Orientation Conclusion

These last weeks of orientation have been a good time of reflection and fellowship. The first week was in Louisville, where we met with key members of a committee (our “matrix”) that oversees our work (for us, this was an area director, a person who works in theological education, and someone who works with personnel matters).

The second and third weeks were in Chicago. We were housed at McCormick/LSTC. Here we met with long-term volunteers or mission workers with the Reformed Church in America, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Capuchin Franciscans (a college volunteer corps). I worked briefly in the RCA and UCC and Emily was a volunteer with Jesuit Volunteers, so we found some connections to past experiences. I enjoyed meeting several denominational mission leaders (the RCA's Jhonny Alicea-Baez) and some of the regional directors for these areas (the ELCA's Y. Franklin Ishida). We may see some of these people again in Taipei eventually, which would be fun.

Our daily Bible Study leader was Mark Swanson, someone I enjoyed meeting. Swanson works in Muslim-Christian studies and, along with Jay Rock (PCUSA interfaith expert) led us on mosque visits. Our groups visited the American Islamic College. Our host was friendly and patiently answered questions. I’ve lived or traveled in a few contexts with large Muslim populations (Singapore, northern Ghana, west China), and I enjoyed the perspective on immigrant experiences in the US.

We learned a lot formally, but I probably most appreciated the informal discussions. I enjoyed talking with some other folk headed into seminary education abroad. And I especially appreciated getting to know the Presbyterian contingent. I don’t know how many of these people I will see again, but I have high hopes.

Our next few weeks are primarily a time of transition. Aside from paperwork and getting ourselves together for the flight, our goal is to spend some time with family and to work on academic projects. Emily has two related school projects and I have a chapter, an introduction, and some editing work to do. More updates to follow...

Sam at Chicago Orientation 2

There's a patch of flowers at the LSTC / McCormick campus that Sam loves. They're at the edges of a quad inside the building. He's been going over and sniffing, touching and looking at the patch of flowers. In the pictures above he is with a friend.

I've been playing around more with my newish SLR camera. The last time I visited Taiwan I didn't bring a camera or take pictures for the first four months. I know that a camera can be a barrier to interaction. However, I think for me (with my poor memory) a camera provides a second memory. Sam adds to the urgency, and I love capturing these playful, peaceful, joy-filled moments during these weeks of rapid change. At orientation the RCA's volunteer director, Jay Hoorsevort offered some tips on how to use a digital SLR. He has a nice flickr page. I have a picasa page, which I will update semi-regularly.

Sam at orientation in Chicago

Orientation in Chicago

My Sunday School teacher for grades 2-7: I met her at a service which included our commissioning, after 22 years away from the church where she taught me

Our orientation class: Sam was rapidly adopted and received lots of attention from the other kids

Sam played ball with the other kids--he's developed a pretty strong throw for not yet 16 months

I love watching the energy he puts into his throws

Here you see a close up of his Scooby Ball as he lets loose--it was a gift from his teachers in the orientation program for the kids

We’re just beginning our second week of orientation. The first week was in Louisville and focused on a range of logistical, programmatic, and institutional concerns. The number of details can be a little overwhelming. We are arranging child care and language study, housing and work descriptions, visas and partner relationships. We worked a lot with our area director, who overseas PCUSA workers throughout Asia (formerly several discrete regions, it’s now a single region). Our director is David Hudson, who has experience in Korea, Pakistan, and India. He’s been a useful guide on getting started and thinking through possibilities and conundrums.

I’ve liked our group quite a bit. As befits PCUSA, we are a bit of an eclectic bunch. We are in evangelism and social justice, education and administration, relief and medicine, and all manner of emphases. Emily and I are the only new appointees to Asia, although we were lucky to have the presence of a veteran couple during this first week. (They are medical doctors in Bangladesh, who are returning after the loss of a son.) I was often touched by their insight into challenges for new mission workers, and found them to be very helpful in thinking through what a Christian presence looks like as a small minority of the population.

We also talked through major themes in our missiology (the idea of “partnership”) and looked at topics with which we all deal, including development and evangelism. We had some time on financing and funding. I liked our new funds director, who talked about the importance of sharing the story. I've often heard that our fundraising model was not working, and it's great to see a new emphasis on expanding development.

