Mary Lee and I are looking forward to our second week worshipping with KB Riverside Church here in Yilan County, Taiwan, later this morning. We’ll be here through May. We’re living in an apartment adjoining the home of Rev. Dr. Joel Linton and his wife, Judy, along with their two youngest children still at home, Sarsha and Saran. We are enjoying their comfortable apartment; but even more, the friendship and fellowship with the Lintons next door.
This past Thursday I taught for the first time at Chinese Reformed Presbyterian Seminary an hour or so northwest in Taipei. Good class. Twenty-eight or so students with three-quarters on Zoom and seven or eight in person. Half the Zoom students are asynchronous, meaning they aren’t online engaging with the class, but watch a recording later.
That as an introduction to this testimony from last week’s worship service. It was a great encouragement to my faith and I asked permission of Mr. Li to publish it here on Warhorn. He was kind and agreed. Mr. Li and his wife joined KB Riverside Church during the Christmas service back in December.
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with Mr. Li in front of KB Riverside Church, Yilan County, Taiwan
I am so honored to be here. All glory to God!
I’m from a traditional Buddhist family—all my relatives are devout buddhists. We worshipped our ancestors. We worshipped at all the temples.
At work, all my colleagues worshipped idols. I worked for a very advanced pharmaceutical company and as a company we worshipped idols and asked for peace.
My company sent me to Yilan County to set up a new factory. In order to establish a new factory, one of the very first things I did was to go pick out a nice piece of wood and I found a famous sculptor. Just as we read in Isaiah 44 this morning, I crafted an idol. It took half a year to sculpt that piece of wood into a Land god and we put it into a specially crafted temple. This was MY JOB.
It’s my major sin. Every morning I worshipped idols. Every new moon and full moon we worshipped idols.
Then my parents passed away and I started wondering: why aren’t my idols “working?” Are they for real?
We borrowed a Bible and my wife and I began reading it. Then we went to a church and slowly began understanding Christianity.
Then whenever we felt down or faced difficulties, we took out the Bible and read it. And my wife liked hymns. She liked to listen to hymns and cry. She’s a cry baby. [Mr. Li smiled and the congregation laughed.]
When we began considering becoming Christians, all the relatives began giving us pressure because it meant we would not be worshipping our ancestors anymore.
So we began researching and realized Christians do honor our ancestors. What’s more, we as Christians honor our ultimate Source…not just our ancestors in the last couple of generations. We are created by God. So we are really honoring our Source. So now we tell our relatives, we are honoring our ultimate Beginning Source. We tell them we won’t be worshipping our ancestors, but we worship the Creator of all things.
So we started attending a church for a year. It met on Saturdays. We began to see that what they preached was different from the Bible.
Then God took pity on us.
We weren’t sure what we were doing, but my wife and I started driving in a part of town we had never been to, and we ended up at the doorstep of the church elder here! The elder’s wife and their daughter Meeni came out and the child was sooo polite and we chatted and that’s how we were brought to KB Riverside Church.
On our very first Sunday here, we saw ALL the kids and they made such an impression on us. Why are these kids different from the children running around at the temples? So different. Such happy kids. And all the friendly brothers and sisters. It felt like Christians were a big family. The pastor and his wife were so friendly to us.
We believe the Bible is the Truth.
May God forgive me for sculpting idols.
I’m 60. I was in business for 30 years. In the past we felt like we were working for somebody else. Now I have quit my job and my wife and I have changed our religion. We forfeit our past. We will live totally different lives for the rest of our lives.
We have an unexplainable joy. We are really happy.
You are all still young. My regret is knowing God too late. So all you young folks, you’re so blessed because you haven’t had as much time to live a life of sin. We used to have insomnia. After believing in Jesus… we are at rest. We love the Sabbath.
People are asking us why are we so joyful? We broadcast our joy to others that they may see our faith.
It is the righteous that have true joy.
