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November 2001
Dear Friends,
On the morning of September 12, I came to my office at the Hong
Kong Christian Council. Immediately co-workers wanted to know
how I felt about what had happened in the U.S. What could I say?
Like many others here, I had stayed up half the night watching
the unbelievable events over the television. As I recall, my major
feeling was heartbreak. I have lived in both New York City and
Washington D.C. I have been in both the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon. How could this be happening? The America that I
had known growing up would never be the same again. The America
that I had just visited two weeks earlier had changed—probably
forever.
We are now two months from September 11, and we realize that the
world has changed forever. Even though we now live geographically
far from the events in New York and Washington, the impact has been
felt in Hong Kong. The local economy has been negatively affected
by the financial and political uncertainty in the U.S. An already
slow economy has slowed down even more. Many tourists and businesspeople
have cancelled plans to come to Hong Kong. Jobs have been cut. The
HK Chief Executive received a prank letter that was a copycat anthrax
scare. People are concerned about any instability in the Middle
East and South Asia and how that will affect the region. Those who
work for American firms or organizations in Hong Kong are being
warned to be careful. We too wonder "What is next?"
Yet, even amid the changing world scene, Hong Kong life remains
relatively "normal." Having been in an economic slump
since the Asian financial crisis in 1997, we are used to bad news
about unemployment, trade, the markets, property prices, wages,
tourism. We had lived through the pre-handover days when everyone
was shouting gloom and doom over Hong Kong’s future under
China. We were glued to the television set ten years earlier watching
the tragedy of Tiananmen Square unfold before our eyes. I have
observed that Hong Kong people understand hardship, insecurity,
and poverty simply by being so connected to mainland China and
being a major city in Asia. It is a reality we cannot escape.
In that context, the Church in Hong Kong continues to carry out
its ministry and mission under all circumstances. They have been
very vocal in opposing the government’s efforts to expand
legalized gambling through soccer betting. They are reaching out
to new arrival families from mainland China who face many difficulties
when reuniting with Hong Kong relatives. They are closely watching
the developments in educational reform and social welfare reform
as they are sponsors of many of these institutions. They work
to help those in need in the name of Christ—be it troubled
teens, the unemployed, young families, or migrant workers. With
the events of September 11, they know things will probably get
worse in Hong Kong before they get better, so the gospel is needed
more than ever.
What is next? For Hong Kong? For America? For the world? We are
almost afraid to find out. Yet, in the famous words of Alan Paton,
this must be our prayer
O Lord…let us fear nothing more than we fear You. Let us
love nothing more than we love You, for thus we shall fear nothing
also. Let us have no other God before you, whether nation or party
or state or church. Let us seek no other peace but the peace which
is yours, and make us its instruments, opening our eyes and our
ears and our hearts, so that we should know always what work of
peace we may do for You. Amen.
Judy Chan
The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 179
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