When Emily and I think about how much it costs to get and keep us in another country, the numbers look a little daunting. At the same time, we feel strongly that the work we will be doing is important work. We're both committed to what our partner church is doing and I am continuously impressed by my students. I also know that we’ll be a bridge between a variety of people (generations within the PCUSA, the PCUSA and PCT, Taiwanese-Americans, trans-Pacific graduate theological education, etc.). In that sense, our work seems very valuable. Sometimes the need also constitutes the call. There are a handful of we foreigners on the island, and yet we represents 135 years of shared history and hundreds and hundreds of people who have gone before us. I know that often we can be friends and present a voice that no one else can offer. This is challenging and also deeply encouraging.

Orientation also looked at possible threats and dangers. (We spent more than an hour on pandemic flu.) I honestly tend to think that we overrepresent these threats. US culture has sometimes been toxic for me, and I expect that living in Taiwan may lengthen our lives. I imagine for most of us, the deeper challenges will be the more regular challenges of transition (staying healthy, balancing work and study, getting family members settled).

Our geographic diversity means that each of us will face different obstacles. Some will be starting from ground zero in language, but in languages that can be learned to a high degree of fluency in a few years. Others will be in areas for few modern amenities are available. Some will be close—literally across the border—while others live far away (we will be geographically the farthest away). The cost of living varies by location. The nature of our work is quite different, and I’m fascinated by the work people will be doing.

An interesting thing about our group was the presence of several mission workers who are being reassigned (here, here, and here) as well as the inclusion of the Madison Avenue fellows and a trio from the Haiti Fund (two going abroad, and their director). I’m very glad that PCUSA is working on including others in things like orientation, although I wish we had heard who is welcome in our orientation and on what basis. (When I asked about "affiliate mission" status in 2005--something which existed many years ago--I was told that it is not possible; it makes me glad that PCUSA is finding a way to include others in this process.)

Another interesting topic was our social witness policy. Essentially it says that we must be careful to differentiate when we speak for the denomination and when we speak for ourselves, and to be careful about misrepresenting the PCUSA’s position. For me, this will entail the need for clarity in several areas. We are a denomination that has often said “Christ alone is Lord of the conscience.” One of the first martyrs from my seminary was a printer who died for freedom of the press (Elijah Lovejoy, commemorated on a plaque at PTS's student center). Academics usually advocate for intellectual freedom (this is sometimes confined in certain ways by those in the theological academy). I do not foresee any problems, but it is probably worth reminding any readers at this point that I speak only for myself. I will often offer my individual opinion on questions historical, theological, moral, or cultural, and they by no means represent a single party line or denominational pronouncement. This, after all, is basically what a blog is, right? It’s the ramblings of someone sitting in front of a computer with an axe to grind, a cause to promote, or a prayer to offer.

What else? This was our first time having Sam in extended child care with other people (not family), and he was a true champ. He’s been getting a lot of attention from the older kids, who keep him in a jumping, walking, giggling frenzy until he collapses into a nap. Emily was still able to go feed him on lunch breaks. He's become adept at throwing balls and climbing stairs. The teachers who looked after him (almost all experienced missionaries) were incredible. What a gift to us! As we head towards something that is partly known and partly unknown it helps to know that Sam is so adapative and that people go out of their way to look after him.

2008-2009 Academic Year

A major event of the year was the death of my grandfather--it was nice we had this year to spend some time with him.

Here is Emily with a friend from TTCS. Yu-chia studied at Princeton this year.

Here I am, a happy employee with baby in tow.

Sam enjoys life outside the bookstore.

We loved the campus community. It was fun to be part of a school so committed to student learning.

This was probably the most challenging year we’ve had, even as it contained much joy. The joy came on several fronts: Sam, academic progress for both us, work experience for me, a new town to explore, possibilities considered and reconsidered. The challenge was, predictably, in the moving. I think of the year as a transplant which didn’t quite take.

To recap, late in the academic year I received an offer to teach at a small college in NJ. I would be the third historian, teaching world history. The school was primarily professionally focused, with programs in areas like criminal justice, education, and communication. In the history department, we fed primarily to education students. There were a number of students from China, Korea, and Japan, which was fun for me. On the other hand, students in general were not very academically inclined (probably this is a perennial comment of teachers).

