Mid-Autumn Festival Truck Campaign

 

After having prayerfully planned for quite sometime, last month I decided that the timing was not right for another truck campaign so closely on the heels of our last one. Anyway, according to three Taiwanese Christian friends, my desire to connect the Moon Festival with psalm 8 from the bible didn’t connect  well with the traditional Taiwanese understanding of the Moon (aka Mid-Autumn) Festival. This includes the goddess in the moon and a rabbit making medicine in the moon, along with the idea of family reunions. So I dropped the idea without regret.

However, three weeks ago an elderly lady who lived next door to the office suddenly passed away peacefully in her sleep one night. We had just seen her taking her typical strolls up and down the street the previous couple of days. She and her grandson,a frequent participant in our Saturday afternoon English Club, had posed with Santa when we offered photos last Christmas and delivered them in January:

Also, our intern had prayed with her about a physical infirmity last year, and finally, as I reviewed a recording of our Easter truck broadcast from this past spring, I  noticed that she appears across the street from the truck at the end:

Could it be that somehow the little snippet she overheard that day led her to a hope in Jesus, who overcame the grave? One can hope.

Anyway, last week was an extremely slow week in the office with apparently nothing big about to materialize on the horizon administratively to occupy my time. At that time I believe God spoke to me that, within the limited range of things I am able to do at the present time, He wants me to stay on target. It was after all well within the purpose for Him bringing me here in the first place to go ahead with another truck ad! What was that purpose which I believe he had for my life here before I got here? “To move out, minister, and multiply the grace of God.” Anyway, what better way to do that with an upbeat, mobile truck campaign?

I got back to the drawing board, and in spite of what turned out to be an unexpectedly busy week on several other fronts, was able by God’s grace (and a little help from friends and from the advertising company) to quickly churn out in a matter of hours the poster above as well as the following poster and recording clip:

The lyrics for the portion of the song by Heavenly Melody singers, for which we obtained copyright permission today, goes something like this:

“Moon! Please tell me what my life is all about. Sometimes it feels complete, and other times scanty. Spring and fall come and go, sometimes feeling complete, and other times scanty… “

Then there’s a greeting from our church wishing everyone a Happy Moon Festival. And finally, our own translation of psalm 8 in colloquial Taiwanese, since there is none presently published we can use (the bible society here is in the process of doing a modern translation of the Old Testament, but it is not yet available):

O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! Your glory is higher than the heavens.
When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—the moon and the stars you set in place—
what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?
O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

Weather permitting, this will go out into two townships next Tuesday and Wednesday. May God use this feeble imperfect effort.

Neighborhood Theft

Usually I lower my steel door around 9:00 pm and sometimes well before, just like most of my other neighbors in this agricultural village. Last night, because I got home later, I didn’t lower it until well afer 12.

Unknown to me,  directly across the street at approximately 11:00 pm, a crime took place. My neighbor’s truck, filled with stereo and electronics equipment which he uses for his job every week, was hot-wired and vanished. Another neighbor noticed the truck was gone around 2:00 am when he got up to go to the bathroom. Although my door was still up, I wasn’t on the first floor to have noticed the crook, as I’m sure he or they were careful to check out ahead of time.

A little over two years ago during the noon siesta I saw a stranger across the street just sort of standing there. I found out 2 hours later that a neighbor behind me had been robbed. The guy I saw must have been the watchman.

I didn’t find out about today’s heist until this evening, when I had a chance to listen and console my saddened neighbor, who spent the whole night driving around western Yunlin county hoping he might come across his truck. Sure hope he finds his stuff, as I’m sure this is a huge unexpected loss he cannot afford. I’ve gotten lax the last few months in not locking the cars I’m watching over with their steering wheel locks in addition to the regular alarms… they’re back on and secured tonight!

“Them”

This past week while reading Paul Hiebert’s  discussion of peasant worldviews in his book Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change, I was reminded of a numbing truth I feel from time to time in our village here: “Although individuals and groups of people who come from outside and pass through the village may participate in its life, they remain “others” or “them.” (p. 126).

