| The Amity Foundation is a social
welfare and development organization started by Chinese Christians
in 1985. Amity sponsors grassroots projects to assist in such
areas as disaster relief, medical training, agricultural development,
and social services for orphans, the elderly, and the disabled.
Their Education Division helps place foreign teachers in rural
teacher-training colleges that would otherwise not be able to
afford their students the educational advantage of a native English
speaker. Students in these programs will one day be middle-school
English teachers in some of China's less developed areas. Amity
hopes that better English training will result in a higher percentage
of rural students being able to take fuller advantage of their
tertiary education, perhaps making some small dent in cycles of
poverty that affect those poorer areas.
John graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1986 with a
bachelor of fine arts degree. In the dozen years that followed,
he pursued various interests such as photography in Rochester,
New York, theological studies in Louisville, Kentucky (where he
met Kim), and pottery in Oklahoma City and in Kansas City, before
ultimately returning to Louisville, where he worked for Kinetic
Corporation as a black and white darkroom technician. He met Kim
in Louisville during his first stay there, and they dated in 1990.
In 1998 they finally reconnected and married there!
Kim spent the early part of her 10+ years in China under the
auspices of the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission
Board. She graduated from Wake Forest University in North Carolina
with a BA in English and religion and then spent two years at
Fudan University in Shanghai studying Mandarin Chinese full-time.
Kim returned to the U.S. for a year of theological coursework
in Louisville, and then took a position in China as an English
teacher in the city of Yulin, Guangxi Province. Following this
assignment she worked in Hong Kong as associate director for support
of Southern Baptist teaching volunteers in China, providing pastoral
support and on-site training for both long-term personnel and
short-term Amity volunteers. As preparation for a long-term commitment
to work in China, Kim moved back to the U.S. once again to complete
an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language from Carson-Newman
College in Jeffersonville, Tennessee. At Carson-Newman (1994-96),
she was a resource coordinator and part-time English instructor
for the graduate ESL program at the college. With her masters
degree, she returned to China to teach with the Amity Foundation
at Tai'An Teacher's College in Shandong Province.
Irreconcilable differences with Southern Baptists over their
policies in China led Kim to sever her ties with their mission
program, and a trip home to look for other sources of funding
led to a happy renewal of the relationship with John. Kim’s
decision to marry John might have meant leaving China behind for
good, but as they both surrendered their wills to each other and
to God, the Lord saw fit to guide them back overseas together,
supported by the blessings, affirmation, and encouragement of
everyone around them.
Kim is a member of Carolina Memorial Baptist Church in Thomasville,
North Carolina. Following her marriage to John, she was actively
involved at Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church, where John is a
member. During the year before they went to China, she employed
her professional skills both at the Presbyterian Church Center
in Louisville and at Kentucky Refugee Ministries.
John and Kim have one child, Benjamin, who was born in Nanjing
on January
26, 2000, right at the tail end of the Year of the Rabbit.
Birthdays:
Kim - May 2
John - September 17
Benjamin - January 26, 2000
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