Saru Church, Taiwan

Pastor Na InSu

After I completed my language studies early last year (January-February 2005), I was assigned to work in Saru, the central part of Taiwan, and had to search for a church building.  My fellow missionaries also searched around their assigned locations for several days, putting off their studies.

I searched hard for one for several days but couldn’t find one in good condition for a reasonable price.  I finally found a good location, but there were many rumors circulating about it.  Somebody was supposed to have seen his dead neighbor on the road in front of the building, the property was supposed to have been a public cemetery, and so on.  But its location and size suited me well.  Everything went smoothly when I talked to the owner about it, but the contract wasn’t made because there was a disagreement between the civil authorities and me.  I clung to God earnestly and began to search for another building.  The third batch of missionaries was going to move into my house the following week, and I would have to move out.  But I hadn’t been able to make a contract to rent a new house yet.

Even though my wife and I had seen most of the houses in the area already, we searched one more time, just as Joshua kept marching around the city of Jericho seven times, even though he had done it the previous six days.  We searched for a good location, but there was none for rent.  It was then that a poster regarding a house for sale caught my eye.  The house was said to be for sale, but we decided to see if we could change it into a monthly rental.  We went to the house next to it and asked a lady there if she could give us the phone number of its owner.  She contacted a real estate office since she couldn’t speak Chinese (the elderly speak Taiwanese) because she thought we wanted to buy the house.

As we let the realtor know we wanted to rent it, thinking that trying wouldn’t hurt, he decided to call the owner.  When he got off the phone, he nodded his head slantwise, saying, “The owner had told me he definitely had to sell it before New Year’s Day, but he changed his mind.  He wants make a contract with you next Monday.”  (It was Friday then.)  Everything worked out well, so we made the contract with him on Monday and moved in on Wednesday.  The place we moved into was located on the main street, and we found out later that we somehow rented it cheap, though it was originally expensive because it was quite big.  We were wondering why God chose to have His church in this unexpected place.  It was the total opposite of the place where we had planned to make a contract.

We met Huang ShuYun, the first fruit of Saru Church, in the middle of delivering evangelistic pamphlets to promote our church.  We frequently dropped by her house to see what she was doing, share delicious food with her, ask her about things we didn’t know, and later teach her the Bible.  Her family got baptized and became the first fruits of our church at the end of July.  Pastor Huang JinCheng, SS/PM Director of Taiwan Conference baptized her youngest son, Guo FuBang, at the evangelistic meeting last December because he insisted on getting baptized at that particular time.

My wife and I had had a prayer request since we applied for PMM.  It was for the first fruit of our church to be fine enough to be a role model for the following fruits.  Sure enough, God answered our prayer.  Mrs. Huang takes the initiative on all the church work, even though she suffers from leukemia and received a bone marrow transplant from her older sister.  After the transplant, she had a hard time with the side effects.  Her lungs and backbone sunk in because her body rejected her sister’s marrow.  To make things worse, her husband was being treated for depression after going bankrupt.  He used to lead a fast life when he ran a big printing house, and was fond of friends, people, and alcohol.  Even now she sometimes says to me, “We were going through the worst part of our lives when we met you.  We had no hope or joy, and we were about to give up our little store.  We were waiting until June for the contract to expire, but so many things have changed since we met God.  We are so happy to have you near us so we can rely on you.  You moved here just for us.”

Our God is such a wonderful God.  We got to meet the fine first fruits in this unfamiliar place called Saru, and they were able to meet God.  Mrs. Huang serves as treasurer of Saru Church, and she is essential.  She is not a deaconess yet, but she works as if she were a head deaconess.  Those who got baptized afterwards are also enthusiastic about church work thanks to her influence.

When the one-year contract on our house was over, we wanted to extend it.  But then the owner suddenly demanded that we move when the contract was over.  He wouldn’t listen to us no matter how desperately we pleaded with him, saying that he had to sell it because of his financial problems.  So we rented a smaller house near there and are thinking with excitement, “What kinds of precious souls will God send us this time?” 

Hwang Su Win and her husband

Kwu Hoo Pang, the son of Hwang Su Win