Pete and Mim have been living in Taipei, Taiwan since 2017, with a heart for their neighbours to taste and see the goodness of God.

In the time since, they have launched an English-teaching business that they hope will both bless their local community and also be a pathway for students to experience God’s kindness in their care for students.

PETE: Our journey to Taiwan started over 20 years ago, with Miriam in a youth meeting at a Stoneleigh Bible week. She can’t remember the speaker or what they said; all she remembers is seeing the Chinese flag appear on the screen and her instant intrigue. She came back from the meeting and told her parents that she was going to be a missionary in China. In subsequent years Miriam’s parents found small but helpful opportunities for her to learn more about China, which included meeting one or two Chinese people who lived in London at the time - not as easy as it is today! When she went to university Miriam felt led, through both interest and prophetic words, to study Chinese, and in her third year at uni she first visited Taiwan.

Miriam in Taiwan early years with Taiwanese God mum and family — A younger Miriam with her Taiwanese god-mum

During this first trip she met a lady whom we now call our Taiwanese god-mum, who our daughters call 婆婆 (‘grandma’ in Chinese). At that time, she wasn’t walking with Jesus, but on that trip Jesus used Miriam’s witness to rekindle her faith. Many trips to Taiwan followed as Miriam visited the friends she had made.

I (Pete) started my journey to Taiwan a little later. Jesus saved me whilst I was at university and, as a new Christian, I devoured the accounts of Paul’s missionary trips in Acts. Within a few years I was serving in Kenya with a missionary organisation called African Inland Mission; on weekdays I worked with the mission organisation, and at the weekends I spent time with my friends from the local Newfrontiers church in Nairobi. Hearing stories of what God was doing in the churches there was incredible. I remember hearing of a church being planted in a single weekend when a gospel crusade visited a nearby town and people were healed, delivered and 50 or so made decisions to follow Jesus. Over the following months, leaders were trained and appointed. Church planted.

Pete in Kenya with the African Inland Mission team — A younger Pete with the African Inland Mission team

Growing passions, clearer direction

This stories and others like it really grabbed my heart for cross-cultural church planting. After that year in Kenya I returned to the UK, where Miriam and I first met. We united around a love of different cultures and a shared sense of adventure. We also discovered that the way our passions worked out was quite complementary. Where I was living with a call specifically to cross-cultural church planting but was unclear about a location, Miriam was carrying a call specifically to Taiwan but was less clear about what she might do there. As we continued our journey, we were encouraged both by those around us and through prophetic words to visit some countries.

First stop: Taiwan. I can still clearly remember sitting on a train traveling along the east coast of Taiwan and sensing God say He wanted me to move to Taiwan and learn Chinese. On our return to the UK we shared this with those around us, and that summer (2016) we began to make plans to move - but it was only after we’d each handed in our notices at our jobs that God confirmed this decision: at Sent 2017, we were given a prophetic word by someone who knew nothing of the situation which clearly confirmed our decision to go.

Summer 2017: we’re boarding a plane to Taiwan; we have no job, a place to live in Taipei for only one month, and visas lasting only 90 days. Despite the long lead-up it still felt like a big step of faith to finally be going, but as we stepped out we saw God provide wonderfully. Within one month, God provided a job, a place to learn language, somewhere to live and visas to stay - all that we needed.

I still enjoy remembering how, during this season, God used a business contact of Miriam’s dad to help provide for us. Decisions that Miriam’s dad had made before we were born led to him meeting this contact, and in turn, contributing to our provision many years later. To me this speaks of God’s wonderful providence! He takes people’s individual decisions, over generations and across nations, and weaves them together to achieve the outworking of His purposes. Personal, detailed, specific, and yet - global, multi-generational and expansive. Our God is an awesome God!

