Meet the Director

Why would Mainland China announce that its government will pay 19.4 million dollars to a list of American mission agencies for properties seized years ago? On the heels of that report, we now hear that China is asking the Jesuits to return to reestablish a medical school they operated 30 years ago in Shanghai. These facts would dumbfound the most zany optimist back in December. Additional data comes to us as I write this from the Far East Broadcasting Company:

Over the last ten years they have received an average of 18 letters per year from Mainland China. Now, note what's happened in 1979:

I hope these facts will burst in upon the hearts of millions of evangelicals in America. Our complacency and defeatism needs to be radically disturbed.

The problem is serious. I read articles all the time generalizing to the effect that after all, we can't reach out to the (Mainland) Chinese, Hindus and Muslims. FIDDLESTICKS! So long as there still remain hundreds of places to go and thousands of things urgently to be done to reach these major blocks let's not overly deplore the fact that some people some of the time are walled off from some approaches

For example, in the educational film "Penetrating the Last Frontiers", which highlights the Hidden People (and mentions the USCWM in particular), Pat Boone asks me about the Chinese. I replied (last summer) "What if China would suddenly open and ask for 50,000 American teachers of English, would we be ready? I don't think we would'"

We now hear that China wants 500,000 teachers of English, German, French and Spanish. (Note, not Russian!) Also, we understand the greatest emphasis will be on English. Confirmation of this is their published figures for Chinese students being sent abroad are clearly and preponderantly in Englishspeaking countries, with the largest number headed for the USA.

Of course, the 500,000 teachers China needs will not all be foreigners. But China will soon find out what native speakers of English will make the best teachers, and I do not believe anyone who can really do the job will be turned down.

So, this is one reason why over a year ago we planned an academic program to teach people how to teach English to nonEnglish speakers, specifically to Chinese.

It is appropriate then our sister corporation, the William Carey International University, has now been authorized by the State of California to grant degrees. Included in the authorization are five Ph.D. degrees, in the fields of Chinese Studies, Hindu Studies, Muslim Studies, Tribal Studies, International Development, and an M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language. M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language. We are now adding Ph.D. degrees in Minority Studies and Applied Linguistics.

Thus we are trying to be ready to prepare people to enter China, whether they go as members of missionary organizations or as "tentmaking" missionaries.

I'd like to tell you more about our regular student program, which is for all serious college students, and which now has suddenly attracted the backing of 10 major mission agencies. That will have to be next time.