A warm welcome to our lovely visitors from ECW National Episcopal Church Women! From May 9-19, 2025, we were very honoured to welcome Lisa Bortner, National ECW President, and Virginia (Ginny) Guzman-Walsh, Province VIII ECW Vice-President & Representative on the National ECW Board, accompanied by the Rev. Canon Bruce Woodcock, The Episcopal Church Partnership Officer for Asia and the Pacific, to visit the Taiwan Episcopal Church and Taiwan ECW. In the 10 days they were here, they went everywhere, saw everything, and met everyone; it was a very full visit!

For a bit of background, ChatGPT has come to my rescue to explain why we have the Mother’s Union (MU) in the UK and Africa, but in the USA and here in Taiwan, we have ECW; as follows: “MU and ECW are separate but complementary organizations within the Anglican tradition; both are Christian women’s organizations focused on faith, family, and community service, but are distinct in origin, structure, and affiliation. MU is an international Anglican organization, affiliated with the Church of England but active in many provinces of the Anglican Communion. In contrast, ECW is a national organization within the US-based Episcopal Church.”

Taiwan is one of 18 dioceses in Province VIII of The Episcopal Church, and last summer, at the Episcopal Church General Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, the Bishop of Taiwan, Lennon Yuan-Rung Chang, invited Ginny, as Province VIII ECW Rep, to come and visit Taiwan ECW. The purpose was to develop and deepen the relationship between Taiwan ECW and Province VIII ECW, to meet and encourage our lovely new Taiwan ECW President, Regina Chang, to see some of our ECW and women’s ministries, and also to attend our annual diocesan convention from May 16-17, 2025. Later, Bishop Chang extended the invitation to include Lisa, and also Bruce, who usually comes to Taiwan for the diocesan convention, and it was great that he could extend his visit by a few days to see some of our ECW ministries. We are really grateful to Bruce for accompanying Lisa and Ginny and helping them to settle in quickly, including posing for photos, Taiwan-style!

Our ECW and women’s ministries include kindergartens, senior day care centres, community Taiko and African Drumming Classes, Praise Dance groups and outreach ministry – so we included some of each in the itinerary, as well as visiting some of our new church plants. Oh yes, and a trip to the National Palace Museum, a night market and one or two city tours. Plus a few meals, big meals, delicious meals!

The group arrived in the evening on Friday May 9; Lisa from Austin, Texas, Ginny from Las Vegas and Bruce from New York, their visit coinciding with the start of the Plum rainy season, and it poured cats and dogs all day, and throughout the next day too!

After a relaxing first morning, we formally started their visit with a meeting at 3:00 pm in the diocesan office on Saturday, May 10, attended by Bishop Chang and his wife, Hannah, Regina Chang, Jane Ou representing South Taiwan, Shu-Jing from Advent Church, Deacon Claire Wang from St. John’s Cathedral, Tim Pan as translator, and myself. Lisa shared her testimony, a moving story of how supportive the women in her church were when she faced tragic circumstances in her own life, which helped her appreciate the vital importance of women’s ministry in the church. Ginny shared passionately about ECW and its different ministries, including some of the advocacy work of their National Board. We really appreciated Tim Pan’s skills and enthusiasm in translation! Regina had prepared an excellent PowerPoint about Taiwan ECW, including news about the recent 40-day Online Devotional program during Lent 2025. Regina had expected about 30 to sign up, and was amazed that over 190 people took part! She gave a very comprehensive overview of Taiwan ECW, and made us realise just how much is actually going on! One of the other purposes of the ECW visit was because, for many years – possibly decades, Taiwan has not sent an ECW representative to attend the ECW Triennial Meeting (which takes place as a separate event, but at the same time and more or less on the same site as the General Convention), so both Lisa and Ginny are keen to invite Regina and ECW reps from Taiwan to participate, with generous offers of help with providing translation services as necessary. Following the meeting, we had a formal welcome dinner, hosted by Bishop Chang and the Diocese of Taiwan, with gift presentations from the ECW team; they are so kind!

Day Two, Sunday May 11, was a wonderful day (despite the terrible rain!) spent at St. John’s Cathedral, Taipei, warmly welcomed by Dean Philip Lin, Deacon Claire Wang and senior warden, Amy Lin. Lisa, Ginny and Bruce went to the English service (group photo below), had a lesson in posing for photos Taiwan-style from Christine during coffee hour, then went to the start of the Chinese service to see the children’s Taiko Drumming Performance and the cathedral kindergarten children performing for Mother’s Day. This was all followed by our church lunch and then a fun welcome party in the afternoon, where our visitors did a great job learning Praise Dance and Taiko Drumming. Ah, it was fun! Then we had another formal welcome dinner in the evening, hosted by the cathedral. So delicious!

