary Michael Paul”) to “The Lutheran Church—Missouri

Synod” and send your tax-deductible gift to:

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

P.O. Box 66861

St. Louis, MO 63166-6861

You can ALSO make checks payable to “Mission Central” and send your tax-

deductible gift to our friends at: Mission Central, 40718 Highway E-16, Mapleton,

IA 51034.

Keeping up-to-date: If you’re not receiving this newsletter by email but would

like to, please contact us at michael.paul@lcms.org. For frequent Facebook up-

dates, go to the facebook group: “Michael Paul family Taiwan mission.”

Our official website:

www.lcms.org/paul

our mission

station’s crucifix

Bells in the Neighborhood Trinity Lutheran Church in Henderson,

KY recently bought us a full set of

children’s handbells to use in our

Church and outreach. Our neighbor-

hood Mid-Autumn (aka Moon) Festi-

val celebration last week gave us a

chance to try them out. Irene asked the

celebration organizer if a group from

our apartment complex could play a

handbell piece during the celebration.

“Sure!” he responded. While we first

tried to recruit all children for the

event, in the end we “settled” for three families--parents with their children. We

practiced two times, and then performed a well-known popular song from the

1980s, “The Moon Represents My Heart.” While we weren’t able to share the

Gospel through the song, our performance did generate a lot of interest in the

handbells, and our Church vicar was able to hand out many tracts and Church in-

formation sheets during the celebration (which took place downstairs from our

Church!). We will now follow up on the event by inviting our apartment complex

children to learn a Christmas handbell (and choir) piece that we can perform at

our apartment’s annual Christmas celebration. To see a video of our Moon Festi-

val performance, go to https://youtu.be/acc6WNYb9ww

Concord in the Congregation