Don and Wei Hong Snow
English Department
Nanjing University
Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093
China
Email: Don and Wei Hong Snow

Since July of 2003 Don and Wei Hong have been serving in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, in eastern China. Don teaches graduate students in the English Department of Nanjing University, one of China's top universities and an institution which the Presbyterian Church had a hand in founding over a century ago. Wei Hong serves as a volunteer at the library of Jinling Theological Seminary, assisting them in computer cataloging their holdings. Don and Wei Hong also serve the PC(USA) as regional liaison staff for China.

Don’s first term of service with the PC(USA) began in 1991 when he was appointed as a mission diaconal worker to teach English and linguistics at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou. There Don and Wei Hong met and eventually married at Dongshan Church in Guangzhou. Don’s original appointment in Guangzhou was under an arrangement with the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia. Zhongshan University traces its pre-1949 ancestry in part to Lingnan University, an institution originally begun by Presbyterians.

Wei Hong and Don were jointly appointed in 1993 to serve in the Hong Kong office of the Amity Foundation, where Don was education consultant to the Amity Teachers Project. The Amity Foundation is a Chinese nongovernmental organization, established by leaders of the China Christian Council to help meet the needs of the disadvantaged in Chinese society and to make people in China more aware of the concern of Christians in China and abroad for the people of China. Most of Amity’s staff are Chinese and are based at the headquarters in Nanjing. Staff members at the smaller Amity office in Hong Kong are appointed by churches in different nations to assist Amity by performing liaison and publicity work.

(Photo Album)

Letters from
Donald and Wei Hong Snow

• April 2009
• December 2008
• May 2008
• February 2008
• March 2007
• January 2007
• October 2006
• April 2006
• March 2006
• January 2006
• June 2005
• February 2005
• October 2004
• August 2004
• April 2004
• May 2003
• February 2003
• January 2003
• September 2002
• July 2002
• May 2002
• March 2002
• February 2002
• January 2002
• December 2001
• February 2001
• April 2000
• September 1999
• February 1999

Don provided orientation, support, and resource materials for language teachers from more than a dozen countries who teach English, Japanese, and German at small teacher-training colleges in China through the Teachers Project. The work of these Amity teachers strengthens programs that train Chinese language teachers, who will teach in rural middle schools. In China, all students are required to study English, and in order to advance from junior high school to senior high school and then to university, they must pass tests in which English plays a vitally important role. If teachers in rural schools are not well trained, their students will be at a greater disadvantage on these highly competitive examinations, and more of these students will be denied the opportunity for further education. From a perspective of Christian witness, it is important to have foreign Christians serving in China at the invitation of Chinese Christians because in this way their service reflects the concern of Chinese Christians as well as those from other countries. In China, a nation where many people still assume Christianity is a distinctly Western faith, cooperation between Chinese Christians and those of other nations is an important witness to the universality of the church.

Wei Hong completed a master of divinity degree at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hong Kong and then served as an evangelist (assistant pastor) at a Lutheran church there. In 2000 she returned to Lutheran Theological Seminary to work in the library while studying for a master of ministry in library science, which she completed in 2003.

A graduate of the College of Wooster in Ohio, Don earned a BA in history, an MA in English as a second language from Michigan State University in Lansing, Michigan, and a PhD in East Asian Languages from Indiana University in Bloomington. Before beginning his work with the PC(USA), Don served for many years as an English instructor in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and several cities on the Chinese mainland.

Wei Hong was born in Guangzhou but spent most of her teenage years in Hunan province. After returning to Guangzhou in 1979, she worked as an elementary and middle school teacher of English and typing. Studying part-time, she also earned a degree in Chinese from Central TV University, and another in English from the Guangzhou Institute of Education.

Birthdays:
Don - November 2
Wei Hong - August 22