As an unexpected side effect to the SARS epidemic that brushed this island-nation, Seventh-day Adventists are among those being asked to help two of the largest cities aid their populations of homeless people.
As an unexpected side effect to the SARS epidemic that brushed this island-nation, Seventh-day Adventists are among those being asked to help two of the largest cities aid their populations of homeless people.
According to Bob Folkenberg Jr., president of the Adventist Church in Taiwan, when SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, broke out, Adventists saw a chance to revive their community services, which had, on a national basis, been dormant for about a decade.
“We could do something here,” Folkenberg told ANN in a telephone interview. He said several Seventh-day Adventist institutions generously helped, including Florida Hospital, Glendale Adventist Medical Center, White Memorial Medical Center and Highland Medical Center, shipping supplies on short notice.
“They sent over isolation gowns and special kinds of masks and thermometers. It was really appreciated by the central government, which distributed this to the cities,” he said. Adventists were able to distribute 14,000 isolation suits, as well as thermometers and other items during the crisis.
Such generosity brought a response from national and local leaders, he said. Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou, with whom Adventists had wanted to meet, summoned church leaders for a 40-minute session. The mayor said the city needed assistance with a shelter for homeless people, realizing that if the homeless are taken care of and not left to fend for themselves, it might be easier to prevent health crises in that segment of the population.
Folkenberg noted that the island’s third-largest city, Taichung, has also contacted church officials for help with a homeless shelter there. He said the Taiwan region of the church is studying such needs and working to draw up plans, but will need to find financial and human resources before making a final commitment to the shelter project. If there’s a way to establish the shelters, he added, it would take about a year before they could be opened.
“Pray for us. We’ve stepped out onto the water and we have to keep looking to Christ to fulfill these needs,” Folkenberg said.
Regardless of what happens with the shelter, the church will expand its community services efforts. Already, several local churches have been reaching out to neighbors and, Folkenberg added, Taiwan Adventist Hospital has, for many years, “provided excellent community service” to its constituency. However, church members around the island have missed the opportunity to “be the hands and feet of Jesus,” and the Taiwan church leadership, at their last annual meeting, voted to revive a community service effort.
Along with fulfilling a Christian duty, Folkenberg said the community service effort will have a positive impact on the 4,000 Adventist Christians already worshipping in Taiwan.
“I think it will also provide much-needed exposure” for the church, which, along with other Protestant denominations, account for about 3 percent of Taiwan’s population. “Add in our [Roman] Catholic friends and the number is about 5 percent,” Folkenberg added, in a place dominated by Buddhism.
“It will be healthy for our church and for church growth,” Folkenberg said. “It will help people know that we care about them, and that we are not an offshoot or a cult, but are genuine Christians.”
