PCT 56th General Assembly (26-29 April 2011)

Dear Brother in Christ, dear Revd Chang Te-Chien,

I am very much indebted to you for sending me your friendly invitation to the PCT General Assembly in April next year. Thank you ever so much. It is a joy and a privilege to hear from you and a great honour to receive that invita- tion. I have very good remembrances of my visit to your Church in connection with the International Forum held at Taipei in January 2001. I very much appreciated the talks I had with General Secretary Lo then. I particularly treas- ure a phrase of his: "The relationship which we share as partner churches and co-members of ecumenical bodies are substantial, not merely formal. We walk together in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ." That does indeed express how vital the link between our churches is to us.

It grieves me very much though to have to say that I won't be able to attend the Assembly next year. However, I can assure you that we hope very much to be able to intensify our relationship with your Church in the coming years. At present the Berlin Mission is being restructured to become the Ecumenical Centre of the Evangelical Church of Berlin - Brandenburg - Silesian Upper Lusatia. In other words we are undergoing a transformation that will lead to our serving our Church as its Foreign Office. In the wake of that transformation, responsibilities for area departments are being shifted. As we are right in the middle of that process you will understand that 2011 is a bit early for us.

Let me say however that we are planning a visit to East Asia by our new Bishop Dr Markus Droege and a delega- tion of church leaders including me in 2013. One important stage in that visit will have to be Taiwan, provided we can get your agreement to that and you can indeed envisage a visit from us in 2013. We would like to embark on the planning stage of that visit as early as next year. Possibly, we might have to think about a preparatory visit for that at some stage, too. At present the person in charge of our East Asian links is the Revd Dr Christof Theilemann who is our chaplain in charge of ecumenical relations and worldwide mission. He will be in touch with you with re- gard to our plans.

Please forgive us for not being able to send someone next year. Any way, if there is anything on your mind in terms of contacts with us, do not hesitate to get in touch with me or Dr Theilemann. We will be happy to oblige you.

At any rate, do accept my compliments and my regrets for not being able to come next year. I do wish you a good
Advent Season and a truly merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Yours sincerely,

The Revd Roland Herpich,
Director of the Berlin Mission