My first semester I was given (for me) a challenging teaching load. I taught first and second Western Civ and then a survey course for first year students. For some topics, I had a fair amount of background (the Hebrews, the fall of Rome, Augustine , Aquinas, the Reformation, etc.). For other topics it was more of a stretch. I also struggled with how to reach students who were usually taking the course to fill a distribution. And I struggled with all of the problems new teachers face: cheating, the grading curve, which assignments work best, how to handle group work, etc. I found that I liked this type of teaching (college, liberal arts, professional studies), but that I was still longing for something more. I think I realized that my language skills would never come up much. I think I could have become a more knowledgeable person, and in the spring I enjoyed my broad surveys of Africa and East Asia. I admired my colleagues tremendously, and felt at home at the college. But somehow it was a life that did not look sustainable for us, and I don’t think we could see ourselves there for the longterm, as I had perhaps hoped. We struggled to make friends our own age. We continued to be involved in our home church in Trenton. We liked the local congregations, but never felt at home. This was a transplant that didn’t take. It was a good year, but an interim year, and one that challenged us.
Along the way we began talking to PCUSA about going to Taiwan. Our predecessor, John McCall, had decided to come home for family reasons. The school in Taipei was beginning a center on mission and pluralism and upping its commitment to international education. Funding was rebounding for cross-cultural work in the denomination, and the way became clear. We interviewed and talked with the new area director, who had experience in Korea, Pakistan, and India.

During one of our conversations, we were asked how we felt about going. I hemmed and hawed and said something about being excited and nervous. Emily said just “returning home.” I think that wrapped things up for us. It confirmed that this was where our call would be in the years ahead.

The interim has been challenging. I finished out the year (with a few stragglers completing papers). We boxed up our small apartment with the help of my heroic mother-in-law. We sent 62 boxes to Taiwan, with the help of my old friend Ming-wei.

As I write this, we are in Louisville, beginning our orientation. Things look bright ahead. We have a long ways to go, but we are not along and the road is clear.

Fall of 2007 found us still in Princeton. I (Jonathan) adjuncted at PTS and precepted at PU. It was an interesting combination of courses. At the seminary I taught “From Mission History to World Christianity,” which was primarily a survey of the twentieth century, treating key disciplines and trends in world Christianity. This is the period famous for the transition from north to south, as Christianity became a truly world religion, with adherents worshipping in thousands of languages. Lamin Sanneh calls it the shift to a “Post-Western Christianity and Post-Christian West.” I’m not entirely sure I agree, but it was certainly a new scattering, a new diaspora.

I enjoyed working with seminarians, many of whom I knew from community life. I clustered book reviews, which allowed students to focus on topics of interest, from immigrant histories, to urban ministry, to youth and mission trips. The first day of class, I surveyed the roughly twenty students on how many places they had visited. About a quarter of the students were themselves international students, and I like to think that the course provided a helpful place for reflection as they engaged a fairly standard American theological curriculum. I was surprised to learn that perhaps half of my MDiv students had come to ministry through some sort of cross-cultural trip. I think that in many US congregations, it is easy for faith to be something that is passively received. Seeing how others understand a tradition can be deeply challenging and disorienting, but also often provides a new lens on what it means to be Christian.

At the same time, I precepted Buddhism at the university. I loved the professor, a historian of religion, who led us through Buddhism’s 2500 years in twelve weeks of lectures. For students in this class, the same disorientation was often apparent. They came to the course expecting meditation or a philosophy of “live in the moment,” and they met all manner of texts and traditions. We studied Buddhist death rituals, philosophical schools, enlightenment lineages, and contemporary traditions. I really enjoyed the class and it gave me a new insight on interfaith work, which can often be naïve in how it treats a tradition.

During December and January, Emily wrapped up her PhD qualifying exams. We’d learned in August that she was pregnant. (The baby blog is here.) Now she approached a grueling academic task late in her second trimester. Her field (like mine) is very interdisciplinary. She is in library science, but also had to do work in communications, statistics, information science, etc. I think she did an admirable job, taking one of her minor exams in communications, despite the fact that she had only two courses in the field.

