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Our family arrived in Taiwan in October, 1990. Our son, Luke, was just two months old. The Norm and Nadine Lehman family, who were the senior couple with BMM in Taiwan, helped us to get settled in the city of Taichung in central Taiwan. We soon enrolled in language study, taking turns watching Luke and going to class. Our studies lasted about two and a half years during which time Rose was born in 1992; Beth was born about 15 months later. During the last two years of our first term we helped pastor a church planting effort in the city of Changhua, about 40 minutes from Taichung.
We returned for our second term in 1997 and immediately moved to the southern city of Kaohsiung, the second largest city in Taiwan. There we gained experience by helping missionary Keith Cullers, who was then far along in the process of planting Freedom Baptist Church in the Kaohsiung suburb of FengShan. We ministered as helpers there, then pastored the church for two years during the Cullers absence to help nurture it to maturity.
As
we began our third term in 2002 we felt God's leadership to step out to
initiate a new church planting effort in the DzwoYing district of
Kaohsiung. This was the first work initiated by our family. God
provided a very suitable building on a major thoroughfare in which we
could hold services in the first floor store-front, while our family
lived on the upper floors. We held the first service of Cornerstone
Baptist Church in September, 2002. During the first year, we rarely had
a service without visitors—sometimes many visitors. As the church began
to grow we moved the church sanctuary to second floor, which was
larger, and used the first floor space for child-care during service
times and for the church office during the week. Later we needed to add
even more space to accomodate the growing number of small children of
the families attending. So our family moved into a nearby apartment and
the church occupied the third floor rooms for child-care and classroom
space. Our apartment is close enough for us to easily walk to church
for daily office hours and to home-school our children on the upper two
floors which we are still using.
After teaching for many months about the Biblical doctrine of the local church, we formally organized in April 2005. We are moving slowly to regularize the organization of the church to conform to biblical standards and our church constitution. We are slowly filling offices as qualified members become available and are prayerfully selected by the congregation. In January, 2006 we added a regular Sunday School ministry led and taught by a godly couple in our church. We continue to train and prepare for further steps forward on the road to becoming a fully indigenous church (self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propogating).
Tad
& Hannah Wychopen (Read
their blog.)
Our family is presently on furlough in the United States where we are traveling and reporting to our supporting churches. Meanwhile, in our absence, the church is under the pastoral care of two missionary families. Tad & Hannah Wychopen are short-term missionaries studying Mandarin Chinese while teaching, preaching, and helping to provide pastoral oversight to the church for the year that we are gone. They plan to return to the United States in May, 2008 to pursue seminary studies.
Pat & Mary Delaney are the second family which is helping in the spiritual care of Cornerstone BC. The Delaney's are veteran missionaries under Baptist World Mission who served for 18 years in Singapore. Now God has directed them to make a field change to Taiwan. They arrived in Kaohsiung in September, 2007 and are splitting ministry responsibilities with the Wychopens and studying Mandarin Chinese. Under the godly leadership of these two families, the ministries in and through the church continue to go forward.
© 2007 Hannas.org 