Day Three, Monday, May 12, in the afternoon, we went to visit St. Stephen’s Church, Keelung, where Rev. Joseph Ho and his team were fully in action with the children’s after-school classes, After the children sang for us, we all joined in their clay workshop, each person making something from clay that represented Keelung – check out the clay picture below. Notice the big yellow halo, and inside it, spot God, Jesus, and either the new pope or the bishop! The visitors were very interested that the building that houses St. Stephen’s Church was bought with financial support from the United Thank Offering UTO. Then we went to visit Zhengbin to see the harbour, followed by dinner with a view over Keelung Harbour. Such a wonderful day, thank you, St. Stephen’s Church!

Day Four, Tuesday May 13, we arranged for the visitors to spend the day with Rev. Keith Lee, Rev. Tom Reese, Seminarian Evangeline Dai and the team at Good Shepherd Church, Taipei, visiting the kindergarten for performances (check out that photo below!), the church and also the new St. Thomas Church, Linkou, then a visit to the National Palace Museum and dinner. One of the highlights was the warm welcome the visitors received from Good Shepherd Vestry member, Michael, and his lovely wife, Anna. Michael and Anna had purchased for each of our ECW group a set of beautiful chopsticks with each person’s name engraved on them; such a meaningful gift and a lovely reminder for Lisa, Ginny and Bruce of their visit to Taiwan. Although I didn’t go on the trip that day, our ECW visitors told me all about the warm welcome they had received at Good Shepherd, and when they met up with Michael, Anna and Evangeline at the convention a few days later, there were lots of happy reunions. Clearly, a great day for everyone ~ thank you, Good Shepherd Church!

Day Five, Wednesday, May 14, and off we went to Taipei Main Station, thanks to Sheerah and Yu-Wei for help with the taxi service! We went by high-speed rail from Taipei south to Kaohsiung, where Archdeacon Rev. Leo Tzeng met us along with Rev. Mark Cheng (who was on his way by HSR to Taipei) and we had lunch with Leo and his wife, Vivian, Rev. Stoney Wu from St. Timothy’s Church and his wife, Wendy, plus Rev. Joseph Wu from St. Mark’s Church, Pingtung. It turned out that all 5 of them had studied at St. John’s University (SJU), and 4 of them had been baptised in Advent Church, and both couples had met at SJU. Everywhere we went, we met clergy and church members who had become Christians through their studies at SJU and were baptised in Advent Church! After lunch, we went to St. Paul’s Church, Kaohsiung, where Rev. Deledda Tsai welcomed us, along with a group from Grace Church, Tainan who joined the African Drumming Class at St Paul’s to put on a dramatic performance of drumming, followed by a performance by some of the children in St. Paul’s Kindergarten, who sang beautifully! We then had a delicious tea party, and they were all so welcoming! In the evening, we met up with Bishop David Lai and his wife, Lily who came to Kaohsiung to meet up with Bruce for dinner, while some of the youth from St. Timothy’s Church, Kaohsiung, along with Jane, their senior warden took us all to the Liuhe Night Market, where we had eel, squid, congee, papaya milk, rice sausage and… oh yes and they played on the pinball machines! Ah it was fun!

Day Six, Thursday, May 15, and I started the day with very early morning exercise along the Ai River to the new Music Centre and harbour, and also popped into the RC Cathedral, which was just opening at 6:00 am, as I walked by. Having shown our ECW visitors my photos later, they expressed great interest in a city tour to see the same places. At 7:00 am I was back ready to meet Mr. Du Yun-Hung, who took me for a very yummy breakfast of ‘Shao Bing Jia Dan’ (燒餅夾蛋), a simple Taiwanese breakfast where a baked wheat cake is filled with a scrambled egg, in a shop near his home – there was a long line of people waiting to be served – always a good sign! Then we collected our visitors and took them to St. Timothy’s Church to see their senior daycare program, starting with an exercise class for everyone – ah, it was hard work! After the video Bible Story, while the seniors had a lecture on Chinese medicine, we were taken on a short city tour, thanks to Archdeacon Leo and church member, Mr. Hu-Ge! We went to a viewpoint overlooking the city, then down to the harbour and along by the music center and to the RC Cathedral, passing the places I had visited that morning. And then back to the church for a very yummy lunch, cooked in the church kitchen, it was one of the best we had during their visit, really good!

And so goodbye to Kaohsiung, and we took the early afternoon HSR to Taichung. Archdeacon Rev. Lily Chang, Deacon Emily Cheng, Seminarian Annie Tsai and the team at St. James’ Church had a very busy program planned for our short visit, starting with a performance from the kindergarten children, group photo, then a blessing of the new school busses at the back gate, which involved Lily and Bruce sprinkling holy water as part of the service – that was an interesting surprise for us all! Then a quick tour around the kindergarten butterfly garden and church, and so to the 6th floor for a sharing time about St. James’ ECW, outreach to children and parents, counselling centre, English and Chinese services, the church building project in the Philippines under former rector, Rev. Charles Chen, plus their plans for the new central deanery church-planting program, and lots more. St. James’ Church is a very busy place! It was all followed by another delicious dinner, this time with Rev. Charles Chen, MaryJo, Samuel, Luanne and all the St. James’ team. It was so good to see them all, and thanks for such a warm welcome!

