appearances can be deceiving

y'know how as young people clean up their room, they try to take a shortcut and put all the dirty laundry in the closet so that as their parents glance in the room, they think it's clean? (i did that once, and my mom opened my closet in front of many aunties thinking it was clean only be undelightfully shocked. )

my point is, if we just glance, yea, it's not bad, but when we take a good look, we'll see that it's not as clean as we thought.

it's the same here in Taiwan.

from the 80s to now, the number of missionaries have dropped significantly. In the early 90s, there were at least 90 OMF missionaries total for Taiwan. now, there are only 30.

the Baptists decided that Taiwan was reached and so moved most of their resources and energies to China leaving their Taiwanese pastors with little spiritual support.

I can't speak for the other organizations, but i won't be surprised if they had a significant drop for Taiwan.

It's true, Taiwan is democratic government. We don't have to worry about getting twitter and youtube blocked from our computers. We don't have to worry about getting arressted and/or deported for passing tracts out to people on the streets. The Taiwanese don't have to worry about the government censoring sermons. Truth can be spoken without legal consequence.

but

most christians here have quite a lot of money and status. there are churches in Taiwan. You come to Taipei, you'll see crosses everywhere in the mix of religious symbols. I'm sure the big cities of Taichung and Kaohsiung have plenty of churches as well. but there's a problem

just because you see churches doesn't mean that they're all healthy. the Presbyterian Church here has been hurt by a certain political party so much that many won't be able to see someone from that party as a brother or sister in Christ. some would go as far to say that if you can't speak Taiwanese, they won't accept you.

unhealthy churches aren't the only problem. Statistics say that Taiwan is 5% Christian. Many missionaries would disagree because some will say they are, but they don't live a Christian life. If you asked a common citizen the difference between Protestant Christianity and Mormanism, they'd say they're the same exact thing. If we're going to give a more precise statistic, I'd say 2%, and most of this percent is made up of people in the middle-upper class economically.

the most unreached are the working class; the taxi drivers, the restaurant workers, the vendors, the sales reps at the mall, etc.

so to answer the question: is Taiwan reached?

the answer is NO.

appearances and be deceiving. we have churches, but many are unhealthy. the working class probably know this Jesus name, but have no clue what He has to do with us, and if and when they do, it'll take them a very long time to accept any of it becaus they've never experienced this Jesus, and they don't know people who've experienced this Jesus. Christian witness is very low.

I believe God will do great things for Taiwan in the future. I hope that you will participate in this great work. I hope God opens your eyes to see that there is a HUGE need in Taiwan. don't let the surface deceive you. if you search deeper, you'll see a huge, dark, ugly void.