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Dear Partners in the Gospel,
Thank you for your continued support. The road back to Papua New Guinea remains closed due a significant increase in Covid cases there and the resulting increase in travel restrictions. Pastor Charles Ferry, LCMS Asia Regional Director, therefore asked me to come to Taiwan to offer some workshops on worship and music. After much difficulty we were able to secure a 90 visa. I arrived in Taiwan on April 12 and am scheduled to return on June 30. After two weeks of quarantine I began working with the Barbara Rebentisch (pictured above) and the Taiwan team to prepare for the workshops. The plan originally was to travel the country offering them. However, then Taiwan was beset with a significant increase in Covid cases and for the first time since the pandemic began they went to Level 3 (out of 4) which restricted our ability to travel in country. We therefore are offering the workshops via Zoom.
Before I came I offered a list of six possible workshops and some lecture/demonstration recitals. It turns out the China Evangelical Lutheran Church (CELC) wants wants me to present almost all of them, so I have been extremely busy getting them all prepared and finalized. What makes it particularly difficult is the language. Since Chinese is a tonal language, if a word is said with the wrong tone or wrong emphasis, it becomes a completely different word or can render a phrase meaningless. So the preparations have to be more meticulous then they otherwise would be so that the translator can be fully prepared.
We have held two workshops so far. The first was held on Saturday, May 22 on hymnody and proclaiming God’s mercy and grace through song. In it we talked about and sang 13 hymns from the new Chinese Lutheran Service Book that was published just two years ago. Our singers were Pastor Alex Wu and his wife Ruth. He is the pastor of Salvation Lutheran Church here in Chiayi. 64 people tuned into that broadcast. Last Saturday the title of the workshop was “The Eternal Song: The Songs and Music of the Bible.” For this one we had 150 viewers. They had so many viewers they had to livestream it to YouTube since there was a limit to the number of viewers allowed on the Zoom. Some fruitful discussion has come out of both workshops.
June will be incredibly busy. Our schedule is as follows:
- Saturday, June 5, 9:30-11:30 am - Handel’s Messiah: Biblical, Christological, Eschatological
- Sunday, June 6, 3:00-5:00 pm - An Overview of the Book of Psalms: Understanding the Songs Jesus Sang
- Saturday, June 12, 9:30-11:30 am - Lecture/Demonstration Recital: The Story of Anna Magdalena Bach, Faithful Wife and Mother
- Sunday, June 13, 3:00-5:00 - Singing the Music of the Angels: The Great Hymns of Christmas and Easter
- Saturday, June 19, 9:30-11:30 am - Lecture/Demonstration Recital: Proclaiming the Good News with the Great Lutheran Composers
- Sunday, June 20, 3:00-5:00 pm - The Tabernacle: Jesus is Our High Priest
- Saturday, June 26, 9:30-11:30 pm - Workshop for Church Pianists in Tainan
- Sunday, June 27, 3:00-5:00 pm - Zoom Broadcast of Piano Workshop for Church Pianists
So as you can see June will be pretty crazy. I am also providing music for the worship services at the LCMS Asia Regional Headquarters and working daily with the children so they can provide musical offerings for these worship services. Please keep us and all these activities in your prayers. We pray that God will richly bless them.
If you are interested in having any of these workshops or recitals presented at your church or school, please contact me. I would love to set something up and share them with you.
In addition I am finishing up six publication projects for the Papua New Guinea church. The Lutheran Heritage Foundation is having these publication typeset, so every now and then I get a file from them that has to proofread. Very soon they will all be printed and sent to PNG.
May God richly bless all of you in the various vocations He has given you.
Your servant in Christ,
Martin Dicke
martin.dicke@lcms.org
Musical Specialist
LCMS Asia Region
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