From July 5th to 8th, all Chinese Christian Herald Crusade (CCHC) executives and directors gathered at San Francisco Airport Radisson Hotel to discuss the future developments of CCHC worldwide. This is the first ever international gathering of CCHC executives and directors for the exception of the annual meetings held in New York every November. CCHC General Director Rev. Pak-Cheung Lo, just returned to New York from his trip, said that he felt “very joyful” during the meeting, because the meeting has “something very precious, and also the prized possession of CCHC.” And that is “all the staff workers, executives, directors being joyful and enjoy fellowship during the meeting.”
CCHC directors from all over the world gathered at this meeting: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Toronto, Hong Kong, and China. Rev. Lo said, in their recent years of increasing developments, they reminded each other once again in the meeting the spirit of CCHC that cannot be forgetten: “To humble and make others successful, or in other words, allowing others to succeed.”
In the midst of the four-day conference, four important future goals were developed. Rev. Lo said, “Actually this is beyond our ability achieve, yet those who have attended were faithful, and are united as one to fulfill the goals. This is something very special. Normally when burdens come to us, we would feel difficult, yet what I saw was that they shared the plans joyfully with one another. That gave me optimism to what is ahead of us. In addition, more people are supporting CCHC worldwide, and have given us much encouragements.”
One of their four goals is to establish medical centers in all major cities of United States, in areas where Chinese are populated. “We saw that the greatest fear for new immigrants to United States is becoming sick.” Rev. Lo explained that because of language barriers and being uninsured, when they become sick, many unexpected situations appear; sickness has become new immigrant’s greatest fear. Therefore CCHC plans to establish medical centers which will provide low cost medical care and charge according to what is affordable for them: “What we are able to do is the provide help, and what we can’t are when they have cancer or contract major diseases, yet even in those situations, we will act as navigators and search for support and funds for them.
This plan will first take place in Los Angeles. Currently, the staff members in Los Angeles are negotiating a property valued at 2 million dollars to utilize for building medical centers. Coincidently, this property is next to CCHC center in Los Angeles. Rev. Lo said that their plan received support from many people, within 10 days after the decision was announced, 110,000 dollars were gathered. “Many people await [for the establishment of the medical center.] Many Christians, and churches await for this,” he said.
In New York, CCHC will begin training translators for the patients in their first step to serve the community.
CCHC will place patient care as the main topic for this year’s November gathering, with plans to expand the current care they provide to treat cancer and increase the care they give to the average patients.
The second goal is to establish 400 “Restaurant Gospel Stations” in the United States. With currently having only 1% of its goal, CCHC wishes to spread the gospel to 400 Chinese restaurants nationwide with its existing foundation.
Currently, “Restaurant Gospel Stations” have already begun its activities in San Francisco. CCHC encourages Christian restaurant owners to make their restaurants into “Gospel Stations,” and allow employees a chance to listen to the gospel during after hours. CCHC will manufacture a set of gospel handbooks for the “Restaurant Gospel Stations” to encourage every Christians employed in restaurants to “look at himself as an evangelist.”
Rev. Lo said that San Francisco’s “Restaurant Gospel Stations” is currently very successful, especially when its owner is a Christian, “Very successful, and from every corner of US, CCHC will also ‘work diligently from various locations in conjunction to achieve establishing 400 gospel stations.’”
The third goal is for CCHC to establish a global rescue network. “The first step is to establish a foundation.” Later CCHC will provide professional training for its staffs so that rescue teams may automatically respond according to the level of disaster.
Lastly, because CCHC ministry is growing larger, constant training for its staffs becomes essential. For example, techniques to visiting patients, edit newspapers, design posters, and etc. all requires professional training. Therefore, CCHC plans to establish training centers that will prepare for greater ministry works in the future.
“These four goals, we wish to fulfill them within the next five years,” said Rev. Lo. CCHC will also continue its worldwide director’s meeting in July on an annual basis.
