Director’s Words                                                                       Fr. Louis Aldrich S.J.

I want to thank each of you again for your great generosity in supporting the mission of our lay evangelists.  Through God's grace and your generosity each year we "just make" our budget.  I hope someday we may start to have a surplus; at least in management theory, a foundation like ours should have one years "back-up" funds to cover salaries and basic benefits in case of emergency.  I am grateful to God that so far we get "just enough" and see how God will "manage" things in the future.

St. Ignatius taught that, in apostolic work, we should pray as if all depended upon God, and work as if all depended upon ourselves.  The most common experience of our lay evangelists is that they must pray constantly, as if all depended upon God, otherwise there is no fruit from their evangelical work. So in our formation of the lay evangelists we require they pray together half an hour each morning before classes start, we provide them with a spiritual director who arranges yearly five to eight day retreats for them and counsels them how to grow in their life of prayer.

Because we must also work as if all depended upon ourselves, our foundation, from the beginning, has striven to find the best "methods" for evangelizing here in Taiwan.  We have tried many things: some did not work, some worked in some places with some groups, some seem to always work.  For example, we have found that once a catechumen class has started, if the parish will pray for each catechumen by name during the intercessory prayers of the Mass, the number of catechumens who persevere and ask for Baptism is significantly higher than if this is not done.

In this newsletter three of our lay evangelists will share some of the methods they have used in different places, for different kinds of people.  Grace Huang will share about her experience in Taichung, where a One-brings-one Evangelism Prayer Group she organized among the parish's Catholics has been a great help in her very fruitful evangelism work.  Mr. Jefu Chang  will share his methods and experiencing evangelizing in Homes for Aged in Hsinchu County (79 were baptized this January).  Hsuan Lwo  will share her work among the Hakka in Kwanghsi: among the Hakka, it is a much slower process of evangelism, but Hsuan Lwo , who is herself a Hakka, is slowly discovering an appropriate method.  Finally, one of  our new lay evangelists, Yujye Chang , will share her experience of the past year.

Since September 2015 our Foundation has been supporting three nuns from Mainland China who are now studying in the Evangelism Section of St. Bellarmine School of Theology; one of them is in the second year of the three year program and has done very well and the other two are in the first year.  According to the Church's teaching nuns are also belong to the "laity" so our foundation has been training and supporting nuns doing direct evangelism from the beginning.

Finally, because of your generosity, in addition to the many catechumens who have converted to Jesus, been baptized and entered the Church, our foundation, because it's one mission is direct evangelism, has had the time to make some progress in understanding how to pray and how to  work to accomplish this mission.  God continue to bless each of you.

The Fruits from God  

Evangelist Grace Huang

     It had been three years since I came to Taichung Immaculate Conception Parish on Fuxing Road and started the "One-Brings-One Evangelization Prayer Group". The Prayer Group members are primarily parishioners.   Currently we have about 34 people attending the weekly gathering and about 55% of them are recently baptized.  We gather three to four times every month.  Among the 105 baptisms in the past three years, 72 of them, about 70% were invited by the Prayer Group members using the One-Brings-One method.  Praise the Lord for the members’ conversion experiences and their joyful and courageous testimonies of their stories of the evangelization and companionship through their one-brings-one, one-brings-five, or one-brings-six experiences.  Their friends, colleagues, or family members came to our catechism classes and successfully accepted God’s salvation.

The development of the "One-Bring-One Evangelization Prayer Group":
The goal of the "One-Brings-One Evangelization Prayer Group" is to evangelize  non-Catholics and lapsed Catholics cheerfully and with less stress. I started the first year with a group of five to twelve parishioners.  Through an "evangelization training", we prepare parishioners to be disciples who can actively evangelize and also support other parish evangelization ministries by prayer and action.

