Introduction:

Asia is home to about 60% of the world’s young people. At St. Therese Church they seem to be an INVISIBLE reality.

Convention:

During the three days we spent at Mundelein (May 24th-27th 2007) Chinese Youth were very active, visible, and joyful. With their songs, suggestions, and participation into our discussions, they became the focus of the whole Convention and its propelling engine.

Thematic talks, sharing in groups and testimonies dealt with different areas of faith and experience to help us to get an insight into how Chinese Youth could become signs of hope of joy to their peers and in the Church.

The main idea which run through these days was: young people can, and must, play an important role in family-society-church here in North America.

The celebration of the Eucharist reminded us of the importance of living the ”Paschal mystery”  daily to become the evangelical yeast in our faith-communities.

Insights:

* Family is a sanctuary of life. Chinese parents make a lot of sacrifices to provide for their children’s welfare and education, perceived as a gate-way to success in life.

* Families hold a very important place in Asian cultures. Family values like filial respect, love and care for the aged, the weak, love for children and harmony are held in high esteem in all Asian cultures and religious traditions.

* In urban areas, families do not seem to have prime-time to spend together, to communicate and to care for each other today.

* Forgetting the presence of God in their lives, youth can experience much loneliness and hopelessness during family crises.

* A family must be united in their relationships and rooted in prayer.

* The factor that most differentiates one Chinese American youth from another is the youth’s parents.  The children of the parents who came to the US on a student visa to study will significantly differ from the children of the undocumented worker and live in an inner city ghetto.

* The more affluent leave for the suburbs with their oversized houses, large green lawns and academy-like public schools, the poor are left behind in the cities. 

Chinese American urban Youth are a diverse mix of cultural influences, and could be divided into three main groups:

1. Those heavily influenced by urban styles and urban problems.  They tend to underachieve in school, to spend a lot of time outside of their homes and without parental supervision.  Some of them are members of gangs.  Risks for these teens include: drugs, violence, sexual experimentation and Under-achievement.  Most urban Chinese teens are influenced by this type of social example, even if they do not completely ascribe to this style.
   
   
2. Those who are recent immigrants or whose families retain a very Chinese style of life.  These Youth prefer to speak Chinese. They often have to work hard to support their parents’ business. They are significantly at risk for academic underachievement, especially if they never master the English language.  These Youth project a certain “foreignness” about themselves.
   
   
3. They are influenced by hip-hop and by Chinese culture, but they are free enough to dialogue critically with these cultures out of a healthy sense of self.

* Urban Chinese Catholic youth ministry must reach all three groups of Youth and it seems very much unlikely that these three groups of Youth can be served by the same programs.  The very urban kids may be seen as bad influences and unwholesome by the other Youth and most especially by their parents.

* There are two basic types of Chinese Catholic youth ministry models available: 

1. It starts in the church with Catholic children of church members.  While occasionally some Catholic Youth may get their non-Catholic friends involved, the youth ministry is primarily a service offered for Catholic families.  It is a catechetical ministry , that is meant to offer faith formation for Catholics   

2. It begins with the neighborhood and its predominant target is non-Catholics.  Catholics Youth may even feel odd or unusual in this group.  Here we tend to  serve poor inner city Youth without regard to whether or not they are likely to convert. 

Challenges:

* We learned, and it was repeated to us in many different ways, that:

• “Youth do not care about ‘how much you know’ but they know how much you care”.
• “Rules without relationship lead to rebellion”: Christianity is not a set of rules, but a liberating and personal encounter with Christ.
• A Parish without youth does not have a future. Most pitifully, it doesn’t have a present either, since it is spiritually dead: there is no fire! No Joy! No enthusiasm and therefore no Holy Spirit!
• “For the Youth, by the Youth” is the Golden rule to follow.

* To empower and encourage the Youth in the life of the Church.

* To network with other Chinese Youth Groups present in North America.

* To exchange resources and man-power.

* To establish a Youth-group where none is existing.

* Leaders can be chosen among College students and start working with upper-graders in the elementary schools.

* Music is of vital importance in the Youth ministry. Songs at times can become Catechesis.

* Leaders should be provided with the necessary skills: “camps” are essential.

* To cultivate the practice of family members spending quality time talking, listening to each other and in prayer.

* To make our faith-community a big, extended family that becomes a sanctuary of love, life and communion, where every member feels accepted, cared for and appreciated.

* Asian families are called to witness to the Good News of Jesus in difficult times and circumstances, when the family itself is threatened by an array of evil forces.

* With the power of faith and prayer, Asian youth have to rediscover their place and role in the family and society.

Some Recommendations:

We urge the elders of the Church:

• To help and support our young people in their faith journey and prayer life.
• Conduct echo programmes on the theme of “Youth, hope and joy of the church”.
• To develop youth friendly parishes.
• To use the internet effectively to provide assistance and guidance to young people who look for ‘answers’ while surfing the net.

Conclusion:

* We believe that there are seeds of faith and joy in Asian youth. If this faith is nurtured well, they can truly be the hope and joy of our Chinese Community of faith.

* Participants of the Convention were inspired and fired with zeal and determination to take up the challenge of becoming ‘hope and joy givers’. Even though our society struggles with a culture of death we see great possibilities for our youth to become a source of hope and joy to help uplift their church.

* We commend our Chinese Youth in Asia to Mary our Mother, and pray that she be their refuge in times of trial.

* We sincerely thank Card. Joseph Zen, Card. Francis George, Bishop Gustavo, Teri Nuval from the Ethnic Ministry Office, the whole of the Archdiocese of Chicago for assisting St. Therese Chinese Church with the organizing and animating of this event. Our gratitude goes to the key-note speakers: Fr. Tom Betz, Benjamin T. OuYang, Ph.D and his family, and to Sr. Maria Koh: their contribution was an eye-opener to many of us.

* I’d like to mention the steering Committee: they were the back-bone, and the very reason for the success of the Convention. They have to be commended for efficiently attending to the day to day smooth running of all the programs.

* God’s Holy Spirit, which we have been praying to for two years now, was visible and powerfully working during these days. The same Spirit will empower us with the necessary strength to carry out, and implement what we decided together. We have now to keep the fire alive!

* We shall have two important appointments which I’d like to recommend to your attention:

• Thu. June 7th NACCRLA Meeting at 7:00pm
• Wed. June 13th Parish Council meeting at 7:00pm

During these meetings we shall evaluate the Convention, its recco and start planning for the new pastoral Year 2007-08. Your presence is essential.

* Last, but not least, we pray that God bless the enthusiastic young people who volunteered to help with the organization by sacrificing their time, and offering their talents and skills for arranging the programs.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Analyze the profile of our Chinese Catholic apostolate?  Are the participants from Taiwan or Hong Kong? Educated? Restaurant-workers? Legal/illegal?  How would you define the style of our ministry: urban or suburban?

2. What does your Chinese apostolate do to evangelize and serve Chinese who do not fit with the predominant group in the church?

3. Could we at St. Therese have a ministry which reaches new poor immigrants?

4. Do you have a ministry which reaches English speaking families, born in the US, whose members came to the US many years ago?

5. What do you do for youth?  Are the youth affected by our church’s ministry? Are they primarily children of church members or are they from non-Christian families?

6. Do we see diversity among the youth—English or Chinese speaking, etc?  And if so, are you meeting Chinese youth of various subgroups?