Hello, Everyone!
It pleases me to announce the END of SoCAM 2016!
What a crazy six months it has been. As you know, the first three months consisted of the “Lecture Phase” portion of the school, and the last three months were the “Production Phase,” where we put to use our new cartooning knowledge and made a culturally specific evangelistic cartoon animation. The production phase is now over for the year!
In the Production phase, our days look much like a 9 to 5 animation job. We sit in front of our computers drawing backgrounds, designing characters, storyboarding, wrestling with Flash (which is notorious for crashing), as well as countless other little jobs that are necessary to pull together a huge project. Ok, so maybe ten minutes of animation doesn’t seem like a HUGE project, but trust me, it is. On Friday of this week, Alex will graduate and go home, and we will make further edits to the cartoon. In several weeks I’ll be able to present the end result to you!
In addition to our regular animation job, we do conversational ministry at the Rock coffee bar. I also am doing my best to make friends outside of my immediate SoCAM circle.
Oh, yes, and I’m also learning Chinese four hours a week.
I will be honest with you: It hasn’t been easy to feel at home here. It’s taken a long time to even start sticking my little roots into Taiwanese soil. I was going to spend time bemoaning my struggles and sadnesses to you in this letter, but I think instead I will tell you about what God has done to bring me through these various valleys.
Though I have a sweet core group here at Create, I felt lonely with only one social circle. God has been slowly giving me access to different social circles in and out of YWAM. I’m very thankful for these new friends. The more people I know and love, the more at home I feel. Please pray that I’ll make some real deep friendships with Taiwanese people, especially as I learn more and more Chinese. In YWAM, people come and go very quickly. It’s hard to want to invest too deeply in friendships within YWAM because you never know when your new friend will have to leave. Maybe this is something other missionaries deal with, too. I don’t know. It scares me a bit, to be honest. I want to invest my life for the long term in missions, but YWAM is especially conducive to short-termers. Being a long-term person in a short-term environment can be draining. But I might be getting ahead of myself. No use worrying about the worries of three, five, ten years from now.
God has given me a lot of joy in my work. The more I work at Create, the more I’m excited to learn more and more about animation. I never really get tired of doing art.
God has given me more confidence to face next year. I’ll be leading the school, which is something I’ve never done before, and I have gone through some periods of anxiety about it. But the closer it comes, and the more at home I feel here, the less I worry. I know that He will be with me all the way through this upcoming season of leadership. It will all be ok. Please pray that God will speak clearly to me next year about potentially leading the SoCAM long-term.
God has given me the opportunity to share my faith with some people here. I’m so thankful because sharing my faith really motivates me to do a good job with my art. The Gospel is the WHY behind the WHAT I do. When I meet someone who doesn’t know Jesus, I remember once again why the good news needs to be told everywhere! Please pray that all over the world, veils of culture, experience, lies, etc. would be lifted from the eyes of every tribe, tongue, and nation so that Jesus would be seen clearly for who he is!
I felt lethargic and weary earlier in the year, but God has graciously brought me out of that. I once again feel excited about my God and the good news he has for the world, and driven to do everything I can to proclaim it to the world.
Prayer Requests:
I need students for next year’s SoCAM.
That the project we’re working on now will be an effective tool to bring the good news to our target people group.
That I will be able to balance my many responsibilities – animating, preparing for next year, socializing, caring for my own health, etc.
That God would start speaking to me about whether or not I should stay on as school leader past my official “end date” (Dec. of next year).
Thank you so much, everyone! If you want to support me financially, please visit http://ywamcanada.org/donations.html and use my personalized code (WK11) to donate.