The Vision of Macau

Jana Hoobler

February 14, 2002

Jana Hoobler, director of the Macau mission, wrote the following letter to a local church which inquired about the work in Macau and Taipa. Since it contains a lot of great information and an overview of the work there, it seemed worthwhile to share it publicly. Here is Jana's letter.

Donna Hollopeter asked me to write to you and share my vision for the United Brethren work in Macau and Taipa. Let me begin by thanking you for your commitment to supporting UB missions. We appreciate you who invest so much time, thought, and energy into mobilizing our churches in North America to partner with us in reaching the world for Christ. Your commitment is an encouragement to me.

As a whole, I see the Macau United Brethren Church in a sort of "teenager" stage right now. Our local pastors are carrying most of the responsibility for Living Water and Living Word churches. Other quality leaders are developing among the church members. At the same time, both in terms of experienced leadership and finances, the local church is still dependent on Hong Kong Conference and the North American churches. It will still take a lot of time for the local church to develop to maturity. They are currently under the supervision of Superintendent Peter Lee from Hong Kong.

Living Water Church is fully run by Karis Vong and a Standing Committee of church members. We missionaries don't attend worship services there any longer. The ELP supports about $250 (US) a month of Karis's salary. Other than that, the church is independent financially. Living Water's vision for the next several years is to develop its outreach in its own neighborhood and to become increasingly involved in the church-planting process on Taipa. Since the ELP discontinued classes at Living Water, the church has tried a variety of activities to evangelize people. They have been diligent in thinking through their best options for ministry now that they are "on their own." The vision for Taipa came from Living Water Church. We missionaries agreed to begin classes here first in order to develop a network of evangelistic relationships. Living Water Church currently helps with quarterly outreach activities. They anticipate increasing this involvement with time.

Living Word Church is under the direction of pastor Connie Sung. Right now the church is in the middle of moving to a better location in the same neighborhood. The core outreach program there is a tutoring program run by our local members. We needed to move in order to meet government requirements for both the tutoring and ELP classes. Connie's vision is to increase the church's witness in the neighborhood and to push the church members to do more personal evangelism. This church plant has been very slow-moving, and I feel that the church will develop mostly out of the children being reached through the tutoring program, children's fellowship, and Sunday school. We missionaries are heavily involved there in teaching English, helping teach Sunday school, helping lead music, and helping to lead the children's fellowship. Most of Connie's salary is paid by Hong Kong Conference, with a small portion paid by the ELP. The ELP also pays part of the rent, utilities, and ministry expenses.

We started ELP classes on Taipa in March of 2001. We have been thankful to have an enrollment of around 70 students each term since then. Because the ELP financially supports the work of the churches here (other than special projects, money from North America only pays for our missionaries' expenses), there's a certain amount of pressure for us to keep a high enrollment in the ELP. This has become more difficult over the past several years, as our missionary staff has dwindled in size. The start on Taipa has helped with the financial aspect of everything. Of course our focus must remain on ministry, not just on "making money" to support the churches.

At this point, we have three English Bible Studies meeting weekly at the center. My vision is to see these Bible studies leading people to accept Christ and develop a core group of believers over the next couple of years. Again, our shortage of staff is a frustration. Currently, I have had to invite missionaries from another mission to lead one of the studies. I believe kingdom-building is preferable to discontinuing a Bible study. At the same time, I wish I had a staff member to focus on that study. We haven't set our plans for Taipa on much of a timetable, as it will also depend on the availability of a local pastor to serve here. I would anticipate another two or three years of evangelism before we actually begin worship services here.

I would like to see several long-term missionaries added to our staff. My desire is not to expand what we are doing, but to focus more on the relationships at Living Word and on Taipa. I believe this would increase the amount of spiritual fruit we'd see. At this point, the three of us are in many ways tied up "keeping everything going," without being able to focus on evangelism the way that we should. While short-termers (3-6 month volunteers) have helped, they are unable to develop the several-year-long relationships it normally takes to lead a Chinese person to Christ.

If your churches/conferences choose to be more involved in the Macau field, I would love to see the involvement go beyond just financial support. I could see churches there taking one of our churches here and becoming prayer partners...perhaps even church members praying for church members. Most of our members are young single adults who are still living with their Buddhist parents. This means there is idolatry being practiced daily in their homes. None of our church members come from Christian homes...all are first-generation Christians. The negative spiritual influences they face daily go beyond what most of us from North America can understand. I believe that a great prayer movement on their behalf would build the strength of our local churches greatly. Another possibility would be church members praying for specific ELP students involved in Bible studies.

Coming to Macau is very expensive, which limits the number of North Americans who have visited our field. However, we would be open to some short-term teams coming, especially during the summer, to teach English and build relationships. This kind of personal contact could really help to bring North American UBs in touch with the needs of our churches here.

I hope that this letter helps you to catch the vision of what we anticipate God doing in Macau in the future, and also helps you to understand some of our needs. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to send them to me.

I will be on furlough from August of this year through January of 2003. I would be happy to visit your churches/conferences during that time. Please let me know soon if you would like to arrange such a visit, as I will soon be letting all of my personal supporters know what dates I will be available to speak.

Thank you again for your interest in our work in Macau.

In Christ,

Jana Hoobler

Director, Macau United Brethren in Christ Mission