Greetings from Taiwan! It seems like just yesterday we were writing our monthly update for April, and now we have already entered into May- how quickly time flies! Our days and weeks continue to be busy and there is hardly ever a dull moment. The month of April was full of learning, building relationships, rain, several earthquakes, eleven new believers baptized at Truth Church, and a deepening gratitude to the Lord for allowing us to serve Him on this island!

Prayer Requests:

• Beginning tomorrow we will have house guests on-and-off through August. Some are believers from other countries visiting Taiwan, some are new teachers/missionaries moving here who will live with us temporarily, and some are family members coming to visit. Pray we can manage our schedules well with extra people in the house, and that our time with them is a mutual blessing.
• Please pray as we are in the process of praying/brainstorming for new ministry avenues at Truth Church that we can get new team members arriving this summer plugged into. Pray for wisdom and clear direction from God.
• Please pray for our monthly support need of $400 to be met.

Praises:

• We just returned from a 2 day outing with all the co-workers and Seekers from our Bilingual Alpha Course. Total there were about 60 people that participated. Praise for the working of the Holy Spirit in many people’s lives, and pray that hearts continue to be open to the Lord. Also, praise, that Kelley was able to use her Chinese and serve as a translator for one of the services- first time ever!
• Praise the Lord for His daily protection, faithfulness, and wisdom. We are so thankful to serve such a powerful and awesome God!

Our prayer: Ephesians 3:20-21 ^“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”
Many thanks to all of you for your ongoing prayers, love, and support!

For the Glory of God,
Erich and Kelley Schindler
blog
Missionary page

The title of "English Cell Group" has changed to the "English Zone". This is because we wanted to reflect the broader vision Pastor Moses has entrusted us with, for leading the community of Westerners at Truth Church. While we all fit comfortably into one small group at this point, we want to look forward to the growth the Lord will give us, along with its responsibilities: overseeing multiple English cell groups and multiple English ministries at Truth Church in the future.

Here is some updated content from the "English Zone" page:

In the recent months we have been blessed by a growing number of Western foreigners joining our fellowship at Truth Church. Some of these people are English teachers, others are students. But all of them share a love for the Taiwanese people, and a desire to reach them with the Love of Christ.

Adding to these people joining us who already live in Taipei, there are 6-10 people joining us from the US this summer. This means that our English cell group will probably need to separate into 2 or 3 groups to accommodate all the new people. Please be in prayer for us as we train new leaders to take care of these new people.

Because of this influx of new people under our leadership, we are also praying about new ministries to open besides 3E ALPHA. While the Lord is really blessing our ALPHA ministry, we realize that people have different gifts that they should exercise in the way He leads. Please be in prayer that we would hear from the Lord as to which new English ministries to consider.

Many thanks for lifting us up in this important ministry!

This is just to let you know that our latest prayer update is online. You can access it by clicking here: http://www.crossing7.com/reachtaiwan/content/schindler-update-20100405

Also, feel free to browse our past updates by clicking on the "Past Updates" link on the left-hand menu.

Thanks so much for your interest and support for our ministry here in Taipei!

Schindler blog

Schindler missionary page

Last evening we had our 3rd week of our Bilingual Alpha Course. We had 38 Seekers in attendance, and enjoyed a great evening together. One of our British co-worker, Hannah, led everyone in an English speaking activity called, "Tasty Topics", in which we used the different colors of M&M's and Skittles to share different things about ourselves. Following that John (American co-worker) and Julianne (British co-worker) performed the 3rd part of a 10-week long skit that led us into Ellie's (British co-worker) message on the topic "Why Jesus had to Die". The final part of our evening was discussion group time, where we listened to and discussed the Seekers responses to the evening's topic.

In addition to many Taiwanese Seekers coming, this season the Lord has also brought us people from different countries. Because their Chinese is not good enough to discuss in Chinese, Kelley leads an English speaking discussion group for them. These Seekers include one girl from the Zambia who was born Muslim, a girl from the Czech Republic, a girl from Peru, and another girl from St. Kitts and Nevis. They are all very open and willing to discuss things about the Bible, and each week we've had a great time together. Pray their hearts and eyes continue to be opened!

To God be the Glory- GREAT things He is doing!!

