After the busy Chinese New Year we planned our second rice delivery project to the single parents and neediest folks amongst the Aborigine Mountain Villages here in Taiwan. We approached various sponsors whose contributions helped buy the rice, as well as the Aborigine church pastors for their help in preparing the lists of those needing help. For this second project we amassed another 1000 kilos of rice. We were escorted through the villages by the villages elders who are members of the Presbyterian Church here in Taiwan, founded by missionaries about 100 years ago, the most famous being George Mackay from Canada.
Every village has at least four or five single mothers caring for three or four kids, as their husbands had died or been killed. A very sad, shocking plight repeated village after village. Even the Aborigine pastors with us were at a loss to explain why there was such a high occurrence amongst their people.
We were able to help with five kilos of rice per child and later drove back clothes and other extra things we had at home, to help them as much as we could. Whenever we spoke to them of Jesus's continuing Love for them and their families, they all would respond with "I know. I know Jesus loves me", and not one of them seemed to be bitter about any of their experiences or conditions but continued to acknowledge the Love they, His Chinese children, receive from Him. We gave out Chinese "Easter" stories and lots of tracts for the kids.
The Taroko tribe (the smallest) that we help consists of 34 mountain villages, and so far we have only covered seven of these. There are also many other mountain villages of the other 9 tribes scattered all down the East and Southern parts of Taiwan so there is a vast need for all sorts of help not only in rice and clothing but also Chinese Bibles and other Christian and children literature. The pastors we work with are taking us further into the mountains with each project so it seems we will soon be going up to the villages that can only be reached by foot.