“Welcome everyone!” said Bishop Lennon Yuan-Rung Chang in his sermon at the Opening Service of the WACCF (World Anglican Chinese Clergy Fellowship) on Tuesday, April 9 at St. John’s Cathedral, Taipei, and “Thank you all for coming to Taiwan!”
He continued, “On April 3, Taiwan experienced a big 7.2 earthquake. Until now, the earth is still shaking; we’ve had more than 700 aftershocks. Since that day, you have all expressed your concern for us in Taiwan and held us in your prayers. Thank you! Even though we’ve had this terrible earthquake, you have all continued with your plans to come to Taiwan for this gathering, and we appreciate your willingness to do so. As you all know, the last WACCF gathering was held in Hong Kong in 2016, and we have been preparing for this one ever since. Unfortunately, our original plan to hold it in April 2020 (just 2 months after my consecration as bishop) had to be cancelled because of the pandemic. As a new bishop, I have relied heavily on Archbishop Ng Moon Hing for his advice and wisdom, and he has constantly emphasized the importance of holding this WACCF gathering – so that we Anglican Chinese clergy, scattered as we are around the world, can come together to share fellowship together. So here we are, at WACCF 2024 in Taipei, and I thank you all for coming!”
WACCF originally started as a way to encourage and provide mutual support for Anglican Chinese clergy who had left China after 1949 and dispersed around the world. The first WACCF gathering was in 1953, and the numbers have grown ever since. At this gathering, hosted by the Diocese of Taiwan, there were about 140 participants in total, including 7 bishops, and nearly all our Taiwan clergy. All Anglican Chinese clergy and their spouses were welcome to attend, from wherever they are in the world. Everything was in Mandarin Chinese. The official list of participants shows 9 from Singapore, 7 from Sarawak, 29 from Sabah, 33 from West Malaysia, 2 from Myanmar, 13 from Australia, 1 from Canada, 12 from Hong Kong, 6 from the USA, and about 30 from Taiwan.
I was delighted to discover that some of the clergy and their spouses attending WACCF from Australia were actually Taiwanese, and they, like many others made an extended stay of their visit. For us in the diocesan office, our first international arrivals were Archbishop Ng Moon Hing and his wife, Siew Lan from Ipoh, West Malaysia. I was invited by Bishop Chang to their welcome dinner, along with our good friend, Sheerah who now lives in Taipei, but who we first met when she worked for the Diocese of West Malaysia and led a team here to Advent Church many years ago for ‘Kids Games’ training. We all love spending time with Archbishop Ng and his wife – here they are enjoying Taiwan bubble tea!
Visitors who arrived from Monday onwards received official welcomes at Taoyuan Int’l Airport, and I was on hand to welcome Jeff, Hannah and Tim from the Church of Our Saviour in the Diocese of Los Angeles (our future companion diocese), here as honorary guests – they have a Mandarin Chinese congregation, and one of our cathedral organists, Joanna Fu, had spent a few months there in 2015 improving her organ skills, so she kindly came along to help and welcome them to Taiwan. They arrived on Monday April 8 at 5:40 am! After a breakfast welcome from Bishop Chang at the diocesan office, and Holy Communion with the diocesan staff, we took them to visit the nearby park at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial and to see the changing of the guard – this is the view from the back!
By the next day, Tuesday April 9, our diocesan team was on hand at the hotel to welcome everyone for official WACCF registration…
That afternoon, in the rain, everyone set off for the 20-minute walk or short bus ride to the Opening Service at St. John’s Cathedral – where our team of volunteers was waiting to provide a warm welcome and hand out our special cathedral gifts!
The Opening Service…
Then a few group photos with Bishop and Mrs. Chang… this is the group from Sabah…
from West Malaysia…
from Hong Kong…
Then by bus back to the hotel…
Oh yes, and an impromptu birthday celebration on arrival!
And so to the formal welcome dinner. All the clergy and spouses were mixed up at each table so they could make new friends, while at the top table sat the bishops (their wives sat at another table and had a wonderful time together!) with the trustees and president of St. John’s University.
I was especially pleased to welcome Rev. Paul Lau and Audrey, leaders of the Sabah clergy group, our good friends for many years!