Schindlers’ blog

Schindlers’ missionary page

We have been praying long and hard for this new season of 3E ALPHA, and the Lord has indeed answered our prayers. Not only did many new non-believing friends join us, but the Lord allowed the evening's activities to go smoothly. This was a big answer to prayer as this is our biggest 3E ALPHA Course yet, and coordinating everything is quite a task. We have close to 60 Taiwanese church co-workers and 9 English co-workers working together to put on this 11-week introduction to the Christian faith.

The evening kicked off with a shared fellowship meal, during which the co-workers could get to know our new friends a little. Kelley then led us in a fun English ice-breaker game that also focused on building relationships. Then our friends John (US) and Julianne (UK) put on a short skit about being ALPHA participants. Next Erich shared the ALPHA introductory message on the topic "Is There More to Life Than This?" (click here for the full text). Finally, we ended with a 45-minute group discussion time in Chinese (for deeper sharing in peoples' heart language). At the end of the evening, the groups were so deep in discussion that they didn't want to leave!

Some highlights:

• A Taiwanese friend of ours invited her dad to join, who is a Buddhist. He really clicked with Professor John (an English co-worker from CA), and enjoyed the family atmosphere.
• Foreign friends from the Gambia and the Czech Republic joined us. Neither are Christians, but both expressed that if church was like this, then they want to keep coming. Giving us this family atmosphere is something only the Spirit of God can do.

For us as long-term missionaries to Taiwan, things can't get much better than last night. This is what we were made for.

We would like to say a big THANK YOU to all of you who have been praying for us recently. Your prayers are being heard - let's press on together!

Schindler Blog

Schindler Missionary Page

Today our church zone* went on an all-day outing to a tea farm in Wu Lai, which is located only about 30 minutes south of Taipei city. This was a very important outing, since our goal was to invite our non-believing friends to join, in order for them to rub shoulders with Christians, and get a feeling for what our Bilingual 3E ALPHA course is like.

The Lord really exceeded our highest expectations as over 130 people ended up coming along, only about half of which were church people. As you can see from the new picture gallery we created, we all had a great time getting to know each other through games (prepared by our English co-workers), barbecuing together, and spending free time walking around the tea farm in conversation with our new friends.

Thanks so much to all of you who pray for our ministry on a regular basis - through events like today's we can see clearly how the Lord is honoring all of our prayers. It's great to be working together with all of you on the same team!

Check out the new pictures of today's pre-ALPHA Outing we added by clicking here.

Schindler Missionary Page

Schindler Blog

A week ago Sunday was a very special day. On that day we celebrated as our good friend, Chloe, was prayed over and commissioned to the mission field as part of a team going to Sichuan, China for one year for missionary work.  Why was this an extra special event for us? Because during our time in Taiwan the Lord has brought Chloe "full-circle". By "full-circle" I mean that a little over 3 years when I met Chloe she was a non-believer who came into the church simply to improve her English at our 3E Ministry. She and I began meeting weekly together as I offered to help her learn English. Our time together led to conversations about deeper, spiritual matters and Chloe's reasons for coming to church started to change.

In the Fall of 2008 she joined our then newly restructured 3E class, which focused more heavily on preaching the Gospel. During that season the Holy Spirit moved greatly in her life she gave her heart to Jesus. In early February of 2009 she was baptized.  Throughout last year she became very active in a Chinese cell group and also served as a co-worker for our English outreach. During the Fall of 2009 she started thinking and praying about going to the Chinese Mainland for a year of missionary service. After counseling and prayer, she was approved by our church and trained to go. In less than three weeks she'll depart for China as a missionary herself. God is so good. To Him be all the Glory!

Missionary Multiplication | Reach Taiwan

Schindler Missionary Page

Prayer Requests:

• In our last update we asked for prayer that we be accepted to the new language school we were applying to for our next season of study. Praise Him that we’ve already been accepted! We have been informed that this school offers a generous scholarship to new students, so please pray if it’s His will one or both of us can receive this scholarship for our studies, as it would be a great help to us financially.
• In 2 weeks, Taiwan will celebrate the Chinese New Year. This is the biggest celebration time of the year, so please pray for our Taiwanese brothers/sisters who will spend extended time with their family members (mostly unsaved), to be a light among the darkness. We’ve also been invited to some friends’ homes, so pray for us to be examples of Christ’s love as well.
• Please pray for our monthly support need of $500 to be met.

