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July 2001
Dear Friends,
Recently I returned from a two-month home leave in the U.S. where
I attended meetings of the Mission Board and spoke in numerous
churches around the country. I would like to share some of my
experiences and impressions with you in this letter.
When I arrived in the States, I was whisked off to missionary orientation
and board meetings. I was duly impressed not only with the caliber
of the other missionaries being appointed, but with the efforts
of the Board to be inclusive and global. It was startling however
to remember I was considered a "person of color" in the
context of America. I hadn’t thought of myself as a person
of color for seven years, since I began living in Hong Kong, where
most people look just like me. Many times over the course of those
two months as I traveled around the U.S., I had the impression that
people (who didn’t know me) automatically considered me a "foreigner"
and questioned whether I could speak English. Having been born and
raised in Mississippi, this whole issue of race relations in America
came to my consciousness again.
Overall, the experience of speaking in the churches was very
positive. My main concern happened just as I arrived in the States,
when the incident with the U.S. spy plane landing in China hit
the headlines. I prayed to God that the crew would be returned
before Easter so that I would not have to discuss this in every
church I spoke in when my interpretation work began on Easter
Monday. As it turned out, the crew was released "on time,"
but the whole incident made me aware of how handicapped I was
to make sense of this crisis without the usual access to news
from an Asian perspective.
Among the highlights of my visits to churches:
- Being hosted by a former missionary to China, who had grown
up in the mainland as the son of missionaries
- riding in a four-seater Cessna plane fearlessly piloted by
a UCC Conference minister
- unexpectedly meeting one of my seminary classmates whose home
church I was speaking in
- getting to know some fabulous people in every church—ministers,
their spouses, lay leaders, congregations, host families
- having church members tell me it was nice to hear something
"good" about China
After my time in the States, I understand how important it is
for those of us who have "good news" about what God
is doing in Hong Kong and China to get the message out. Most people
I talked to told me they had heard very little about Hong Kong
recently, and what they heard about China was all negative. They
didn’t realize that there is a lot going on in China churches
besides "persecution." They hadn’t thought much
about why post-1997 Hong Kong is running smoothly—only that
maybe China didn’t want to kill the "golden goose."
I truly wondered why bad news about China is so much more prevalent
in and obviously interesting to the media and the West than whatever
good things we could say. So, I return to Hong Kong, China, for
another three-year term, ready to continue my ministry in communications,
and God willing, to be a channel of peace, justice, and accurate
news from Asia.
Judy Chan
The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 179
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