How to train parishioners to become "disciples who can actively evangelize":
In the process of training, combining theory and practice is the key to enable them to actively evangelize, therefore:
(1) The objectives of the first four months are: to enhance the parishioners' spiritual and faith life, and to develop an evangelization consciousness, so that they can make a long term commitment to participate in the "Evangelization Prayer Group", to begin doing One-Brings-One Evangelization, and to provide other services to the group and the Church.
(2) The objective of the next five months: to invite more Catholics to join the "Evangelization Prayer Group." The formation includes the  development of the Catholics’ identification with the group and the ability of gradually leading the group.
(3) During the first four months of the evangelization training, parishioners are invited to begin the One-Brings-One process: they began with praying for three to five non-Catholic candidates for one to three months.  Guided by the Holy Spirit, at the right moment, they invite the candidates to participate briefly in the Evangelization Prayer Groups and then join a Catechumens class.
(4) Objective in the following five months: the parishioners begin to lead the following sessions in the meetings. They begin to lead praise and worship, intercessory prayers, discussion and sharing about lecture topic, and life experiences sharing; they also enhance their sense of mission, participation, leadership, and ability to face a large crowd. Thank God who kindles the desire for evangelization, sustaining the enthusiasm and active participation in One-Brings-One evangelization. Thank God for blessing them with the good fruits of conversion to Christ and His Church.

Hakka Evangelist at Hsinchu, Taiwan

Evangelist Hsuan Lwo

      To evangelize in GuanXi, the first step was to help the non-Catholic residents who live within the GuanXi parish boundary develop a desire to enter the Church grounds.   With the pastor’s active promotion and support, free classes and community activities were organized and offered to the local residents, so that they would have the opportunity to get near the Church.   Non-Catholics and returning to practice Catholics attended weekly classes, and the accomplishments of individuals in the classes were exhibited at a quarter-end celebration.   At the celebrations of Easter and Christmas, Christians and non-Christians friends were invited to attend. These classes and celebrations energized the parish growth; the parishioners had never seen so many non-Christians who were willingly to come to the Church.  Non-Catholics also prayed and sang hymns with the Catholics at the beginning of every class or event. This was a great first step to begin evangelism.

From all the volunteer helpers in classes and events, I trained several enthusiastic parishioners to begin direct evangelization.  We started the Legion of Mary, which, assisted by the pastor, led community activities and continued the operation of a total of ten classes, each of which has six to ten persons.  In order for the evangelist to carry out the next phase of the mission-- outreach to local communities through being closer to the non-Catholics-- I picked the area where the most people gather, the traditional markets, to be our evangelization epicenter.  I felt we needed to enter the center of the township and bring a deeply rooted love of the Christ into town residents’ heart: then the evangelization would more easily thrive and flourish.  Now the parish has been energized and become a gathering place for non-Christians. Although we are still in the seeding and nursery stage, we will continue under the light of the Holy Spirit.  Even though there are a lot of obstacles ahead, we will carry on the Hakka “hard-necked” spirit of not giving it up. 

Everything is Possible in God

Evangelist Yujye Chang

      I ran into a bottleneck in evangelization at the two parishes I served in April 2014, when I had just started to work as an evangelist; one class was closed and the other one lost a significant number of catechumens.  I was really upset then, because I felt I couldn’t do anything for God.  I asked God: "Dear God, do you really want me to evangelize? I'm not good at socializing with people, I have no particular charisma, and I am limited.  God, I will definitely do it if you want me to, but please prepare the road for me! “

God really did it.  He closed the door, but opened the window at DanShui Parish which was referred to me by a benefactor’s sister Zhende Luo, who then assisted me with the class.

It’s truly God’s blessing that we started the evangelization in DanShui.  Within one month, we started the planning to open formal catechumen classes.  Catechumen invitations went very smoothly, because the seeds of faith in every catechumen were already planted long ago. The Parish Council Chair, Ms. Luo’s younger sister has participated in all the activities, and the Pastor, Fr. Jiaxin Wang often joined the catechumen classes in order to get to know the catechumens.  Because of the participation and collaboration from everyone, the catechumens interacted with us as a big family.  It turned out that seven catechumens were baptized from the first Catechumen class; their families, friends were surprisingly all present at the Baptism.  It was a touching event!

