Taiwan Church News
3188 Edition
April 1-7, 2013
Headline News

Reported by Chiou Kuo-rong

Written by Lydia Ma

On Easter Sunday of this year, Grace Home Center (a Christian social service organization with various branches across Taiwan that cares for homeless and poor people) hosted a banquet with the collaboration of many churches and Christian organizations. The event was part of a new initiative called “Season of Hope” set to begin shortly across all of Taiwan. This banquet was held at the back of Taipei Train Station and an entire street was temporarily closed to host this banquet. Homeless folks not only got a good meal, but also received a red envelope along with some basic commodities.

Rev. Lee Cheng-lung, founder of Grace Home Center, underscored that the “Season of Hope” initiative was inspired by the resurrection of Christ, which is a source of hope for humanity. He added that he had invited former PCT General Secretary C.M. Kao to be the chairman of the initiative’s steering committee. His hope is that all Grace Home branches across Taiwan can partner with local churches to carry out this initiative by Easter of next year. The initiative involves hosting a banquet for homeless people so that people may see that there is hope in Christ Jesus regardless of whether a person is rich or poor.

Grace Home Center’s mission statement is to evangelize and help poor people. The center currently has 22 branches across Taiwan that provides lunch and dinner every day to anyone in need free of charge. Besides providing free meals, these branches also provide shelter for young and old people who are homeless and help them to find employment. These branches combined provide shelter for more than 100,000 people every year besides providing 1.5 million meals per year.

Grace Home Center is a registered association and a food bank that delivers goods to nearly 5000 families every year. It sorts through every packet it receives from donors and then distributes goods to local branches that in turn deliver them to the homes of needy people. Local branches usually deliver goods once or twice a month. In addition, Grace Home Center also distributes “Grace Home Cards” to poor and homeless people so that they can receive medical attention and medicine free of charge at some 118 designated clinics whenever they are ill.

Lee recalled that many churches were doubtful of Grace Home Center in the early days of the center’s history and most churches didn’t consider it a real church. He said he understood their suspicions because the ministries spearheaded by Grace Home Center are indeed very different from traditional church ministries. Hence, the center could only prove its faithfulness to Scripture and its authenticity as a Christian church with time and it has succeeded.

Lee added that Rev. C.M. Kao accompanied him to the PCT General Assembly Office a few days ago for an official visit. He is optimistic that the PCT and Grace Home can form a good partnership, especially since Kao has been appointed as the chairman of the “Season of Hope” committee. He is confident that his organization is able to make a successful national appeal to churches to partner with it for the purpose of ministering to every community in Taiwan and proclaiming God’s hope.