Praises:

• As stated above, we were accepted (in the span of 2 days!) to our new language school!
• Recently, a young couple from England moved to Taipei as teachers and to join our ministry in Truth Church. Praise the Lord for these new co-workers and friends!
• Last week we attended a 5 day conference at our church on the Book of Isaiah. It was taught by a Messianic Jew from Israel, and was very enlightening and enriching!

Schindler Missionary Page

http://www.crossing7.com/reachtaiwan/content/schindler-update-20100202

Dear Friends,

After a wonderful few weeks with Erich's family we have finally returned to Taiwan today. Everything went well with the flights - thanks to those who were praying for us!

You will probably be wondering what the next year holds for us. Here are some details:

• We're very excited to announce that a new season of our 3E ALPHA Ministry begins this March! The time has changed to Friday evenings, and we have lots to do in preparation before we launch. During our home assignment several new English teachers joined Truth Church, so we will be working with some of them to set up the new course together.
  Please pray for good cooperation and planning. We are going to heavily promote the course, so please also begin praying for our new friends already, who don't know the love of Christ yet!

• The Chinese New Year is in mid-February so our next quarter of language classes will not begin until after the New Year celebrations. But, we have weeks of characters to learn and memorize that we missed classes for due to our home assignment, as well as a lot of writing review from our past 1 1/2 years of study (that's about 2,000 Chinese characters!). So, lots of self-study time will be happening over the next few weeks.
  Please pray for motivation and perseverance in our studies. We are planning to switch to a more intensive program for the duration of our studies, so pray over the next few weeks we can get to a place where we feel ready and well prepared to begin classes again.

• We'll continue to host and co-lead a small group for native English speakers that attend Truth Church. During the months we were away 4 new friends arrived, and we are awaiting 5-6 more people coming in the summer. So, getting to know them, caring for their spiritual needs, connecting them to the Taiwanese Church, etc. will all be things we'll be doing this year.
  Please pray for good relationships to form among the group and for wisdom in leading the group, especially as we are growing in numbers.

Many thanks and blessings for your faithful prayers and support on behalf of the Lord's work here in Taipei!

Schindler Missionary Page

http://www.crossing7.com/reachtaiwan/content/back-taiwan-future-outlook

Dear Friends,

This is just to let you know that our latest prayer update is online. You can access it by clicking here: http://www.crossing7.com/reachtaiwan/content/schindler-update-20100104

Also, feel free to browse our past updates by clicking on the "Past Updates" link on the left-hand menu.

Thanks so much for your interest and support for our ministry here in Taipei!

Erich and Kelley

Schindler Missionary Page

Dear Friends,

As you probably know, we are on our last leg of a 2 1/2 month home assignment in the US and Germany. On December 28 we arrived safely in Düsseldorf, Germany, where Diet and Jan Schindler, Erich's parents, live. Here we are enjoying a much-needed break from the busyness of the past weeks. However busy, we feel that our time in the US was fruitful in raising new prayer- and financial support for our ministry in Taipei. Recapping our time in the US,...

• we shared about our ministry in Taiwan in 12 different settings
• we visited 4 different States
• we met with 3 people who are most likely moving to Taiwan this year, and will hopefully join our ministry
• the Lord graciously provided for several hundred dollars in additional monthly support - a big THANKS to those who raised their support levels or took us on for new support!!

From here in Germany we fly back to Taipei on January 18. Until then we will continue enjoying time with Erich's family (his sister Monica and brother Lukas will be here until Jan. 9) and rest up before another busy season of Chinese school and ministry.

Please pray

• for us to be able to emotionally recharge before returning to Taipei on Jan. 18
• for our application to a more intensive Chinese school to be accepted (we would like to up our classroom hours from 2 to 3 hours a day, starting in March)
• and for the Lord to continue raising our support to the needed $2,400

As always, thanks so much for tracking with us, and for upholding us in prayer!!

For the Glory of God,
Erich and Kelley

Home Assignment - looking back | Reach Taiwan

Schindler Missionary Page