Reaching the mountain churches in Taiwan

The Family International in Taiwan has in recent years been working extensively with local aboriginal churches, schools and communities in the eastern Taiwan region. Aside from assisting the needy in the region with regular distribution of food and material goods, our primary goal is to provide good Christian educational materials especially geared for the children and youth in these communities. For the most part, the Taiwanese aborigines live in the highland areas of the country. A high percentage of them have a simple Christian faith and many are gifted with exceptional singing and musical abilities. Most of them live off the land and, while for the most part they can survive with the necessities of life, there is a great need to do what we can to encourage and support their Christian faith and offer them more in the way of Christian based educational and character building materials for their children, as well as motivational and inspirational material for their young people. A little bit goes such a long way with these people and is so very much appreciated.

While our goal is to eventually provide needed Christian materials to the whole aboriginal population of Taiwan, our specific target for this year is primarily the Truku tribal communities in the Nanao and Hualien area of Hualien county on the east coast.

We initiated this project last year in cooperation with one of the local pastors of a Truku church and through this the Lord envisioned us with the goal of reaching as many of these communities as possible this year. In all there are over 40 Truku villages and communities along the mountainous coastal region of this county.

During April and May of this year, two teams of volunteers visited schools and churches and Truku community centers in the area, distributing over 1,200 audio-visual materials, as well as hundreds of gospel tracts and other inspirational Christian literature. These audio-visual materials include motivating and faith building Christian music CDs for the aboriginal youth and over 600 Treasure Attic videos – a popular Christian based children’s video series – for distribution to the schools and families in the area. Along with the presentation of the sponsored materials, a group of our children gave a fun-filled, enjoyable singing and dancing performance for the occasion.

We would like to express our thanks and appreciation to Activated Ministries for their generous sponsorship of over 1,000 audio CDs and videos which enabled the Family international in Taiwan to conduct these successful field trip projects.