Dear Brothers, Sisters in Christ and Friends,

Shalom and greetings from Hong Kong!  Summer is over but the weather is still hot here. The following are the highlights of our recent ministry.

TAIWAN – We thank God for providing a grant from an ABC foundation allowing us to help the unreached Hakka people in Taiwan. We had a ministry trip to Taiwan for the training class at Christian Hakka Seminary and visited churches in September. The training class of Hakka Church History at Christian Hakka Seminary was conducted by professor Lau and Emerson who shared some experiences of pioneer missionaries in Asia. We also visited churches for church planting. It was so exciting to visit three Taiwanese churches and four Hakka churches as well as an indigenous church on the mountain top. Ivy delivered sermons to churches and Emerson shared his testimony. Seminary students took us to visit the Hakka churches, Hakka families, and we saw their church plantings. Two pastors took us to see the potential church planting locations; currently two sites are in the planning stage. It was a fruitful trip in that we learned a lot of the Hakka church history, Hakka culture, their past experience and future plans for church planting.

INDIA – The 2019 India Baptist Summit was at Hyderabad, India on October 3 – 6. The theme of this summit was “That All of Them May be One.” There were about 1,500 domestic delegates, and about 60 foreign delegates attended summit. It was our privilege to lead a team of six delegates from Hong Kong and Singapore to participate the India Baptist Summit. There are 4 General Secretaries from the foreign Baptist conventions: Singapore, South Korea, Nepal and Hong Kong. The General Secretary of Hong Kong brought greetings to the delegates and described the current Hong Kong social movement. He also encouraged the audience to pray for Hong Kong, especial for unity among the Hong Kong churches. The IM team had about 40 people. It was so great to see old friends and meet new friends from US. Although the people at the summit are so diverse, they were sitting together and enjoying worship and fellowship. It was exciting to watch many groups of people dressed in their outfits presenting dances and praise songs. With so many Baptist churches in India today, we praise the Lord that He has called many missionaries to India since 1793.

HONG KONG SITUATION – Since the Hong Kong government announced the Emergency Law on October 4, (Only one restriction will be imposed under the emergency law, namely the wearing of masks at unauthorized protests.) the confrontation between police and the aggressive protesters has escalated. Many MRT stations and Police stations were vandalized by the aggressive protesters. As for our safety concern in Hong Kong, our mission apartment is very close to the markets for food and is about 10 minutes walking distance away from the MRT station which is one of the places where the conflict is rising. We try to avoid going out at night and stay alert with caution to go out in daytime.

We saw news of the International humanitarian rescue prayer gathering at Hong Kong today (Oct 19); they had sent many SOS messages. One of the messages asked foreign countries to send medical personnel to Hong Kong to provide voluntary emergency medical service. We have also read some articles which described the mental and emotional issues affecting the residents of Hong Kong and emphasized the urgent need for trauma counseling for the people. Here are the statistics for your reference.

(1) Mental Issue (South China Morning Post, Oct 9, 2019): Mental health in Hong Kong affected by ongoing social unrest is at its worst level in eight years; 41 per cent of respondents say their mental health is negatively affected by social disputes.

(2) Emotional Issue (Hong Kong O1, Oct 10, 2019): The survey found that nearly half of the respondents were emotionally trapped due to social disputes.  Among the 1,009 respondents, 41.1% indicated that “social controversy” had a very negative impact on their mental health.

(3) Suicides due to anti-extradition movement: The total count of death by suicide is 114, since June 9, 2019 to Oct.15, 2019.

COMING MINISTRY TRIPS –

• Oct 2019: We will meet with leaders of the Singapore Baptist Convention (SBC) and the Thompson Road Baptist Church. We hope to develop IM-SBC mission cooperation; attend a 40^th Anniversary Celebration of Christian Outreach to the Handicapped.
• Oct 2019: We will attend the 9^th Trans-World Chinese Baptist Mission Conference at Penang in Malaysia.
• Feb 2020: We will travel to Taiwan for the Hakka Ministry.

PRAYER REQUEST –

• Pray for God’s will that we have an opportunity to be involved in church planting in Taiwan for the Hakka people.
• Pray that God gives us wisdom to participate in trauma counseling training to help people in Hong Kong.
• Our financial support has decreased about $2,000 each month for a year already. Knowing the financial support had significantly decreased and the new PSG would significantly increase on October 1, 2019, we know that eventually, we will be called back to the States for fundraising. Therefore, before October 1, Emerson asked IM to change his employment status to non-compensated missionary. Currently our PSG is 70%. Please pray for God’s children to financially support our Global Chinese Mission, so that we can carry on what HE has called us to do.

Preaching at the TongPu Taiwan Presbyterian Church located at the mountain with briefly introducing ABC USA and International Ministries

Went with Rev. Dr. Wen (middle), Principle of the Christian Hakka Seminary, to have a family visit with sharing the gospel at southern Taiwan.

A line of waiting for prayer after the Sunday worship service

Praying for healing at a church located on the high mountain area in Taiwan. The majority of the congregation are indigenous people.

An intensive four-days class at Christian Hakka Seminary in Taiwan

A delegate team from Singapore and Hong Kong Baptist Conventions, Hong Kong Baptist Mission and Mission Outreach Of The Shantou Baptist Churches Of Hong Kong with Rev. Sharon Koh in the India Baptist Summit 2019 at Hyderabad, India.

Our delegate team of six people from Singapore and Hong Kong with the brothers and sisters in Christ from Baptist Churches in Manipur, India at India Baptist Summit 2019 at Hyderabad, India

Our delegate team (Left to right – General Secretary of Singapore Baptist Convention, Executive Director of Hong Kong Baptist Mission, Vice-Chairman of MOSBC and General Secretary of Hong Kong Baptist Convention), are having interesting discussion with Rev. Ben Chan (2nd on the right), Area Director of South and East Asia.