On December 10-11, 2013, the Fourth Session of the Taiwan Conference, which is held once every 3 years, was held in Taichung, Taiwan. There were 174 representatives in attendance. This is the first Session since the Taiwan Mission became Taiwan Conference, and it is also the first since the Taiwan Conference was placed under the Northern Asia-Pacific Division (NSD).
We were blessed that officials from the NSD were able to participate in our Session. The officials were Jairyong Lee, President; Akeri Suzuki, Secretary; Kenneth Osborn, Treasurer; Stanley Ng, Assistant to the President/China; Barbara Choi, Health Director; and Chek-Yat Phoon, Education/Language Schools director. They guided us through the session process, and energized us through their presentations.
On the first day of the Session, Pastor Lee gave the devotion. He pointed out three things:
1. God entrusted the Three Angel’s Messages to the Seventh-day Adventist church, and Jesus Christ Second Coming is our hope.
2. Mission First: Our church has the eternal gospel to share with people which includes the Three Angel’s Messages.
3. Holy Spirit: We must be filled with the Holy Spirit. Likewise we need to spend our time in prayer just as the early church of 120 people spent 10 days in pray. The Holy Spirit filled everyone, and there were 3,000 people baptized after the Pentecost (Acts 2:42).
On December 11, Pastor Suzuki shared a message. He quoted Matthew 9:35. “And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.” He highlighted that Jesus’ ministry included the gospel and the Health message. He mentioned that the Health message is the right hand of the gospel. Pastor Suzuki spoke of an experience in which he wrestled with how to support a cancer patient. However, the patient died. But his service to the patient’s family deeply touched their heart. Because of this, all the family members were willing to know Jesus Christ.
Pastor Ng quoted Nehemiah 1:2-3 to encourage the new office members, pointing out three things:
1. Rely on the Lord to become an accessible leader.
2. Be concerned with the needs of people.
3. Face a crisis and solve it.
He encouraged everyone to not only to be self-supporting, but to also support others in the global mission. Finally, the delegates sang the song “Forward Together Kingdom of Heaven,” and decided to share the gospel with relatives and friends until Jesus Christ Second Coming.
The Fourth Session elected three new officers, and several Department heads to the Taiwan Conference:
President: Steven Wu
Executive Secretary: Cyrus Shen
Treasury: Joseph Ma
Departmental Directors
Sabbath School and Personal Ministries: Jim Hsu
Children’s Ministries, Family Ministries, and Women’s Ministries: Paula Kuo
Youth Ministries: Tom Sun
Health Ministries: Norman Tu
Ministerial Association (City church): Raymond Ko
Ministerial Association (Indigenous church): Peter Lin
Stewardship Ministries: Peter Chou
Ministry of Justice: Ken Feng
Indigenous Legal Holding Body Executive Secretary/Community Service and Resource Management: Noah Lai
President of Legal holding Body Indigenous Church/ Bible correspondence School/Education/Public Relations:
Executive Committee Members (24):
Steven Wu, Cyrus Shen, Joseph Ma, Tony Chou, Alice Magarang, Elliot Fullmer, Norman Tu, Raymond Ko, Vincent Chang, Bill Cho, George Chen, Job Wu, Daniel Tu, Celeste Sha, , Esther Lai, Wayne Lo, Zh-Xiong Yen, Lin Yeh, Edward Ho, In-Sun Hong, Ming-Yi Su, Liou-Jhih Hong, Bao-Gui Lin, Ma Le Ngan.