In the spring I taught a course on the ecumenical movement and precepted the East Asian History survey at PU. We treated the histories of China, Japan, and Korea during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I had a very strong background in China and some background in Korea, but found myself working hard to learn modern Japan. (Interestingly, when I first moved to Princeton I met the retired Japanese historian, Marius Jansen, at my mother’s church at the time.) I was very grateful to work with the two professors who taught the course, one a seasoned scholar who shared 20 years of exam questions with us, and the other a younger scholar who studies modern China and questions of poverty. She also kindly gave me advice on interviewing and candidating for a position in which I was interested.

At this point, we were beginning to explore the possibility of returning to Taiwan. I was glad to see another Taiwan Seminary student show up in Princeton, Chiu Kai-Li, who even took one of my classes. I also saw the Yu-Shan Seminary choir, which sang at the chapel. A Chinese delegation from Anhui visited, and I was able to show them around Princeton with the help of Rebecca Montgomery. And I met the PCT’s main ecumenical officer again, Stephen Hsu. Stephen helped me to coordinate with Taiwan Seminary and the PCUSA about the possibility of returning. Unfortunately, this coincided with the 2008 financial crisis in PCUSA, and some slowing of possibilities among the PCUSA. Up until March or April, it seemed probable that Taiwan might work out, but it did not turn out to be the case. In the meantime, I went on several hurried interview, and was very glad to find a position teaching history (more to follow).

The big news of the year, however, was neither exams nor classes nor visitors from afar. It was the arrival of our son, Samuel, who came on Good Friday 2008 (3/21) and who came home on Easter. Emily liked the name Samuel, and it fit well with David and Jonathan (brother, me). As the year came to an end, we found ourselves moving again.

2006-2007 Year

The academic year following our return from Taiwan was eventful. We spent August with family. I precepted (TA’ed) the course “World Christianity through World Literature” with my advisor in the fall. I worked through the last chapters of the dissertation, many of which I had been constructing in my head but now took form on paper. I was helped by several great archived collections on microfilm.

In February I also used money from a Kuyper scholarship to visit London, where I did research at the British Library, Oxford and the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. The only real “sightseeing” was a play, a couple of museums, and a lecture by Ngugi wa Thiong’o.
In London by the library, with a red bus and Shakespeare in the background

In the spring I taught a one month class in Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing with my old study abroad program. It was a lot of fun and was a good crash course review of Chinese history. We visited the Beijing military museum, the ruins of the summer palace, the Sun memorial in Nanjing, and the site of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai. I liked the undergrads and learned a lot from them and from the experience.

My class outside the Beijing military museum

However, I had one key challenge: I left my laptop in the airport on the way to Beijing. I didn’t even notice it until I arrived. (I had been up late the night before packing after an interview and lecture in New York.) Emily rescued the laptop from Newark, where the airport sends all forgotten electronics. I, however, needed a computer to go with me and to finish the writing and edits on my dissertation. I ended up by a Cantonese brand cheap laptop, a HEDY (“Happy Every DaY”). I know—it’s not the catchiest title.


The dissertation defense itself was a good experience. I’m not great on my feet, and often find these to be challenging events. It was a nice committee: the three main members, two other historians from my department, plus an outside member who studies Chinese religions. Here’s the defense picture (just a little blurry):
The dissertation committee (minus one member) and Emily
With Chi-Yi (PTS choral associate, and the two ThM students)
PhD classmates, Sandy, John, La Seng, me, and Hyung-Jin--a fun group

Another joy of the year was that several Taiwanese students from Taiwan Seminary were around. Here is a picture of Emily and I with them:
With Yu-Hui, Emily, and Ma-li
Looking at a picture with Yu-Hui; mom and Emily in the background After graduation, with my advisor

At the end of the year we were scrambling for jobs. Emily worked part time at a library and was in coursework. I was lucky to receive the opportunity to adjunct, and over the summer I found a position TA’ing a course on Buddhism at the University. It would continue five years of financial scrambling, but it also kept Emily close to her school and gave us another year in the area. At this point, Taiwan was hoped for but by no means sure. We had begun talking with the school but knew it would be at least a year.

Walking at Graduation