Divine Mercy 2019!

 

  Divine Mercy!

What a wonderful day we had here in Taiwan on Divine Mercy Sunday. After months of preparation, prayer, and help from all around the world...Literally...we had a wonderful event to share the truth about God's Mercy and Love! 

It began with a friend from Hong Kong sharing a teaching at the church about the message of Divine Mercy from Jesus Christ while four priests were hearing confessions. This was followed by Mass, the Bishop of Tainan came and Michael and Mariam (our two oldest kiddos) received their confirmation! 

We all then drove over to a nearby village where we live and started a Eucharistic procession with around 200 people. We prayed together, praising Jesus as a community walking through the streets of our village! After the procession of about 40 minutes we entered the newly restored church building and the bishop blessed the building and the convent where we now live. (This convent was vacant for 5 years and last summer we began restoration for it to become The Center of Divine Mercy for Taiwan, and home to us and other FMC missionaries!) We sat in adoration of Jesus then shared a small meal. 

Jesus' Mercy is so abundant and His Love so powerful! I praise Him daily for the love that we as a family experience because of His presence in our lives! There is nothing that this world can offer thatwill fill a human heart other than Jesus!

FAITH

It has been a very long time since either Michael or I have written a post. Writing is definitely not a gift of ours but I hope that this post blesses you this advent. Some years back, our family started an Advent tradition. Using A Shoot from the Stump of Jesse by Sarah Park, each day of Advent we read a Chapter reflecting on the Geneaology of Jesus starting from God’s Covenant with Adam. In the past years reading these first days of Advent did not resonate so much with me…until recently, when we read about God’s Covenant with Abraham. God asked Abraham to move his family to a land he didn’t know and promised him descendants numbered like the stars in the heavens. Abraham and Sarah were old and had not been able to conceive in their old age, but yet they were faithful to God and left to the land of Canaan like God had asked. They persevered in their faith, it was many many years that they waited to experience the promise God had for them. They didn’t give up. They persevered in faith. Abraham is known as the Father of Faith and rightly so for although many years went by with no child..and no direction…he remained faithful to the words God had spoken to him. Sarah was also faithful and patient to God’s promise and after many years they conceived and Isaac was born and many descendants came from Isaac…..all the way to the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ!

When reading this story to my children, I couldn’t help but be encouraged by Abraham. Many people question why we would bring our family to Taiwan. The answer…honestly we don’t know. We are here in faith. Michael heard the Lord in his prayer to go where they have not heard his name and so here we are. The Lord has blessed every step of the way to be here and we have peace knowing we are exactly where he wants us. It has not been easy…the language is very difficult, the culture is very different, with so many kids…life here in a country where many have less than 2 kids is not easy, everything about what we are doing from a worldly stance does not make sense. We have days where we feel spiritually attacked and we question, yet we are here in faith and I feel the Lord is asking us to persevere in faith, that he has called us here for a purpose which we may never know exactly, we stay close to Jesus in prayer and we listen to the Holy Spirit and so we take each day at a time. Many people here do not know that there is one true God that loves them and wants to have a relationship with them. That we are His and He is ours. God desires us to love him but how can someone love someone they don’t know. We are burning to make him known…but we have to be patient because we don’t speak the language, we have to be sensitive and we have to get to know and love the people of Taiwan. We are called to remain faithful like Abraham….maybe for many years. 

If you are struggling with something in your life you know the Lord has asked of you, I encourage you to remain faithful and to persevere in this race. Please keep us in your prayers and we will keep you in ours. May your Advent be blessed!!

If you are interested in this book I have included the link below:

If you are interested in donating to our family click the other link below:

https://smile.amazon.com/Shoot-Stump-Jesse-Sarah-Park/dp/1300165200/ref=smi_www_rco2_go_smi_g2609328962?_encoding=UTF8&%2AVersion%2A=1&%2Aentries%2A=0&ie=UTF8

https://www.familymissionscompany.com/project/henderson-family/

Miraculous God!

Miraculous God!

Go where they have never heard my name, go to Taiwan?! Yes Lord.

When the Lord called our family out of Mexico to Taiwan we only knew one thing, He promises to be with us! With that we began the journey to making the move for our family a reality. About to have our seventh baby I went with the director of our mission group to meet some Bishops and Priests in Taiwan. With total peace and trust in the Lord I know that He wants us there where only 1% of the 24 million people are Catholic and every day we can meet people who have never even heard of Jesus. The evil one was attacking me, telling me it is pointless for me to bring my family across the world. What can we do? What difference can we make? But God blessed me with two truths. One, He would move us across the world for just one soul, that's how much He loves every soul He has created. Two, we don't have what anyone needs but He has what everyone needs and He needs our hands and feet to bring the Gospel Truth to them! 

