Most of you know that my parents, Ernie and Barbara Boehr Sr., were sent out by Lake Avenue Church as missionaries to Taiwan in 1952. During their 35 years in Taiwan, they worked with the Hakka speaking Chinese to prepare the soil and sow the seed for a spiritual harvest which they never saw before they retired in 1989. Ernie Boehr Sr. was a pioneer in the area of contextualizing the Gospel and believed that the Hakka could be reached if they could be shown that they could be fully Hakka as well as fully Christian. Although today it is widely accepted that God speaks all languages and loves all cultures, at the time, my Dad met great opposition to these ideas. He was told by his mission board that the Hakka people were too resistant to the Gospel so he really shouldn't bother learning their language and evangelizing them. Nevertheless, he persevered and was able to find someone who was willing to teach him the language. Our family moved to the Hakka town of Miaoli and Dad worked on developing culturally acceptable ways to communicate the Gospel to the Hakka, including music, pamphlets, wall charts, family history records, radio shows, etc. The response was polite refusal of the Gospel.
Throughout the years, I always admired my Dad for never expressing discouragement or frustration over what seemed like a complete lack of fruit from his labors. He was faithful to God and confident that he had laid the groundwork for the Gospel to reach the Hakka just as God had called him to do.
Fast forward 34 years . . . At Green Oak Ranch this year, Don and I met Alex and LiChee Chan and were thrilled to find out that they were both Hakka Christians. In fact, LiChee was born
in the same Mennonite Christian Hospital where I was born and raised in Miaoli where I grew up. I arranged for them to come meet Ernie Boehr Sr., and I was a witness to a beautiful testimony of God's harvest that is now happening among the Hakka People. When my Dad left Taiwan in 1989, he knew of only three Hakka Christians, yet we found out that Alex Chan accepted the Lord in 1989 as a teenager and has since led most of his family to the Lord. His brother is a Hakka pastor, and there are currently many Hakka churches. They are even starting a seminary to train Hakka pastors in Miaoli. As the Chans spoke to my Dad in Hakka and Mandarin and English, they were amazed by his understanding although he had some difficulty forming the Hakka words (he turns 99 years old on August 4). They were ecstatic to get copies of Dad's posters and booklets and to see the Gospel in Hakka all over the walls of his home. Alex Chan is eager to send the materials back to his brother in Taiwan and looks forward to visiting Dad again. Although much of Dad's work may not be in active circulation, clearly the soil was prepared, and the seed was planted, and now the harvest is plentiful. Praise God!
Ernie Boehr, Sr. has four adult children: Ernie Boehr, Jr., Carol Wallace, Nancy Smith, and Cindy Simkovich.