At Nanmen Elementary School in Taipei, young and old lined up Saturday to cast their ballots inside classrooms with ID cards and personalized chops (or stamps) in hand. Outside in the schoolyard, 62-year-old Chiu Yueh-fang and her two daughters sat on a bench waiting for her husband to finish voting. They voted for incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen because they believed she would protect Taiwan from China’s encroachment. 

As a child growing up in the Smangus tribe 5,000 feet high in the verdant mountains of northern Taiwan, Yuraw Icyang remembers life being extremely difficult, yet filled with evidences of God’s grace. Lacking electricity, phone lines, or a road, the Smangus tribespeople during the 1970s lived a simple agrarian life growing mushrooms, millet, and sweet potatoes.

Second in a series on changing cities

Walking along the long narrow stretch of Ochheuteal Beach on the Cambodian coast of Sihanoukville is like walking between two worlds. On one side, a small boy runs gleefully into the waves as the golden sun dips down to the ocean, the sky awash in purples and pinks. On the other, trash piles up on construction sites as the skeletons of buildings and tower cranes stretch to the sky.

On a Sunday morning in Phnom Penh, motorcycles, SUVs, and colorful tuk-tuks (motorcycle-pulled rickshaws) try to squeeze past each other on a busy road. Off the main drag and next to a multistoried mall stands New Life Fellowship, its open doors facing an indoor shoe market. Inside, past the megachurch’s coffee shop, greeters hold open doors to a dark, air-conditioned sanctuary where hundreds of young Cambodians have gathered for worship. Colored lights flash as rock-concert-style worship music booms loud enough for shoppers next door to hear. 

TAIPEI, Taiwan—Three referendums supporting marriage between one man and one woman passed overwhelmingly in Saturday elections in Taiwan. The votes show that most citizens still hold traditional values even though the country’s highest court moved toward legalizing same-sex marriage in 2017.

Brent Fulton (no relation to me) is the founder of ChinaSource, a Christian organization that works to help the global church better understand China’s rapidly growing church. The author of China’s Urban Christians: A Light That Cannot Be Hidden, Fulton is no newcomer to China: He started working with China Ministries International in Hong Kong in 1985 and has been tracking the rise of China’s churches since then. He announced in September that he will step down as ChinaSource president.

Up on a hill above the Tamsui River, past the renovated Fort San Domingo, stands Aletheia University, a quiet campus filled with leafy trees, an imposing neo-Gothic church with a 32-foot-tall pipe organ, and two pointed arches at its entrance. Walk through the arches, follow a winding stone path in a manicured garden, and cross a bridge over a koi pond, and you’ll reach a red brick schoolhouse, a blend of Western and Eastern styles of architecture.