WEEKLY TOPICAL

Elder John Yung-hsiang Lai, an honorably member of the PCT Church History Committee died of kidney failure at 10 p.m. on June 7( Taiwan time) at the Life Care Center in Boston, USA. He dies at 102-years-old.

Moderated by Rev Huang Chun-sheng, a prayer service entitled as "Stand Up for Taiwan" was held at Chi-Nan Church of Chi-Hsin Presbytery in the evening of May 31st. After the service inside the chaplain, Rev Huang raised up the cross leading the audience with candle-lights to march around the Legislative Yuan, expressing their strong protests against the Congress's overreached expansion of lawmakers’ power.

In order to protest against the overreached amendment of the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power, drafted by the KMT and TPP legislators, more than 40 civilian groups held the protest rally, entitled as "Parliamentary Power Abuse, Democracy Backsliding, Citizens Self-Help and Big Rally Around Legislative Yuan", in the evening on May 21st, attracting more than 30,000 people to go around the Legislative Yuan to shout their opposition to the unprecedented ambush against Taiwan’s democracy.

In the afternoon on May 18, the Academia Historica held a book launch for four new books, including an oral history, entitled as Interviews with of some members of Gi-Kong Presbyterian Church, to witness of the genesis of Gi-Kong Church, and present historical archives on the heinous murder case of Lawyer Lin Yi-Hsiong 's beloved mother and twin daughters in February 1980.

The project of "Ukraine-Mackay Medical Mission" went to southern Ukraine for its third-time mission on April 21. At 4:20 a.m. on the 28th, the hotel, where the mission members stayed in Nikolayev province, was attacked by five consecutive Russian missiles. The medical team hurriedly woke up each other asleep and hid into the hotel basement.

To commemorate its 50th anniversary, the National Taiwanese Presbyterian Council (abbreviated as NTPC below), which is affiliated to the Presbyterian Church (USA), held a thanksgiving service at the Shepherd of the Valley Presbyterian Church in Southern California on April 27. About 140 members of NTPC attended the service.

In order to prepare Taiwan ready for China’s military aggression, build up solid civilian consensus and resolute social actions to defend the island, especially in an era facing China’s incessant infringement and hegemonic threatening, a national forum of civilian defense across party stripes is scheduled to be held in the fall. Inviting the legislators across the aisle to attend the impending civilian defense forum, a team of civilian defense campaigners visited the Legislative Yuan on April 23.

The PCT 69th General Assembly (hereafter GA) was held at the Education and Research Building of Changhua Christian Hospital from April 16 to 18. As a reminder to the PCT on its sins of insufficient pastoral care and outdated spiritual guidance for young generations, a team of campus students and co-workers of College Student Centers were invited to sing the song of The Beatitudes in chorus to refresh and galvanize the churches at the GA opening service.

To build up a campus ministry alliance between local pastors and campus ministry co-workers, who had once actively engaged in the PCT Campus Fellowship in college days, the PCT Campus Ministry Committee held a "Conference of Campus Fellowship Old Bones" at the Chong-Hsiao Road Church in Taichung on April 15.

At 07:58 on April 3, an earthquake of Richter-scale magnitude 7.2 occurred in Hualien of eastern Taiwan, followed by dozens of aftershocks. Up to 12:00 on April 8, it is reported that 13 persons had died, 1,146 injured, and 6 still missing.