In September 2014, I took over our service at Luzhou Nursing Home. Most residents were from the Center’s neighborhood and were mainly speaking the Taiwanese dialect.  It was necessary to conduct the conversations in this Taiwanese dialect.  The most difficult part of the evangelization was not the dialect (which I can speak) but how to introduce Jesus to them, because they were deeply rooted in the local religion. I recalled I once gave the picture of Jesus to the residents and one old man said it was Buddha; so I had to explain to him that it was Jesus.  Although there have been no baptism yet from this Nursing Home, we will continue working with  them.  I also took over the Luzhou Parish ministry, there were two baptisms from our Saturday catechumen class on May 10, 2015.  We are actively planning a second Sunday catechumen class now. I strongly believe, when it’s God’s will, nothing cannot be done.  What I will do is, just to follow Him!

Evangelization Among the Elderly                                                        Evangelist Jefu Chang      In the past year, there were 79 baptisms from seven nursing homes in the Zhubei region, and there were another dozen who couldn’t make it because of a rehabilitation treatment scheduling conflict.   Thank God that we still have many opportunities to bring people to Jesus.        I am taking this opportunity to share three key factors behind this large number of baptisms: (1) A Generous Attitude: There is more work but fewer workers; workers must spend more time to prepare for the harvest.  In addition to the Catechumen classes themselves, we  often visit each of the nursing homes at other times to meet with our Catechumens. This gives us opportunities to meet the Catechumen’s families, explained “baptism” to them, and share our faith.  Most families recognized that the Catholic Church has been caring and supporting their families for a while, and several family members were also baptized with the residents. Fr. Su from Guanxi Parish, was newly assigned as the Nursing Home Chaplin for Hsin-Chu diocese, and he administered the Baptisms.  He also invited Sr. Luo and Ms. FengJiao from Sinpu to assist with the Baptisms.  Fr. Su served with compassion on the Baptism day: one Catechumen was eating, Fr. Su patiently waited for him to finish the meal and then Baptized him.  Ms. Fengjiao played a role as a God-mother and has been continuing with visiting the newly baptized after the Baptisms.  She also shared her nursing home experiences with the parish Legion of Mary members.  Sr. Luo is the parish representative who prepared prayer cards and expressed welcome to each of the newly baptized. (2) Two Ways to be Baptized: We normally give Baptisms at a designated location, such as the nursing home classroom.  This time, we didn’t limited ourselves in one designated location to give Baptisms, we also went to bed sides to baptize catechumens who were willing but couldn’t come to the designated location. (3) A Collaboration from Three Parties: On the top of the collaboration with Fr. Su, we also collaborated with the nursing home's administration and staff.  At one of the nursing home, three catechumens were baptized last time, but 17 this time. During this period, the nursing home owner found that the Catholic Church services have provided tremendous support and brought peace of mind to their residents.  The nursing home has turned their doubts into trust, and they were willing to assist us during catechumen classes and at the Baptisms.

Ministry Continues                                                          Yvonne Chow

      We received a donation as a memorial gift from a new donor recently. To our surprise, we discovered that the deceased requested that all gifts be made out to our Foundation!  Her relative told me that this 99-year-old woman's cousin was a Jesuit missionary in China for six years in the 1950s, and he spent time in a labor camp for the Lord when he was in China.  Evangelization among Chinese was always dear to her heart!

Last year, a donor was in a critical condition in the hospital, and he kept asking his daughter to confirm that our Foundation was included in his will.  Fr. Aldrich just happened to be in town that time, so we went to visit him in the hospital and prayed for his recovery.  Later he miraculously recovered and now can even attend Sunday Mass at church!

If you would like to include our Foundation into your planned gift or living trust, please contact me at clmadvancement@gmail.com or 408.728.0627.

Our Foundation has been growing steadily in all aspects.  Thank God for providing just enough funds through you and many others like you each year.  Next school year, we will need $450,000 for student scholarships and lay missionaries’ evangelization expenses which includes salary, pension, and health insurance premium.  Thank you for your support in the past years, and we sincerely invite you to continue supporting us.  Please also invite one or two of your good friends or family members to join you in supporting us.  May the joy and peace of the Lord pass from generation to generation and be extensively accepted among Chinese!