December 17, 2008

China Notes #23

Greetings Friends and Family,

Usually in these China Notes we write about what we are seeing and learning about the church in China, and not too much about ourselves. However, as the end of the year approaches we thought it might be good to catch you up a bit on what is going on in our work and lives.

Wei Hong continues her work with seminary libraries around China. For the last two years, most of her time and energy has gone into working with East China Seminary in Shanghai and Guangdong Union Theological Seminary in Guangzhou as they shift to computerized cataloging systems. So, during the months when school is in session she is just as likely to be found in Shanghai or Guangzhou as in Nanjing, and by now she can generally not only tell you what books each library has in its collection but also often the call numbers. She is also helping these seminaries and others build both their book collections and their awareness of resources available on line. Of course the immediate goal of this effort is to assist these individual seminary libraries as they upgrade, but beyond this there is the larger goal helping all China’s seminaries create centers of information—which is what libraries are—as one of the foundations for providing quality education to China’s future church leaders. For the coming year, Wei Hong’s hope is to expand the network of libraries she assists, not least so that she can be a conduit through which they interact more with each other and learn from each other’s experience.

I (Don) continue to split my time between teaching at Nanjing University and serving as the PC(USA)’s regional liaison for China. In the latter role, much of my time this year has gone to traveling with various Presbyterian groups as they visit churches in China, acting as a combination of translator and informant. While it is not always easy to carve time for these trips out of my teaching schedule, it is always a pleasure to see and learn more about what is happening in churches around China, and these trips also give me the opportunity to connect more with Presbyterians from the United States—and share with them what I have learned about the church in China.

Of course, the lion’s share of my time continues to go to the various courses I teach at Nanjing University. Each year I pick one special teaching-related project to devote some extra time to, and over the past year I have been working on how to help learners study foreign languages more effectively on their own (as opposed to in class). In particular, I have been trying to write up the materials I use in a course I teach on language learning strategies. One audience I have in mind obviously consists of my students here at Nanjing University, who not only need to know how to teach English but also need to teach their students how to learn languages effectively and efficiently. However, this is not the only audience I have in mind. One additional audience consists of the many church staff members in China who want and need to develop English skills so that they can host international delegations, use English-language resources in research, and so forth. This summer I will teach in a program sponsored by the China Christian Council in the city of Huangshan to give pastors and administrative staff from all over China an opportunity to improve their English, and I hope to try out some of the new materials there.

However, this isn’t just about Chinese people learning English. As Scott Sunquist and Caroline Becker note in their new book A History of Presbyterian Missions, 1944-2007, one of the greatest challenges mission personnel have long faced is learning the languages of the countries and communities where they serve. This is particularly a problem when missionaries don’t have an opportunity to study the language of their host country full-time, as is all too often the case, and need to do much of their study independently. As a language educator, my role not only includes encouraging North American missionaries to learn the languages of their host countries, but also helping them deal with this challenge. So, as I work on these methods and materials, I am just as concerned about the needs of missionaries studying foreign languages as I am about Chinese people learning English.

As for Christmas, by and large it will be a normal working day here in China; in fact, I have an afternoon class to teach Christmas Eve and a class at 8:00 on Christmas morning. Of course, this is actually keeping in the spirit of the season—the first Christmas was also a normal working day for most the people of Bethlehem. However, this is not to say that Christmas will only be a normal working day. In fact, thousands of young people will cruise the streets of Nanjing on Christmas Eve, having a good time on an international holiday (Santa is alive and well in China, too). And many of them know that this holiday has something to do with churches. And many of them will want to visit a church on Christmas Eve to see what this holiday was originally about. And, like many other churches around China, our church is preparing its program and getting ready to tell the story to all who come to listen.

May God grant you peace and a sense of his love and closeness through the coming year,

Don and Wei Hong

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 99