Day Seven, Friday, May 16, was the official start of the 2-day annual diocesan convention; this year hosted by Church Church, Chungli, under Archdeacon Rev. Felix Chen and senior warden William Pan; the church was upgraded to parish status at last year’s annual convention. We left at 7:30 am to drive there. Annie Tsai and Zhu-He, St. James’ senior warden, kindly drove our group there in 2 cars – we arrived just in time for the service, starting at 10:00 am. About 100 people were in attendance, including all our clergy and representatives from all our churches. At the end of the service, presentations of graduation certificates and flowers were made to two of our Trinity School for Christian Ministry (TSCM) students who graduate this summer, Mr. Ben Simmons, seminarian from St. James’ English Congregation, and Mr. Dien-Rei Liu, officially from St. Mark’s Church, Pingtung, but now part of the Hsinchu Mission. Bishop Chang also presented Tim Pan with a gift, congratulating him on his Master of Theological Studies (MTS) graduation from CDSP in a few days time. Well done to all 3 graduates! Gift presentations and welcomes were also given to our ECW visitors. After group photos outside, we drove to a hotel near Shimen Reservoir, about a 30-minute drive from the church, for lunch and the formal meetings.

At the start of the first official session of the diocesan convention, Bishop Chang had invited Lisa to give a 15-minute speech, translated by Tim Pan. Many people commented on how inspired and helped they were by the speech, on the importance of women’s ministry. Lisa has given us permission to share it, as follows…

“It is an incredible honor to stand before you today, and I am deeply grateful to the Episcopal Diocese of Taiwan for inviting me to your beautiful country and welcoming me with such warmth and hospitality. Thank you, Bishop Chang, members of the clergy, lay leaders, and all of you gathered here for your generosity of spirit and for the opportunity to share this time of fellowship and reflection.

From the moment I arrived, I have felt not only the kindness of your people but also the strong, living pulse of your faith. It is evident that God is doing powerful things through the Episcopal Church in Taiwan, and I am humbled to witness and be a small part of that. Today, I want to speak to you about something close to my heart—the importance of women’s ministry in the life of the Church.

Throughout Scripture, we see women playing essential roles in God’s unfolding story of salvation. From Miriam, who sang songs of deliverance after the crossing of the Red Sea, to Deborah, who judged and led Israel with wisdom and strength, to Mary Magdalene, the first witness of the Resurrection, women have always stood at the center of God’s mission. Yet for a long time, the Church had overlooked or underestimated the gifts, voices, and leadership of women. We are, however, in a season where the Holy Spirit is renewing our understanding of what it means to be the Body of Christ—one in which every member, regardless of gender, is empowered and called to serve.

Women’s ministry is about recognizing and nurturing the gifts God has placed in women for the building up of the whole Church. When women lead, preach, teach, serve, and shepherd, the Church grows in wisdom, compassion, and strength. I have seen this firsthand. I’ve seen women gathering in prayer and study, building strong communities of faith that carry others through grief, injustice, and struggle. I’ve seen women leading outreach efforts, feeding the hungry, advocating for justice, and mentoring young people in ways that transform entire generations. I’ve seen women clergy bring a depth of pastoral care that is healing and profound.

And I know that here in Taiwan, women like Rev. Julia and Rev. Lily have long been at the heart of the Church’s life—teaching, nurturing, and proclaiming the Gospel in both quiet and courageous ways. Some of these stories are told, but many remain unsung. I encourage you to keep lifting up those stories. Celebrate the mothers and grandmothers of faith. Celebrate the young women discerning calls to ministry, such as your seminarians, Annie and Evangeline. Celebrate the women leading with grace, courage, and vision.

This is not just about equity or inclusion—it’s about mission. In a world yearning for healing, justice, and hope, we need all of the Church—men and women together—fully alive in Christ, fully engaged in ministry, and fully empowered to lead. When women flourish in ministry, the entire Church flourishes. When their gifts are honored, the Kingdom of God shines more brightly. So I thank you, not only for welcoming me, but for the work you are already doing to uplift and support women in ministry. I urge you to continue. Create space. Offer mentorship. Raise up leaders. Encourage your daughters in faith to dream boldly and follow Christ courageously.

In closing, I want to leave you with the words of the Apostle Paul from Romans 16, where he writes: “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church… Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus.” These were women who labored for the Gospel, and Paul honored them. May we do the same in our time.

