Please Join Us in Watching Over Hualien: Ministry Update & Prayer Needs

Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) has been widely implemented in sixty to seventy countries around the world. In nearby regions such as Hong Kong, Macau, Beijing, and Japan, many professionals have received full training from the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF) or have invited ICISF senior faculty to teach in their countries. As a result, CISM practice in those areas has become highly developed. In Taiwan, however, the concept of CISM remains mostly within the corporate sector, often delivered by consulting companies at high cost, and has not yet been broadly promoted as a professional service.

On September 23, Typhoon Koinu brought torrential rain that caused the Matai’an River landslide dam to overflow, severely impacting Guangfu Township in Hualien.

From December 9–11, I will travel to Hualien City to teach Frontiers’ missionary candidates. Then, on December 13–14, I plan to lead students who have completed CISM training into the four most severely affected villages in Guangfu Township to provide Group Crisis Intervention and Assisting Individuals in Crisis. To help village leaders and residents understand the service, I submitted an official request to the Hualien County Public Health Bureau on November 10, with a copy sent to the Guangfu Township Office, along with an A4 plain-language explanation for distribution. The Health Bureau subsequently instructed that the official document must be sent directly to the Social Affairs Section of the township office, which would be responsible for forwarding it to the village leaders.

After speaking with the head of the Social Affairs Section, he indicated that providing a venue should not be an issue and that he would contact the village leaders once the official document arrived. However, ten days passed after the second registered letter was sent with no response. When I followed up, they said they had not received the document and requested that it be resent. After further effort, they agreed to accept it by fax. Later, I learned that the section had emailed the village leaders to ask for their willingness to participate, but none had replied. I again asked them to forward our plain-language psychological support information to the leaders.

When I contacted the Social Affairs Section again today, I was informed that the matter did not fall under their responsibilities and should instead be handled by the Civil Affairs Section—where, apparently, the document had already been sent. Yet the assistant to the section chief stated they had never seen the related documents. After additional explanation, they agreed to allow resubmission by email. Nearly a month has passed, and only now did we learn that the Social Affairs Section was not the responsible office. It feels as though we have been going in circles. The documents did arrive at the township office but were misplaced internally.

We assume the repeated administrative issues may be due to the heavy post-disaster workload. The lack of response from the village leaders may also stem from understandable reasons: overwhelming responsibilities, overlooking the email, not understanding the service, fear of making mistakes, or concluding that the matter has no bearing on their performance evaluation.

Now that the documents have reached the Civil Affairs Section, all we can do is wait patiently. Some may wonder why we did not begin by partnering with local churches and inviting believers to bring their neighbors. The reason is that our desire is to reach those who do not yet know the Lord. Additionally, many churches still hold the view that “worldly knowledge is elementary,” believing that as long as one declares Jesus as Lord, prays earnestly, and waits for God’s work, all needs—including post-disaster psychological needs—will be met. Thus, promoting CISM understanding and professional intervention may face certain limitations.

Please join us in lifting our hands in prayer. May the Lord open the way before us, and may He use me and the four trained students to bring comfort, strength, and blessing to those affected by the disaster.

Prayer Requests

1. Pray for Jane’s complete recovery and sufficient strength for ministry from December 9–14.

2. Pray that the “Secrets of Psychological Body Armor” course (Dec. 9–11) will bless the 13 missionary candidates and 3 pastors attending.

3. Pray for the proofreading team working on the Traditional Chinese edition of “Secrets of Sex & Marriage.” May the content be accurate, natural, and faithful to the original.

4. Pray that Lifting Hands Network’s publishing and equipping ministries will help more Chinese-speaking communities deepen their relationship with God, with others, and with themselves.