A letter from Jonathan Seitz in Taiwan
Spring 2014
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Taiwan Seminary group picture at Aleithia University, a Presbyterian college
On a recent Friday afternoon more than a hundred Taiwan Seminary students took scooters, cars, and train to meet up at a point a few miles outside Tamsui, the historic city in northern Taiwan where the missionary George Leslie Mackay arrived in 1872. We walked the path together for an hour in long, broken lines along a riverside path. We made our way into the small city and visited several old Presbyterian centers: a church, a high school, and a college. Tamsui is a beautiful city, with a path that winds along a river and with clouded mountains in the distance. As we walked, I saw a crane looking for fish in the water and heard the twang of frogs. We passed a touristy boardwalk and navigated the path up the hills leading into town.
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Tamsui Presbyterian Church Chapel, with students and teachers
Along the way I had the chance to catch up with students. Two of the students had gone to the Presbyterian high school there, Tamkang High School, and told me how much it influenced them. Later, another student told me about the pressure she’d felt as a pastor’s kid and how she began to drift from the church in her early teen years. Coming to this school revived her faith, and she found new role models in the teachers and chaplains there; today she is in her second year of seminary and will eventually serve in a church. One person shared that she met her husband when they both lived in this college town. Soon they will graduate and serve in the church. Several of our students became Christian during their time in Tamsui.
Along the way we met a number of alumni: chaplains at the schools, local pastors, and teachers. Current students crowded around a recent graduate with cries of “big brother” and happily asked how his work at the school was going.
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Tamsui River with mountains
Our seminary has around 150 students, most of them in the regular ministry-track Master of Divinity program. It’s a quite intense life, even more than I remember from my own seminary days. Students often take five or six classes a semester, are required to attend several chapel services, extra lectures, fellowship groups, and spiritual formation groups, and serve for much of the weekend at local churches. Events like the walk through Tamsui are nice because they give us a chance to see each other in a different environment. Some parents brought their children along and I could get to know co-workers I hadn’t really known before.
As we walked through the different areas, I took pictures. I saw a historic bell at an old red-brick church. A small historical center described the growth of the church over many years. Presbyterians grew from dozens or hundreds in the 19th century to around a few thousand before World War II, to 10,000 after the war, to perhaps 70,000 by the 1960s and 1970s, and today there are around 200,000 Presbyterians in Taiwan. Tamsui is one of the main centers of faith here, and many of our students grew up there, studied there, or will serve in churches there.
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The Tamsui Presbyterian Church
This month one of our lectionary passages is Psalm 121, which is called “a psalm of ascent.” The 15 psalms of ascent were likely songs sung on pilgrimages or during travel to Jerusalem. They praise God and emphasize God’s protection in every situation. Psalm 121 begins with the famous words “I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” I’m very grateful for the historic cities in Taiwan, places like hilly Tamsui that have sheltered churches and nurtured the faith of the young and the old for many years. In the season of Lent, we remember Jesus walking toward Jerusalem and Golgotha. We remember Jesus facing toward the hills, toward the cross and resurrection.
Prayer: God of heaven and earth, the one who keeps us all of the days of our life, we thank you for our sisters and brothers in Taiwan. We ask you to be with ordinary Christians as they live their lives in its cities. Give students energy and passion to serve you. Equip the rising generation of church leaders, pastors, and teachers. Be with us all as we seek your path and we follow you on the way to Easter. Amen.
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Walking on the path in Tamsui with Taiwan Seminary students
Host us this Summer 2014 to learn more about Taiwan! We will be back this summer for about 10 weeks and plan to visit many churches in that time. In June and July we will primarily be in Cincinnati Presbytery and the Presbytery of Sheppards and Lapsley. Jonathan will be in Detroit for General Assembly and we will be in the mid-Atlantic area in August. We also are available to travel more widely. Contact us now and we would be glad to visit you for a Sunday, to share with Bible studies, prayer groups, or returning mission groups.
As we walk toward Easter and then Pentecost, we are so grateful for those of you who walk with us, who pray for us, and who support us. We are often humbled as we try to live and work in another language, to raise children in a radically different culture, and to partner with the Taiwanese church. Living in this place, it means a great deal to us to know we have the support of churches and individuals in the U.S. If you haven’t joined us in this mission, we hope you will consider doing so in the months and years ahead.
The Seitz Family
Jonathan, Emily, Samuel, Eva, Eli
The 2014 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 240
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