Scattered around here and further along the coast are several small churches with amazing choirs, and yesterday Advent Church was packed for our first choir festival ~ YES!

The main inspiration for the choir festival came from our church members, Sheng-Feng and his lovely wife, who between them seem to be related to, or friends with, everybody in every choir in the whole area!   Choirs were invited from Sanzhi Presbyterian Church, Dan-Nung Bunun Church, Advent Church and the Teachers Choir from TamKang High School. During the choir introductions, Sanzhi Presbyterian Church said that unlike most Presbyterian Churches in Taiwan which worship in Taiwanese, in Sanzhi they use Chinese, as they have lots of Chinese-speakers, plus lots of indigenous aboriginal people in 2 fellowship groups, Paiwan and Amis – and both sing and lead worship on different occasions.  The Amis group are mostly working at Shuang-Lien Elderly Centre – where I go often, so turns out I knew lots of ’em, wonderful!  The TamKang High School Teachers Choir is huge, and about half of them came yesterday, along with their families.  And then there’s the Bunun Church, who have been to Advent Church many times to sing at our annual community concert in the autumn, they’ve performed and sang all over the country, and each year they go back to the mountain Bunun Villages on an outreach tour.

Each choir sang 3 songs ~ starting with Advent Church who sang in Chinese, Taiwanese and English.  Then Amis, then Paiwan, then TamKang School and finally Bunun Church.

And our lovely choir festival organizer, Sheng-Feng happens to be of Amis tribe, his wife is Paiwan tribe, and they both work at TamKang School and sing in that choir as well as ours. And they’re related to / friends with everyone in the Bunun Church, and their daughter accompanied the Bunun Church on the piano too.  All amazing!

So a great choir festival, beautiful praise and worship songs, full of life and energy, followed by introductions, games and then refreshments….

Fantastic singing, amazing choirs ~ and we hope for another choir festival this time next year, maybe with even more choirs!