Deeply spiritual: It’s said that Taiwan has the highest ratio of temples to people

Taiwan: a land of past and future

We have discovered that Taiwan is a beautiful and interesting place. It’s both spiritual and modern, ancient and progressive. A statistic often quoted is that Taiwan has more temples per person than any other country in the world. I’m not entirely sure how to verify that, but there certainly are lots of temples in Taiwan! The Taiwanese are a spiritual people, and these temples are not abandoned relics of the past. They are actively used, and often function as community hubs, even today. They represent peoples’ ties to the past and to family, where family and honouring previous generations is a core part of Taiwanese culture - most festivals involve a ritual that remembers, or worships, dead relatives, and offerings are made with the hope of providing for, and pacifying, those in the spiritual world.

Other aspects of Taiwanese spirituality can be very practical. When people have a perceived need, they often find the appropriate “god” to ask for supernatural help. This need could be anything, wanting to have a child, passing an exam, a promotion at work or with dating. Temples in Taiwan are full of “gods”, each with their own perceived ‘area of effectiveness’. If the desired result is achieved, then the “god” gets the credit and becomes more widely known and respected as a result.

Taiwan is also a very modern place; it is at the cutting edge of micro-chip technology, and the first Asian country to legalise same-sex marriage. It is home to Taipei 101 - one of the tallest buildings in the world - possibly the only one built to withstand earthquakes and the first to break half a kilometre in height. Taiwan is also at the centre of a very current political issue.

Sharing the good news in creative ways

This is the context in which we have lived for the last eight years. During that time we have repeatedly asked ourselves, “how can we live out the good news about Jesus so it clearly is good news to those around us?” God has kept leading us back to Psalm 34:8 - “Taste and see that the Lord is good, blessed is he who takes refuge in Him.” Our heart is to create a place where people can experience for themselves the goodness of the one true God.

This is the vision behind our teaching business: to help people experience God’s goodness through education. We are aiming to provide a professional and personal tuition service, especially for those taking the IELTS test, and hope that, by helping our students to achieve their goals and taking a genuine interest in them outside the classroom, we can point people toward Someone much more powerful and kinder than us, Someone able to help them with their greatest needs, who knows them intimately, and loves them completely.

By God’s grace we have found favour with the equivalent of our local councillor. Miriam and this lady became friends when we first moved in, having daughters almost exactly the same age. Not long after, our new friend became a local councillor. The trust we have built means we’re now able to run community classes free of charge in her office - in a strongly group-oriented culture, running these classes has subsequently helped build trust with the wider community. We are now able to run Christmas and Easter events in our community, where we can freely share about Jesus' birth, death and resurrection, as well as the significance of these events for everyone.

During 2025, alongside the launch of our English-teaching business, a small group started gathering regularly in our home, and our heart is that this will be a place where people can taste and see that the Lord is good. We believe that a community shaped by the love of God, living in the power of God, is what those living around us are really looking for.

First fruits

As we try to live out these values ourselves we’ve had opportunities to walk alongside people, meeting regularly to study the Bible with them and pray together. One friend of Miriam’s asked her out of the blue to teach her how to pray, which led to regular Bible study and prayer sessions taking place for over a year now. I have another friend who loves to meet up to study the Bible and then pray together. He often tells me afterwards how he has experienced God’s power and love for him as we prayed.

Our prayer is that these friends who have already tasted and seen something of God’s goodness will commit their lives to Him fully, and not just them but that whole families together will fully give themselves to following Jesus. We’d also love to have a physical space in our community where we can invite people to taste and see God’s goodness for themselves. If helping people in Taiwan taste and see the goodness of God is something that excites you, we’d love to hear from you.

Support Pete and Mim

Ways to Pray 🙏

That many people would taste and see the goodness of God through their teaching English business
That God would save many individuals and families in Taiwan
For people with a shared vision and heart for church would join them
That God would provide a physical space in their community for the business, mission and a church plant
For their family to be an effective witness to others as they pursue God, and enjoy His goodness themselves

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Taipei, Taiwan: Pete and Mim