This April more missionaries traveled to Taiwan than ever before at one time.
Between Thursday, April 17 and Monday, April 21, three groups of mission volunteers, totally 31 people, left the state to spread the Gospel in Taiwan. The Columbia Metro Association team with a team from Alice Drive Church, Sumter, left April 17, and the Singing Churchmen departed April 21.
“This will be the most volunteers we’ve had in Taiwan at one time during our three-year partnership,” Debbie McDowell, Missions Mobilization director, said.
Currently, the SCBC has a partnership between churches and associations in South Carolina and more than 70 International Mission Board missionaries in Taiwan. The groups that travel to Taiwan assist the IMB missionaries already living and ministering in Taiwan.
Two members of the Singing Churchmen, a group of ministers of music from across the state, are from the South Carolina Baptist Convention staff. Jim Gill, Music and Creative Worship Group director, and Tom Eggleston, Music and Creative Worship associate, are working in Taipei and with the Hokkien people of Taiwan. The work of the Singing Churchmen each year includes traveling to local churches, performing for special programs, and participating in mission trips. The Singing Churchmen will return from their mission endeavor to Taiwan on Thursday, May 8.
John Platt, director of missions at Columbia Metro Association, and his team will be working with the Taiwan Laborers for Christ in Taoyuan and Hsinchu, where more than 98 percent of the people are not Christians.
Columbia Metro team activities include prayerwalking and distributing gifts “in hopes of beginning a community home church,” team member Eric Barfield said. “It is a sobering experience to see how good we have it in the United States.”
David Barfield and the team from Alice Drive Church, Sumter, is leading the team ministering to the Hakka people, descendants of the Han Chinese, in Meinung, Taiwan.
“We will perform Easter skits, and we will be in public schools teaching the Easter story in English so that students to learn English. The teachers will be our Gospel translators,” Barfield said.
The Alice Drive team will return on Sunday, April 27, making their trip a 10-day mission experience.
For more information or to become a volunteer, contact the Missions Mobilization Group, SCBC, at (800) 723-7242, ext. 5600, or e-mail gloriashull@scbaptist.org.
