Mission in Taiwan and China through families and vacations
Taipei (AsiaNews) - During the two months of May and June in three parishes in the center of Taipei summer missionary meetings were held to foster formation on a particular subject: families. This is part of the new "trend" of family to family mission. It is most certainly not just a "fad".
In reality there have been "anonymous" people among
the missionaries , since the beginning of Christianity in the sense that they helped
to spread the faith, but are not necessarily remembered in the annals of Church
history. Even the protagonists of today's mission in China are groups of families
interviewed in this article, who want to remain anonymous so as not to hinder
the efficacy of their work.
"The path of the mission evolves and adapts to different times and contexts.
What is recently developing, although it is not a novelty, is the role of families
in mission," says a couple, married with children, who live on the
outskirts of Taipei .
The husband begins to outline their missionary context: "One
could speak of three stages. Firstly there was a time - which still continues
today - in which the protagonists were mainly men and women religious and
clergy, the typical western missionary who went to distant countries (and in
those days they were really far away).
Then the second-stage - in recent decades, especially in the Asian context, with
migration in search of work of many Filipino Catholics, the missionaries in
closest contact with families were, and still are, babysitters and domestic workers employed in various families".
And this is certainly true, if we consider the statistics
of those who are baptized in Taiwan. The role of foreign Christians, especially
Filipinos, in conversions is an undeniable fact.
"But now there is what we call the 'third phase': we families are taking
on responsibility for the missionary proclamation" says the husband. His wife explains where this willingness to cooperate
in the mission of the church comes from: "Taiwan is a rather unique case, because
since the fifties a huge number of religious and missionaries settled on the
island after leaving mainland of China".
Thanks to the opening of many new parishes, schools and charitable
institutions to aid the vulnerable population, many new Catholics have been formed
and have passed on the faith and religious belonging. Now this new generation
of families want to try to "give back" what they have received from
the work of many missionaries.
"We believe that we have a gift to transmit - says another young catechist,
who is also the mother of a family and participates in the project 'families on
mission' - we received a valuable formation here in Taiwan, and we can bring
this to the continent through forms new mission".
She goes into further detail: "For some years now we
have had a 'missionary holiday '. In
other words we go on vacation with our children inviting other families on the continent
who are interested in the proposal of the faith. We spend time with them and have a lot
of fun, but we also share simple moments of prayer, and then moments of
reflection on the Gospel and on other important messages that come to us from
the Church. There are lots of questions we get asked, but we mainly propose a friendship
that is then propagated to many other families, their friends and acquaintances
in their provinces and their cities of origin. All of this helps to spread the faith
and to strengthen ties in the various communities, and the whole thing comes
from a very simple way of sharing one or two weeks during the summer. "
The advantage they have in this experience is the Taiwanese language. "An
advantage of no small importance" - says one of the pastors who supports
the project - "Mandarin Chinese is the language that we use at school and
at work. Whilst for example those coming from Hong Kong must move from Cantonese
to Mandarin, it is absolutely natural for us to communicate in Chinese. It's
all very easy and certainly very fruitful, because you can get to talk about
many complex issues without being misunderstood. This advantage should never to
be underestimated. "
The paths of mission are so many, and this, 'mission of families' is certainly
one of those that mark the path of the future.
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