Dear evangelism partner,
Thank you for laboring with us in evangelism through prayers and financial support. It has been three years since the first Evangelism Center opened. Now we have a total of four Evangelism Centers and eight full-time lay evangelists serving in one archdiocese and three dioceses in Taiwan. Two more bishops have invited us to support their dioceses and more students graduating from the Evangelism Department will join the existing Evangelism Centers this summer. For the new students of the upcoming school year, 12 candidates have already taken the entrance exam earlier this month, and there are two more chances in the summer for those who could not make it this time. We thank God for His blessing to our evangelism work.
From this newsletter, you will see that our vision of the lay evangelist for Chinese people has been coming true. First, the inculturation has clarified the misconception of Christianity as a foreign religion, which is one of the major road blocks to evangelize among Chinese. Second, the collaboration between foreign missionaries and local lay evangelists has reduced the language and culture gap. Lastly, the newly-baptized initiated and took on the responsibility to form new catechumen classes. Due to the celebration of the sesquicentennial of Catholicism in Taiwan last year, the awareness of evangelism is increasing. Dioceses and parishes are promoting and implementing evangelism programs. Because of only a few shepherds but many sheep, lay evangelists and the students who are in the internship often work overtime.
We finally have a blog now: http://chineselayevangelist.blogspot.com. Please feel free to post a missionary’s story who is serving or served among Chinese, or you can mail it to me and I can post it for you. You can also leave comments for our newsletter articles. It is our wish that we can exchange our evangelism experiences through this blog.
Financially, we received a one-year grant from the Koch Foundation, which is our first foundation partner in the United States. Also, 47 benefactors formed three Mission Circles and adopted three lay evangelists. The Lord has also blessed us with many generous benefactors, the support from both the Jesuit California and Chinese Provinces, and two more potential Circles in the making, but we have not reached our goal yet. We believe that working together we will be able to support the financial needs for the 11 evangelists ($20,000 per person), scholarships ($3,000 per student), and other financial aid ($3,000 for single and $11,000 for married) for 11 students for the coming school year.
Thank you for your continuous support. Because of your support, we could continuously grow and bring the peace and joy of the Lord to more people. Please also invite your friends and relatives to join our “One-Brings-One” evangelism ministry through financial support and/or prayers. Please let me know if you would like to know more about the Mission Circle program.
God bless!
In Christ,
Yvonne Chow
Local Contact in the U.S.
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