While traditional society here has and continues to be affected by modernity, postmodernity, and “glocalization”, I still often feel very much like a “them” here. For example, I am often welcomed “to go drink tea” according to the culture’s code of hospitality. And when the Mid-Autumn or Chinese New Year comes, invitations to join others often come as well. Sadly though, due to cultural, lingusitic, and faith differences, at other times the feeling of distance and disconnection from the community feels so palpable you could cut it with a knife. For example, the other day I was riding my scooter around town to visit folks and felt a little discouraged as to how few folks I could really call friends here, although I have many acquaintances.  After three years!

God encouraged me when I parked by the phone company to change my service. Just as I was getting off my scooter, a mother and her two children also parked to go in to pay their bill. Just this past Sunday, that same mother and two children had walked unexpectedly in the front door of our office to attend our small group. The previous day, the two children had attended the Children's English Club for the first time. In the small group, the mother shared her open-mindedness to the Christian faith, and asked us to pray for her husband, who is suffering from cirrhosis and some other serious health issues. So I was reminded once again that even though we don’t have that many close friends here, the Great Physician indeed is still subtly at work behind the scenes introducing spiritual, emotional, and physical healing to those of us who are sick and in need of a doctor.

Introducing the Formosan Golden Bat

A mere four kilometers from my front door down a less-travelled country road which passes briefly through Water Forest Township on the way to Northport lies a tiny hamlet named Sucin village.

The village had a few murals painted in the last few years:

 

But today the reason for my stopping briefly on my way to conduct business at the bank in Northpoint was to see the village’s Formosan golden bats (金黃鼠耳蝠), which I only heard about yesterday despite the fact that I’ve lived here 3 years.  That’s because I don’t always pay good attention to my surroundings when I’m driving through (preferring to listen to my audiobooks!), and I’ve missed the story each time it’s been broadcast on the TV news.

The Formosan golden bats live within the walls of an elementary school I often pass by. The word pun in the directional mural above associates  幸福 with  幸蝠. In Western society, bats are often associated with evil. But in Chinese society, the character for blessing  福 sounds just like the character  for bat 蝠, so bats might be taken by some (especially enterprising businesspeople) as a sign of blessing. I still wouldn’t want one living in my house!

Even with the help of the staff there, I was only able to detect a few of the small golden bats (they appeared from a distance to be smaller than the palm of my hand). This time of the year most of them have already scattered (plus, today the weather, influenced by  tropical storm Lion Rock, has caused them to hide).

Finally, I should  add that at the end of last year a small but very colorful and respectable museum opened inside the side door of the school property. My hosts were very hospitable!

I am told the ideal time for viewing the most bats together inside the schoolyard is around Mother’s Day. What an ideal date for the mothers among our international workers who live in the area to go out on with their husbands!

Around that time, the bats should look something like this, all clumped together like fruit on a tree (mmmm, delicious!):

Check it out if you happen to be in the Northpoint (BeiGang) area of Yunlin County around that time.

Early Christian Influence on Asian Buddhism

This past weekend an acquaintance in the community I was visiting with our intern equated the Christian faith with the West in at least two negative statements he made. The implication was that it isn't an Asian faith. I corrected him by stating that Christianity in fact originated in the East, but I don't think that fact sunk in.

In "The Lost History of Christianity", Philip Jenkins highlights the forgotten history of the early Asian church. He also shares the following anecdote. In 782 the Indian Buddhist missionary Prajna arrived in the Chinese imperial capital of Chang'an, but was unable to translate the Sanskrit sutras he brought along with him due to having limited Chinese. No problem... just ask the local indigenous Christians for help!

The Christian bishop Adam, himself an Asian and whose name heads the list on the Nestorian monoment, had already translated parts of the Bible into Chinese. Either out of intellectual curiosity or from ecumenical goodwill, he helped this Buddhist missionary with his translation. Japanese monks in Chang'an at this time took these very translations back with them to Japan, where they became the founding texts of the two great Buddhist schools Shingon and Tendai which influenced all the famous Buddhist movements of later Japanese history. Scholars still speculate whether Adam either subconsciously or consciously worked Christian concepts into the translated sutras. (Jenkins, p. 16)