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DeepL translation:
玛丽-李和我期待着今天上午晚些时候在台湾宜兰县的KB河岸教会进行第二周的敬拜。我们将在这里呆到五月。我们住在与Joel Linton牧师和他的妻子Judy的家相邻的公寓里，还有他们两个最小的孩子，Sarsha和Saran还在家里。我们很享受他们舒适的公寓；但更多的是与隔壁的林顿夫妇的友谊和团契。
上周四，我第一次在台北西北部一小时左右的中国改革宗长老会神学院授课。课堂效果不错。二十八个左右的学生，四分之三在Zoom上，七八个人在现场。一半的Zoom学生是异步的，意思是他们没有在线参与课堂，而是稍后观看录音。
这是对上周崇拜中的这段见证的介绍。这对我的信仰是一个很大的鼓励，我请求李先生允许我在华汉网上发表这篇文章。他很好，同意了。李先生和他的妻子在12月的圣诞礼拜中加入了KB河岸教会。
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与李先生在台湾宜兰县KB河畔教堂前合影
我很荣幸能来到这里。一切荣耀归于神!
我来自一个传统的佛教家庭-我所有的亲戚都是虔诚的佛教徒。我们崇拜我们的祖先。我们在所有的寺庙里做礼拜。
在工作中，我所有的同事都崇拜偶像。我在一家非常先进的制药公司工作，作为一个公司，我们崇拜偶像，祈求和平。
我的公司派我到宜兰县建立一个新工厂。为了建立一个新的工厂，我做的第一件事就是去挑选一块好的木材，我找到了一个著名的雕塑家。就像我们今天早上在以赛亚书44章中读到的那样，我精心制作了一个神像。我们花了半年时间把那块木头雕刻成一个土地神，然后把它放在一个特别制作的神庙里。这是我的工作。
这是我的大罪。每天早上我都要拜偶像。每个新月和满月，我们都要拜偶像。
然后我的父母去世了，我开始想：为什么我的偶像没有 “工作”？他们是真的吗？
我们借了一本圣经，我和妻子开始读它。然后我们去了一个教堂，慢慢开始理解基督教。
然后每当我们感到沮丧或面临困难时，我们就拿出圣经来读。我的妻子也喜欢赞美诗。她喜欢听赞美诗，喜欢哭。她是个爱哭的孩子。[李先生笑了，会众也笑了] 。
当我们开始考虑成为基督徒时，所有的亲戚都开始给我们压力，因为这意味着我们将不再崇拜我们的祖先了。
于是我们开始研究，发现基督徒确实尊重我们的祖先。更重要的是，作为基督徒，我们尊重我们的最终来源……而不仅仅是我们上几代的祖先。我们是由上帝创造的。所以我们真的是在尊重我们的源头。所以现在我们告诉我们的亲戚，我们在尊重我们最终的起始源头。我们告诉他们，我们不会崇拜我们的祖先，但我们崇拜万物的创造者。
所以我们开始参加了一年的教会。它在星期六聚会。我们开始看到，他们所传的东西与圣经不同。
然后上帝怜悯我们。
我们不知道自己在做什么，但我和妻子开始在我们从未去过的城市的一个地方开车，最后我们来到了这里的教会长老的门前！长老的妻子和他们的女儿在这里。长老的妻子和他们的女儿Meeni出来了，孩子很有礼貌，我们聊了起来，就这样我们被带到了KB河岸教会。
在这里的第一个星期天，我们看到了所有的孩子，他们给我们留下了如此深刻的印象。为什么这些孩子与在寺庙里跑来跑去的孩子不同？如此不同。如此快乐的孩子。还有所有友好的兄弟姐妹们。感觉基督徒是一个大家庭。牧师和他的妻子对我们非常友好。
我们相信圣经是真理。
愿上帝原谅我对偶像的雕琢。
我60岁了。我做了30年的生意。过去我们觉得自己在为别人工作。现在我辞去了工作，我和我的妻子改变了我们的宗教信仰。我们放弃了我们的过去。我们将在余生中过上完全不同的生活。
我们有一种无法解释的喜悦。我们真的很快乐。
你们都还年轻。我的遗憾是认识上帝太晚。所以你们所有的年轻人，你们很有福气，因为你们还没有那么多时间过罪的生活。我们曾经有失眠症。信了耶稣之后……我们就安息了。我们喜欢安息日。
人们都在问我们，为什么我们如此喜乐？我们向别人广播我们的喜乐，让他们看到我们的信仰。
公义的人才有真正的喜乐。
