Taiwan Church News

3715 Edition

May 8 ~14, 2023

Headline News

Lin Wan-ting reports from Pingtung
Translated by Peter Wolfe

In the morning on May 4th, a workshop on the theme of “Love’s Sweet and Sour” was showcased at Fuh-Hsing Church of the Pingtung Presbytery. Presented in the model church cooperated for years, the Senior Citizens Ministry Team of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan designed a course of “Life Story Book” with teaching plans and teaching materials, in order to accompany senior citizens to review their life stories, make interesting handicrafts, and complete artworks of their own life stories.

In the workshop course, Ms Lin Shi-yun, commissioner of the PCT Senior Citizens Ministry Committee, led everyone to discuss what love is. She reminded that love is an emotion of mutual understanding and support, emphasizing that everyone has their own life history and choices, and there is no unique answer to the question she raised.

In addition, Ms Lin remarked that love means being complementary rather than becoming perfect. It is to strive to love God, to love oneself, to love those who love themselves, to strive to give love and receive love, she explained, in order to encourage the PCT senior citizens to dare contact people and build relationships. And then, Ms Chen Zhi-ling instructed the senior citizens to make unique paper flowers, and shared their love stories with their loving partners.

During the interview Ms Lin Shi-yun and Ms Chen Zhi-ling explained that the course is based on the theme of “reviewing one’s own life story”, aiming to make the class learning as diverse and interesting as possible. So each class session will be accompanied by worksheets and handmade works, they said.

Considering the different learning habits of senior citizens in the church, complicated vocabulary and concepts are avoided with an easy-to-understand diagram instead, they said. To facilitate learning, the handicraft materials are processed in advance with care and a complete step-by-step assemblage diagram is also prepared for reference, said Ms Lin and Ms Chen, “Whatsoever, we tend to encourage senior citizens to complete the artworks by themselves. This will give them a greater sense of accomplishment and happiness!”

Though making paper flower is much more challenging, the elderly not only patiently completed it but also very delighted to see their works done. This made Ms Lin and Ms Chen very proud for what the elderly had achieved in class.

Ms Lin and Ms Chen also shared an interesting story in the class called “My Name” at another church, when the elderly were asked to reflect the names to which they felt most close or incur their respect. To their surprise, there are some elderly people who insisted that they don’t like their own names, and they have another names that had lied inside their bottom-hearts for years. “This incidence becomes the best reminder for us to modify the teaching contents in future,” they said.

Ms Lin and Ms Chen also revealed that there is always a task force shortage in the church ministries during weekdays, so most church pastors or fellowship leaders have to jump in to promote the senior citizens class as much as possible. If you are interested in the courses and programs of the PCT Senior Citizens Ministry Committee, please visit the Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pinelife1111/) for more information.