There were also some wonderful Malaysian clergy shirts that I spotted over the few days, thanks to the clergy for posing for photos!
Each day started with Holy Communion, led by different dioceses in turn. On Wednesday April 10, everyone traveled by coach to St. John’s University. What a great welcome we all had there! After Holy Communion in Advent Church, there were 2 lectures. In the morning session they heard from Rev. Dr. Professor John Y. H. Yieh on ‘Spiritual Care of Pastors’ and in the afternoon, they learned about ‘The Impact of Technology on Christian Faith’ from Dr. Michael C. T. Tai and Dr. Tim T. Y. Pan. The events of that day were also covered by St. John’s University, see the report here. At the conference venue, the 7 bishops – from West Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Sabah and Hong Kong also had an official photo together, from left to right they are Bishop Stephen Soe, Archbishop Titus Chung, Archbishop Ng Moon Hing, Bishop Lennon Chang, Bishop John Yeo, Bishop Timothy Kwok, Bishop Matthias Der….
Then on Thursday April 11, after the morning service, each diocese presented their reports, followed by a free afternoon. Wonderful singing coming from the next-door meeting room prompted everyone to investigate further ~ it turned out to be the famous Tian Yun Heavenly Melody Gospel Choir who have performed all over Asia, and were practicing for a lunch concert that day – they even waved for the photo!
Meanwhile, I’m sure that the spouses would say that the highlight was when our dean Philip Lin and his wife, Linda invited some of them to the cathedral for real coffee and to learn Taiko drumming!
Then on Friday April 12, there was also a morning service, some more reports and a meeting to choose the next chair of WACCF. In these photos, Bishop Chang is mentioning the possibility of the next chair being Archbishop Titus Chung of S.E. Asia and Bishop of Singapore…
After a unanimous vote, so Archbishop Chung has now taken over and will host the next WACCF gathering in 2028. The Diocese of Singapore covers not just Singapore, but also Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, and everyone laughed when Archbishop Chung said that the good thing about Singapore hosting the next WACCF gathering is that it doesn’t actually have to be in Singapore!
Our diocesan team led a short Taizé service to close WACCF 2024…
We finished with a farewell lunch and a farewell photo of the 7 bishops and the 3 key members of our WACCF diocesan team, our 2 archdeacons, Rev. Keith Lee and Rev. Simon Tsou, and Rev. Mark C. C. Cheng – they’ve all worked so hard over these last few weeks!
Others who worked hard to help make this event a big success were Rev. Felix Chen and church members of Christ Church, Chungli who in turn met each of the arrivals at Taoyuan Int’l Airport and ensured they were safely delivered to their taxis bringing them into Taipei. Bishop Chang sent them all packages of pineapple cakes as a thank-you gift! Also a big team of St John’s Cathedral volunteers, they helped serve coffee, carry umbrellas and run the opening service, plus our youngest volunteer, Christine who designed the new cathedral logo for keyrings and pens to give as gifts – they all got pineapple cakes as well, me too!
In between all the organized events, there was enough free time for everyone to do their own sightseeing, shopping and meeting up with friends. Everyone loved the WACCF gift from the Diocese of Taiwan of a specially-designed Taipei Metro card with NT$ 100 loaded on each one, and they appreciated how convenient, easy and safe it is to use Taipei public transport. As a result, they all went everywhere, seeing all the sights, visiting all the night markets, old streets and museums. In fact, they saw more in these few days than most of us living here see in a whole year ha ha!
Although we have said farewell to most of the WACCF participants, in fact our Taiwan clergy are now preparing for a 3-day seminar and training program at St. James’ Church, Taichung on Church Planting and Discipleship, led by Bishop Stephen Soe and his clergy team from West Malaysia, who are staying on to do this. Rev. Canon Jacob Bau, from Ipoh, West Malaysia kindly preached at St. John’s Cathedral English and Chinese services yesterday – he will be speaking on discipleship, while Bishop Soe and others will share about church planting, which is a big focus of our diocese as we move forward. Go Taiwan Episcopal Church! Please do pray for them, and for all the WACCF participants as they return home in the next few days, hopefully refreshed and rejuvenated to continue on in ministry in their churches. Thanks to all, and thanks be to Almighty God for a successful WACC
