The three of us prayed and asked God where we should go for our 3 day faith trip. We had just finished the 6 week discipleship program we were in, and this was our “graduation” so to speak. So myself, Drew and our leader Eun Jung were up for whatever adventure God had for us. We set off with no money, my camera, our water bottles, bibles and one change of underwear.

One of my main goals/ expectations was for God to surprise us; and surprise us he did.

We prayed and felt like we should go to Taipei. The only problem was that Taipei was about 45 minutes from where we were (Keelung).

So we decided to hitch hike. This idea lasted for about 10  minutes as we stood by the train station warding off Taxis who thought we were trying to flag them down. We went to a travel agency to make a sign for the Chinese word Taipei. They felt sorry for us and gave us enough train fare to get to Taipei.

We arrived at Taipei’s huge central station and were hungry at this point. The entire second floor was comprised of a massive food court that went around the entire complex. At first we walked around boldly asking for free food; after a few seconds we realized this was not the best approach. I felt led to talk with a British guy whose parents were Quakers but he did not need God because he felt happy and had everything we needed in life. This made me sad and I did not know how to respond to him. But I do know he sure felt uncomfortable talking about God. So I prayed for him and left.

Then I decided that we were going to sit down at one of the seating areas, pray, and expect God to provide us with some food. A few seconds after we started praying, two ladies set their 2-go boxes down on the table next to us and walked away. We humbly ate their leftovers and made due. Always remember to be specific when asking God for what you need .

We left the train station and asked God where we should go. Me and Drew felt like we should go to Taipei 101 (tallest building in the world). So we set off for that as our goal, but it was a few hours away on foot. We walked forever. We stopped by many pastry shops and had many free food samples. You could call us the food sample terrorists. Pastry store owners feared our presence. We were not that bad, but we did push the limits a bit. Thank God for food samples.

We stopped at the wonderful Sheraton hotel to take a rest and take funny pictures. I had the idea of going to the roof of the Sheraton (20+stories) to shout “Jesus is Lord” in all directions. So we did just that and it was a pretty cool experience. It’s quite difficult to get to the actual roofs of hotels because of security, but God prepared a way for us. The door was already open for us and not even locked.

After that we saw this really nice Chinese traditional wooden building. The manager (Armani) inside gave us a private tour inside where many affluent people eat. We shared our faith with him. His brother is a Christian but he’s still not sure what to believe. He did not want prayer for us, but we prayed for him outside and are confident God is bringing Armani into the kingdom.

After walking for hours, I had the idea “we are missionaries and we deserve to eat, and we will eat.” Jesus says a worker is worth his wages. We stopped at the next street and there were 3 restaurants to choose from. We prayed to see which one we should go to. Eun-Jung and myself felt we should go to “Bread & Soup”, but Drew felt like we should go to this Italian restaurant. So we go to Bread & Soup first, but they were not even open yet; it was a brand new restaurant. We asked if we could pray for God to bless their business, but they were not interested.

Then we regrouped and prayed about the Italian restaurant. So we walk into this restaurant and it’s quite intimidating. It was dark, classy, with a nice bar and a pushy Taiwanese waitress who spoke English like she was from New York. I said out loud “there’s no way.” Right after this negative words Drew timidly tried to explain to the pushy waitress what we were doing. She then grew impatient and asked us if we were hungry. We said “YES.” She was so sweet that she had the cook make a pizza for us. I had to repent to my team and to God for doubting and believing in appearances. This was surprise #1 for me.

In the evening we saw this Tae- kwon-do studio and Eun-Jung wanted to see if anyone could speak Korean and if we could stay the night there. At this point I was like “whatever” and honestly did not care where I slept. I did not mind sleeping in the streets, but Eun-Jung did mind and I had to respect that. We could not sleep at the Tae- kwon-do studio, but some 21 y/o dude who was not even a Christian, nor did he even speak English, gave us 1000 NT ($23). Surprise #2.

We finally arrived at Taipei 101 exhausted around 9:30pm. The security guard told us of a nearby church.

I had doubts that there would be anyone there so late. We arrived there and had to explain for a few minutes who we were and what we were doing. The pastor graciously let us stay in his apartment with his family that was in the church building. Surprise #3.

Day 2, and 3 coming soon…..