So, our beautiful newest blessing was born and we were able to begin the process to get visas for our family to become residents of Taiwan. Having no idea where we are going to live we continued to pursue residency, and like He promises, He was with us. The long, extremely detailed process was blessed and after a lot of work we received our visas! Still not knowing where exactly where we are going to live or how we are going to get from the airport in the North side of the country to the Diocese we are moving to in the south side of the country with seven kids and 14 bags. He was with us, leading as the Good Shepherd He is! We received an email from a man who was born an raised in Chiayi Taiwan (the diocese we are moving to). He spent the last 30 or so years in the states and just recently moved back to Taiwan. The Holy Spirit has lit a fire in his heart to serve the poor in Chiayi and he has a lot of wonderful ideas but no help. He went to the Catholic Church there and they told him that there was a missionary family moving to his area soon (us) who may be able to help. He got in contact with Family Missions Company and flew into the states for a visit. We have been in contact with him and after letting him know we got our visas we asked if he could help us with two things. How can we get from the airport to Chiayi in a country where the average family has less than 1 child?..so large vans or taxis to move big families don't really exist. And secondly, can you help us find a house or place to live? He responds, don't worry about travel from the airport to here, I will take care of everything. Also, I will find you a place to live but I also have a house available right now that you can stay in indefinitely or just until you find a more suitable house, depending on where the Holy Spirit leads you! Praise you Jesus! 

 Finally, as we are praising the Lord for His miraculous work and leadership He continues! We have some great friends in our mission group who recently became engaged! He is a missionary who served in India and China and she is also a missionary and she served in the Philippines. They asked Veronica and I to be their sponsors through marriage preparation. Of coarse we are honored to do it and they are going to come to Taiwan for a month for their marriage prep. Out of their beautiful hearts and the love of our gracias merciful Heavenly Father they saw an amazing opportunity for all of us. They can fly with us to Taiwan, allowing them to spend time with us, a married couple with seven children, to witness the reality of marriage in an event like moving across the world. And they desire to help our family as we move to a new country where we won't have a vehicle of any kind and we will be needing to find and go to the market, furniture, stores, etc. and we have no idea where anything is and we don't speak Chinese. BUT, he speaks some Chinese from his year and a half in China and they want to help us during this transition...Praise you Jesus! He is with us, just like He promises! 

Every time God asks us to step out into the unknown, to follow Him completely in faith without knowing all the answers, and asks us to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us...He always shows up and provides everything that we need! We serve a loving father! 

John 14:15-17-“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you."

Gimnasio de San Juan Bosco

Wednesday night after training, our priest is there too!

The kids helping serve as we build a new roof!

40+ guys in training!! The gym is exploding, praise the Lord! We have about 100 people training in classes. We have an exercise class for women, then two Taekwondo classes (one for kids and one for adults), then exercise class at night for men. Through this we are able to form relationships and bring people into our other ministries. Some are coming to our Wednesday night praise, prayer, and teachings. Coming to Mass and we have started a morning bible study/prayer on Thursdays before school with a couple of guys who are choosing to turn their lives around and follow Jesus!! Some of these guys have expressed how the training has made them stop smoking and doing drugs, praise Jesus!! When the training leads them to make the decision to change their life they are open to being led to the Lord! God is on fire and working like crazy! A couple of guys from the gym and a women who Veronica has been discipling have also come with us to the ranchos when we go preach, what a great opportunity for them to be a part of mission work in action with people who live so close!! After we put a roof on a families house here in General Cepeda the guys at the gym said they would like to be involved with helping work to serve the poor too, IT'S AMAZING!! Please keep the "Gimnasio de San Juan Bosco" in your prayers, seriously, God answers your prayers all the time and we need your prayers! We are currently praying for a bigger place, more boxing equipment, and a boxing ring! But most importantly that our students are led to a loving relationship with Jesus! We have another load of equipment to pick up from the U.S. because Gold's Gym donated A LOT of weights and workout equipment for the gym!! Thank you all for everything you have done for the people here and please keep the prayers coming. Peace and God Bless you all!!

Sometimes the Lord works fast!

Taekwondo training in the only place for miles with grass,
well almost, it's fake grass!

We are walking through the streets of our new home in General Cepeda, Mexico and feeling the Lord calling us to minister to the young men here. This is a need because in general, there are a lot of single mother households and not a strong presence of Christ like fatherhood, so boys start working as early as possible and don't have a constant formation at home. God has been putting this need on my heart since we were here for a month in November. How can I get the attention and earn the respect of these guys when I barely speak their language and I have only lived here for two weeks? MARTIAL ARTS!! The need for discipline, respect, and integrity is easily formed through martial arts and the relationships formed open wide the doors for Christ to work and lead to bible study, prayer group, and local mission work. The Lord works fast, we have ten students in our taekwondo class and six young men in our evening weight training. We are praying about getting a location and equipment for a gym/taekwondo school to offer for the community. There is no gym, exercise facility, or martial arts here and it is proving to be a great way to get the young men off the streets! God is bringing his children to us to be fed physically but ultimately spiritually! Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to discern God's Will and seek how to make it possible!

