wfn.org | PCT receives government recognition for post-Morakot efforts

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>      Taiwan Church News

>3010 Edition

>November 2~8, 2009

PCT receives government recognition for post-Morakot efforts

>Reported by Lin Yi-ying

>Written by Lydia Ma

To encourage and commend all those who made significant  contributions in rescue and relief

efforts in the wake of Typhoon Morakot, Taiwan’s Office of  the President and Ministry of the

Interior held an award ceremony and recipients met President Ma as  well. Among the award

recipients were several PCT presbyteries and Catholic dioceses, in  addition to Christian

organizations such as World Vision, Eden Foundation, Garden of  Hope Foundation, etc. PCT

sent Vice-Moderator Lai Hsien-chang as its representative to  receive the award.

The ceremony was conducted on October 27 and Premier Wu Deng-yi  and Interior Minister

Jiang Yi-huah were scheduled to give out awards. Because Wu was 40  minutes late, more

than 200 rescue volunteers had to wait for the Premier to arrive.  When Wu finally arrived,

awards were first handed out to police departments and city and  county mayors before private

citizens got their turn. As result, the ceremony initially  intended to commend social

>organizations lost much of its significance.

According to Mu-cha Presbyterian Church’s pastor, Rev. Huang  Shi-shiun, Wu’s tardiness on

top of the order in which the awards were given out, left award  recipients with a bad taste in

their mouths because they were not treated with due respect.  Though Huang initially

considered skipping the ceremony because he felt it was  unnecessary to travel so far just to

receive an award, he later changed his mind after considering the  lack of acknowledgement

PCT received from mainstream media and government agencies despite  the amount of effort

PCT put into rescue and reconstruction efforts.

Huang felt that if no PCT leader showed up for this ceremony and  the limelight went only to

Buddhist and Taoist organizations, then, efforts from Christians  would be blotted out from

public memory in Taiwan. “Standing up for the Lord and  receiving an award in his name can

be a form of evangelism too!” Huang said. He is convinced  that Taiwanese society should be

aware of contributions made by local Christian churches.

>********************

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

You may translate and re-use our articles online only if you  acknowledge the source as

"Taiwan Church News" and list the names of the reporter and  writer.

Contact us before reprinting any of our articles for print  publications.

Direct comments and questions about this article to:  enews@pctpress.org

Visit our website for more news at: http://enews.pctpress.org/  (English)

>http://www.pctpress.org (Chinese)

>********************

> 
>