May God bless the Diocese of Taiwan, may God bless the women who lead and serve among you, and may the Church in this place continue to grow in faith, in love, and in boldness.”

Much of the rest of the convention was focused on the announcement by Bishop Chang of his retirement on his 72nd birthday, April 2, 2027, and the need to elect his successor. The election of the new bishop is already scheduled to be held at next year’s annual convention, with the consecration set for November 2026, and the official handing over to the new bishop on April 2, 2027. Each of our churches was given 6 minutes to share their church report, and Bishop Chang explained that using the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis, plus the inclusion of the financial situation of each church in the report, would help clergy and delegates make decisions during the coming year about who might be suitable to become the next bishop. The election of the new Standing Committee was also a major focus, given that it is the Standing Committee who are officially in charge of the election and transition process. In the event, Tim Pan and Regina Chang were elected to the Standing Committee, with Tim later being elected as the new chair. And in between all the official business, Ginny kindly gave out 100 ECW lapel pins to everybody and ECW T-shirts to all the clergy, and Bruce gave out 100 big colourful Trader Joe’s bags, and I was on hand to take the photos!

Day Eight, Saturday, May 18, was the second day of the convention, and many of us got up very early to make the most of our visit to this beautiful place. The Shimen Reservoir Dam was just a 10-minute walk from our hotel, and there were a lot of steps up to get to the top. But the effort was well worth it to see the sun coming up over the water. Beautiful! The hotel swimming pool had a great view too, though we had no time to go in!

During the second day’s meeting, the finance reports were given and passed, followed by the passing of resolutions to upgrade the status of St. Thomas Church from a mission station to a mission church, and the Hsinchu Mission Centre to a mission station (the terminology is quite complicated, but basically they are all different stages of church growth!) Well done to the hard-working clergy and church members at these new churches. And big thanks to Annie and Evangeline, who spent hours and hours translating everything for our visitors to understand. It was quite a challenge! We finished just before lunch, grateful to God that everything went smoothly.

Sunday, May 18 was Day Nine, and the final full day of the ECW visit. Off we all went to Advent Church, Tamsui, on the campus of St. John’s University. It is always my favorite church building in Taiwan, mainly because of the stained glass artwork in the roof, but also because of the architecture and building design. I could even hear an audible gasp from our visitors as they entered the church and saw how beautiful it was! We were warmly welcomed by the rector, Rev. Irving Wu, Deacon Christina Hai, senior warden, Chuan-You, ECW leader Shu-Jing, and all the church members. Bishop Chang led the service, which included confirmation. After the service, Rev. Wu presented the visitors with packets of local delicacies, including iron eggs, egg rolls, and shrimp snacks, and everybody cheered – because Tamsui snacks are famous throughout Taiwan! After lunch at the church, we went up the coast to Susan’s house for a Tea Party, along with a lot of the Advent Church ECW group, all wonderfully organized by Susan and our good friend, Shu-Jing, who really pulled out all the stops for a great, happy ending to the ECW visit. After singing and sharing about the ECW ministry, we walked around Susan’s farm with her husband, who showed us all the vegetables he is growing, and it was nice to see the goats, sheep, geese, and hens. Last time I was there at the end of March, it was very cold, windy, and pouring with rain, so this time we appreciated the better weather! The ECW ladies had cooked Gua Bao, which they described as a Taiwan version of a hamburger, and everyone loved it. It was another highlight of the ECW visit! We also had cake, fruit, coffee, soup and all sorts of delicious things to eat. Thank you to all the Advent Church ECW Group! As we munched away, Lisa and Giny shared feedback about their visit, and it was so lovely to hear how impressed and moved they had been by seeing so many wonderful women’s ministries in Taiwan, from praise dance to drumming to kindergartens, to senior care, to outreach to parents, to 3-day family outings, as well as faith building through Bible Studies and training, prayer groups, and many more.

And so to the end of the ECW visit, and on Monday, May 19, Bishop Chang and Hannah came to the hotel to say goodbye, and I went with Lisa, Ginny and Bruce to the airport. Exhausted they may be, but they were still smiling and laughing all their way to the airport! For Bruce, it’s his last official visit to Taiwan as he approaches retirement, so thank you, Bruce, for all your visits and help and support over the years. And for Lisa and Ginny, we look forward to more contact in the future. To them all, we really appreciate them all coming to Taiwan, and we hope you’ll all be back here before too long! Thank you, Lisa, Ginny and Bruce, and special thanks too to Bishop Chang, Hannah, Regina, all in the diocesan office, and our clergy and church members for making this visit so special! As the logo on my green ECW T-shirt says, ‘GO! ECW’. Yes, go go go!

Thanks be to God for his many blessings and for the wonderful ministry of ECW!