Martial Arts in the Park?!!

We serve such a GREAT GOD! If he wants it done, it will be done!

Outside of the Cathedral with Veronica's amazing family
who has opened their home to us while we are in language
school.

We are in Guadalajara for language school and have been praying about opportunities to start or get involved in some ministries while we are here (with our extremely limited time). After a few days of praying about this and running through some options for starting bible studies, Veronica and I were out for a run late one night (our first time to run together...maybe ever, God is so cool). While we were running we noticed a young couple carrying a baby up to a house, on our next loop around the neighborhood we noticed them again but at a different house, on our third loop we saw them at a different house and it was clear that they were looking for help. Thank you Jesus! So we stopped and talked with them. They needed milk for their baby so we walked with them down to the local pharmacy and got the type of milk they needed. Then we walked with them and bought them some food and had a chance to pray with them! We are just planting seeds with a little bit of love so the Holy Spirit can water them and then the possibilities are endless!

The next night I was running through the park and I saw two guys kicking on a martial arts kicking shield...so I stopped to watch. They were training some kicking and punching drills and it was clear that one of them was really good and was teaching the other. I started to head home when the Holy Spirit stopped me in my tracks...Go talk to them. I said "Lord I don't want to interrupt them...and I can hardly even speak their language." He just simply reminded me of his scripture in The Acts of the Apostles when he tells us not to worry about what we will say when we get there because His Spirit will speak for us. OK Lord, YES LORD, I will go. So I walked over and interrupted their training, in Spanish, and managed to speak enough that they invited me to train with them. After about an hour of training they invited me to come and train with them twice a week for the rest of the time I am in town. They were only training once a week but they are adding another day while I am here. It turns out one of them speaks a bit of english and with my bit of spanish we communicate great. Through training we earned a great respect for each other and I am excited to see how the Lord works through this time! Please pray for these two guys because I know Jesus wants to do something here, pray for me that I can be open and docile to the Holy Spirit so I don't get in the way of His work. It is amazing how He uses our gifts for His will when we are open and ready to listen to Him.

Be the BACON! by Veronica

During our first couple of weeks in Lousiana, we were told as missionaries with Family Missions Company that we are called to be the bacon. When planning a delicious breakfast…the Hen contributes eggs, the Cow gives milk and cheese, but the Pig gives himself completely! We are called to be the Bacon, like the Pig we need to be willing to give our entire lives to Jesus. I reflected a lot on this during our time of formation. I felt the Lord telling me that I need to trust in Him in all things. After a particular talk given by one of the directors of Family Missions Company, I broke down in tears. I felt the Lord telling me that I needed to give Him EVERYTHING, even my own children, that I needed to put all my security in Him. I felt very convicted because although we had sold our home and most of our things, we still kept things in storage for “just in case” or maybe for other reasons. I felt the Lord tugging at my heart, although I had given a lot, he wanted me to give Him more.  

Luke 18

18 A certain ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 20 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother.’” 21 He replied, “I have kept all these since my youth.” 22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money[c] to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” 23 But when he heard this, he became sad; for he was very rich. 24 Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25 Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

26 Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” 27 He replied, “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.”

28 Then Peter said, “Look, we have left our homes and followed you.” 29 And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, 30 who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”

I had never really paid too much attention to this parable in the past, and if I did, I always focused on the part that talks about it being harder for a Rich man to enter the Kingdom than a camel to go through the eye of a needle. During my time at Intake, this scripture made its way into my prayer time a couple of times and reading it in its entirety again, the Lord spoke to me. What Jesus kept saying to me was give all you have away and come FOLLOW me. He kept saying, following Me, is trusting in Me completely, that I will provide for your needs. He knows that in my heart I was holding on to certain things in my storage unit and this I believe He knows would keep me from following Him completely. So since we have been home, we have in a matter of a week, completely emptied our storage...we had a fundraiser and friends and family came and took what they wanted and gave what they could. The hardest part was going through the kid's things from their bedrooms, or kids artwork that I was holding on to. I have never done this, but as Jesus said “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God”…I know that this life I am called to is not going to be easy. I can’t even begin to think about what challenges I will face, but all I know is I need to give my entire self to Jesus. I need to ask Him to help me because I alone can do nothing, and it’s the Lord who will do everything.