June 23, 2004

Dear Friends,

I just returned from a wonderful week on a mission trip with our aboriginal seminary students. Our seminary has both Han Taiwanese students and aboriginal students. The aboriginal students have a fellowship group, and this year I have been their faculty advisor. Each year they travel to a different aboriginal tribe to serve in the churches of that tribe. This year they decided to serve the Lucai tribe.

Before I came to teach at the seminary, I was serving in an aboriginal presbytery that has two Lucai tribal churches. I suggested to the students that we go to Taitung on the East Coast and serve with these two churches and another tribe’s churches. We had planned to leave the day after our seminary’s graduation, but heard on the news that a typhoon was approaching the East Coast. So we altered our plans and drove all night along the coastal highway to beat the typhoon’s arrival. The road hugs the coast and is very narrow, so we rotated drivers in our two vans. We arrived in Taitung the next morning and the typhoon decided to take another direction.

The students had divided into small groups to lead various events during the week. They led a training event for Sunday school teachers, a children’s event, and a youth event. The second night we went to the community center of one of the villages and led a service outdoors. Three students spoke, and then they asked me to invite people to ponder their relationship with God. I spoke on the prodigal son parable, but focused on both brothers’ situations. The father in that parable left the house twice, to welcome his sons into the fellowship of his house.

The next morning was the most exciting part of the week for me. At about 7:30, the local pastor got on the loudspeaker and invited the older folks in the village to come to the community center. There our students had prepared to serve the senior citizens. Men and women slowly filled the center. We began with exercise, kind of a fast-paced aerobics. All the folks joined in.

Then our students began to give the grandfathers and grandmothers massages. As they massaged their necks and shoulders, they talked with them and some also prayed with them. They then washed the hair of each person there. Several students had hair-cutting experience, so the senior citizens lined up to have their hair cut. The women had their nails done.

The aboriginal people are humble and joyful people. I had worked closely with the five or six churches where we were serving and it was wonderful to see our students be a blessing to them. Each night as the churches’ women fixed wonderful feasts to feed the students, the students were also blessed by their service.

Each day I had the opportunity to be with the students “on the way.” We talked of their faith journeys and of their challenges and joys. We talked of their future service in the church. I was reminded of how much time Jesus spent on the way with this disciples. He not only taught in big groups, but also taught one-on-one and in small groups.

On the last day, I led a training session for 100 tribal pastors, elders, and deacons. The church only holds about 70 people, so folks were leaning in the windows and doors. It reminded me of some of Paul’s sermons in the Book of Acts.

The day after I arrived back in Taipei, I led a retreat for about 20 university chaplains. We discussed Sabbath-keeping, solitude, and the discipline of fasting.

It was a wonderful week of grace at a time when I needed to see the Kingdom of God.

May God give you eyes to see the Kingdom this summer.

Grace and peace,

John McCall

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 96