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February 1963.....the Hong Kong Peak is issued by missionaries of the ABFMS. On November 30, John and Ruth Espy and their boys, Lincoln Lee and John Mark, arrived as missionaries of the A.B.F.M.S. in Hong Kong. Fresh from engineering and technical training work with Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York, John will teach industrial chemistry and other courses at Chung Chi College. Ruth will work in the college library, and the boys will attend school in Kowloon. Mr. and Mrs. Espy share some of their first impressions. "Hong Kong is certainly a city with problems. The needs -- material and spiritual -- are apparent on every side. Many of these needs arise out of hte fact that there are so many people sharing a limited amount of space and resources. There is much underemployment; many families are living in makeshift housing and thousands of children are still not attending any school. These needs and problems are intensified by the continuing rapid growth in population. But the efforts toward meeting these needs are very impressive. New construction is seen everywhere -- office building, hotels, low-cost housing units, apartments, factories, schools, clinics, hospitals, roads, and dams are rushed to completion on a round-the-clock basis. The streets teem with people but everyone seems busy with something. New church buildings are filled with people who are anxious to hear the Christian message." "Our first six weeks have been busy ones. We are settled into an apartment, the boys are in school, and we are hard at work studying Cantonese, the Chinese dialect used commonly here. We have seen enough of the American Baptist work to state emphatically that our efforts are more than justified; there is almost no limit to the amount of useful work which could be done. We are much impressed by the role of Chung Chi College in developing Christian leaders for tomorrow's world, and we are very eager to participate in this work." One hundred and twenty-five years ago in the city of Bangkok the first Protestant church for Chinese in the world was founded. China proper had not yet opened its doors to foreigners, and missionaries started work for Chinese in Thailand. In December this church celebrated the anniversary, praising God for His leading through all the years. We in Hong Kong rejoice in the on-going strength of that Bangkok church. The relationship of that work and the work we are now doing, and the work in which we have had a part in the past, is long and involved. Let us mention only a few high-lights. The Rev. and Mrs. William Dean arrived in Thailand in 1835. Dr. Dean was the first pastor of the church organized in 1837. In 1842 he moved to Hong Kong where he founded a Swatow-speaking Baptist church in 1843. Later he returned to work in Bangkok. --- In 1839 the Rev. and Mrs. Josiah Goddard arrived in Thailand. The port of Ningpo in East China opened soon afterward, and these new missionaries moved to that city in 1848. --- The Rev. and Mrs. William Ashmore, early missionaries of the South China Mission, and founders of the first church in that area, had served their first few years in Thailand. The Ling Tong Convention which Dr. Ashmore helped to found, later (about 1925) assumed some responsibility for the work in Thailand. With the opening of the China ports, and the development of work in that land, the missionaries moved on to the mainland, and Hong Kong and Thailand received less direct attention. Hong Kong was without missionaries of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society until 1954. Miss Seater-Margaret Drever who is in Hong Kong on special assignment, was formerly the missionary nurse in the Chin-Li Hospital, Kityang, South China. Fourteen graduates of the Chin-Li School of Nursing now live in Hong Kong. Nurses trained outside of the Colony have not been accepted on an equal basis with the locally-trained nurses. Recently, however, the government allowed those trained elsewhere to take the examination for full registration. Three Chin-Li girls took the examination and passed it. Some of those who are not recognized as registered nurses her are, nevertheless, working in hospitals and clinics. Others are in business. All but one of the group are married. On December 28 the Chin-Li Nurses' Alumnae Association met, with eleven members present. They met in the home of Nancy Li in Brotherly Love Village, in a house on top of a hill overlooking Kowloon and Hong Kong. Miss Drever reports: "The group joined in a worship service of carols, the reading of a Psalm, and in prayer. I was glad I could give them greetings from out former Kityang missionaries whom I had met on furlough. It was good to have fellowship with these girls again." Any Sunday morning you can see Miss Tina Kueh (Kueh Tek Hui) in the Kowloon City Swatow Baptist Church, greeting the worshipers, smiling, friendly, and gracious. Sometimes she fills the pulpit of the church, or of one of the six chapels established by its members. Miss Kueh is the assistant of the Rev. T. C. Lee, pastor of this church of almost two thousand members. Miss Kueh has been active in church from childhood. Her parents and her grandparents were members of churches in the South China area. ON graduation from high school, she taught in a primary school. At teh close of World War II an orphanage was opened by the mission in Chaoyang; Miss Kueh became dean of the orphanage school. Just before the communists took over the area in 1949, Miss Kueh came to Hong Kong. Here she enrolled in Bethel Seminary, adding to her experience in teaching, greater knowledge of the Bible and of church work. The Kowloon City Swatow Baptist Church invited her to join the staff upon her graduation, and there she has served effectively for ten years. She is much loved and respected. Missionaries.... Miss Seater-Margaret Drever | |||||||||||||||||||
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