wfn.org | Aboriginal Campus Minister in Taiwan Calls for Help

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Taiwan Church News 2713, 23 through 29 February 2004
Reported by Chen Yi-shiuan.  Translated and Rewritten by David Alexander

"Drowning in the urban jungle, Aboriginal youth easily lose their faith."
Huang Mei-huei (Hum-hum in her native Bunun language) made an appeal from the
pulpit of Ho-ping Presbyterian Church in Taipei on February 22nd.  She said
that youth of the current generation of Aborigines are growing up surrounded
by contradictions. Parents send children out of their village homes to
schools
in search of education, so from their earliest years young Aborigines are
unclear about their identity. They grow up away from home in cities where
they
read books and are encouraged to assimilate with the Taiwan's ethnic Han
majority.  Ms Huang said she has met Aboriginal children who cannot
understand
or speak their native tongues, nor do they know their own tribal affiliation!
   Years ago, when she saw the lack faith education within Aboriginal
churches, she offered herself for full time ministry.  She has been an
Aboriginal campus minister for several years. She said, "There's too little
campus ministry focused on the needs of my people.  In Northern Taiwan alone
there are over 3,000 Aboriginal University Students, but there are only two
full-time campus ministers to serve them. We really only have good contact
with about 80 of the 3,000 students.  If the student center was affiliated
with a local presbytery and had support from local churches, we could
increase
our penetration by at least 50%"
   She believes that urban experience obliterates village culture.  When the
current generation of students left their homes and went to cities for
schooling, if nobody in their new place paid particular attention to
spiritual
issues and care, they quickly lost their roots of faith. She called for
greater cooperation between the Aboriginal Campus Ministry Center and local
churches so that new arrivals from villages might continue lives of faith and
church participation.
   She told of plans for her center to set up an aboriginal College Studies
Program with classes built around creative expressions of faith.  She would
like to help them firm up both Aboriginal and Christian identities.  Part of
that is re-educating young people in their ancestral languages. These plans,
as all such, call for the dedication of basic resources.
   In sum, the mission is to call out to the young Aboriginal students before
they drown in the urban jungle. The hope is that the identities and faith
underpinnings, of as many as are reached can be saved.

For More Information: Taipei Aboriginal Student Center
taipei.asc@msa.hinet.net
				   FAX +886 2 2321 7998

Taiwan Church News is published weekly in Taiwan's local languages.
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