Hey all, time for another update from Taiwan. Since I last updated you, we have gotten through plenty more books. We have gone through Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles which turned out to be quite a bit of work, especially Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. I recently just got back from Okinawa, which is a beautiful island in Japan.Since I last updated you, a lot has happened here. God has been doing a lot of work not only within the school, but in my own heart. It has been a rough and bumpy ride to get where I am, and I still have a long way to go, but there is a work that God has been doing in my heart over the past six months. I want to share with you probably the biggest
area I feel like God has been bringing to light in my life in the past three or four weeks. To share this, I really need to go back to high school or maybe even middle school. For the longest time, I have been plagued by this desire to be liked by people. In junior high, it may have been trying to impress a girl that I thought was attractive, in senior high it probably looked more like wanting to fit in with the 'cool' kids in school whatever that looked like. In college nothing changed. The reality was, it didn't end when I became a Christian over five years ago. This desire, this need to be liked by my peers especially continued and to some degree continues to stick around. It looks different now that I have become a Christian, but it is still totally evident in my heart. I still want to be somebody. I want my Christian friends to think I'm spiritual, to think I like the same things they like, to be invited by the people I deem as 'cool,' or just to be noticed by them, and it turns my desire away from wanting to please God to wanting to please man. It hinders me from sharing the gospel because I am afraid that I will be rejected or the people won't want to hear what I have to share. It harms my view of some because I see some people as having more value than others and although people don't always see it, it is a clear heart issue that needs to be dealt with. I have been realizing this need to look at people all with the same eyes. Whether someone loves the Lord with all their heart or are are not following him at this point in time, the reality is, they/we all stand with the exact same need of Christ. I can't look at myself with pride or anyone with pride when I realize the deep and desperate need each and every one of us has for Jesus. Although I know this is something I struggle with, I realize it is something we should all reflect on and look at. We all need to learn how to look at people with the eyes of Christ. We all need to not be looking out for our own social standing, for what makes us look 'cool' or good in the sight of others, but we need to be seeking how we can love and serve others who are in or out of the body of Christ and not be worried about our reputation or what others will think of us. Whether Christian or not, we all stand in the same desperate need of Jesus and that should be what unites us.
Over the past week, I have had a lot of time to reflect on God's faithfulness in my life. We finished second quarter off with the book of Chronicles, and the book itself is really a reflection on many of the good things the kings of Israel did. The book goes all the way back to Adam and although nine chapters of genealogies might seem extreme and unnecessary to us now, it really showed the people who were originally reading this book where they have been and all that God has brought them through and then goes in to David and some of the kings of Israel and many of the good things that they did throughout their times as king. Partly in light of this and the timing in the school, I chose to do what we call final application for the book by simply spending some time over break remembering and reflecting on all that God has done in my heart and in my life. I have been able to look back over the past month or so and God has really been revealing to me his faithfulness to me in my life, how God has used even seemingly foolish decisions and used them for my good and for the good of others and even when I was not solidly walking with the Lord how he still loved me, still used me for his purposes and was faithful to me in those times. It's crazy I feel like for all of us to look back on the times on our lives that we saw at the time as some of the most difficult or the most uncertain and as I look back on them I feel like I see God's hand the most clearly on my life and he works for good even in those times.
God has spoken to me in some cool ways over break, but he also blessed a group of us immensely as we traveled to Okinawa Japan. We flew to Japan not just because we had a week off, but because most of the students can only stay for 90 days before they have to leave the country to do what we call a visa run, which basically means we had to leave the country to renew our time in Taiwan since we are not actually residents or alien residents of Taiwan. When we got there, we were greeted by the parents of one of my fellow classmates who housed us for the week. They paid immediately for our dinner upon arriving in Okinawa, pretty much left their house open for us to use all week and showed us all around the island. We had a pretty restful first day, but then they brought us to go ziplining and paid for us to go ziplining and then brought us to a place to go snorkeling. The next day, they brought us to go hiking up to a waterfall and later that day they again paid for lunch and brought us to one of the world's largest aquariums. The big aquarium is the third largest aquarium in the world holding just a hair under 2 million gallons of water and home to three whale sharks a couple large rays, porpoises, among many other animals. A huge highlight for me later in the week was Taco Bell which was on the military base as well as Chiles, mini-golf, an arcade, and a great conversation on the seawall the night before we left with the guys I was there with.
It is now late Saturday night (technically Sunday morning) and we have one more day left of break and Monday we have the founder of my school (SBS or School of Biblical Studies) coming in and his wife and they are teaching us wisdom literature, starting with Proverbs on Monday. This will be the last stretch of school before I head back to the States for Christmas. We have about three more months of school and from there I will head back on the 16th of December and am excited to see you all. I have a couple of prayer requests from ya'll as I head into the last quarter of school here in Taiwan. The two that seem most prevalent is this school is very trying on most of us mentally and physically it's exhausting so myself as well as the entire school could use prayer for one last burst of energy to finish the school strong. Time is flying, but it's still a lot of work and very time consuming. The main prayer request for myself which will probably be prayer requests until I finish and probably even after is that I don't want to come back unchanged. I know I have shared with you guys that changes are happening, but change is not always easy to maintain, and I have such a desire right now to see this change continue and I need your prayer to see that continue and want to be praying for any one of you who needs prayer as well, you have all made an investment in my life just by taking the time to pray for me, to read this, and just being involved and I want to be able to invest in your lives in whatever way I can. Again, as always, I would appreciate to hear from all of you. I like being able to share with ya'll, but I also really enjoy hearing about your lives, event he seemingly mundane details are things that your friends overseas like to hear. Often, people think that missionary lives are so exciting and they have so little to offer, when in reality, we are all living life and things are happening and the only real difference is we are living life in different places and the things people think are mundane or unimportant are often just the things we need to hear to feel like we are in the loop back home. I appreciate you guys and look forward to hopefully hearing from some of you.Thanks so much for all of your support,
His servant,
Travis
P.S. Posted along here are some pictures from my break. We had our second of two breaks a couple weeks ago and I had to fly out of the country to renew my visa in Taiwan. The pictures are courtesy of/ I believe copyrighted by Ed Chan.
