TSAI HSING SCHOOL CATHOLIC TEACHERS - Helen Chang, one of our parishioners, is principal of the best known private school here in Taiwan. The school goes from a very flourishing kindergarten to senior high school. They are very strict in every way with their students and the results are evident in the large number of graduates who make it to the universities. Helen is a daily communicant here in our church and has introduced many of her teachers and staff for religious instructions with me. Over the years, I have instructed many of them in our Catholic faith and baptized them. In their school, Helen has organized the Catholic teachers in a group called "Forget Myself Society". They meet once a month for discussion of a religious subject and then they have an opportunity to make their confession, which is followed by Mass in their school chapel. The school is not a Catholic school and is owned by Helen Chang, but there are many statues and holy pictures, especially in her office and throughout the school - more than in some of the Catholic schools. She frequently invites me to lead them in their monthly meeting.

TRAGEDY IN THE FAMILY OF OUR SUNDAY SCHOOL DIRECTRESS - We have a retired public school teacher directing our Sunday School these past three years. She is an excellent Catholic, very devoted and does a wonderful job in the organization and directing of our Sunday School, which now has about 100 students with some 14 volunteer teachers. Our directress is a volunteer, too, and devotes much time to her work, coming in almost everyday. She has composed a special catechism for our children and trains our teachers. She has a grown daughter and son. About one month ago, her son was driving to work about six in the morning when he hit a 60 year old man riding on a motorcycle and the man was killed almost instantly. This man on the motorcycle had gone through a red light and was not wearing his safety helmet, which is required by the law. There was no witness to the accident except the driver of the car. He called the police and had the man taken to the hospital, but he was already dead. The family of this old man places all the blame on the driver, even though the blame should be on the old man, but there is no other witness but the driver himself. The insurance company gave the man's family NT$2,000,000 (about US $40,000) and now the family is demanding the same amount from the driver's family. Mary Gioretti Lu, our directress and her family are not able to come up with such a large sum of money, which would be the equivalent of about two years of her husband's salary. Their son is psychologically and spiritually upset over the death of the old man, but he is gradually recovering. It is a heavy cross for Mary Gioretti's family. Keep them in your prayers.

OUR YOGURT FAMILY NEEDS PRAYERS -One of our parish families, husband and wife and two teen-age daughters, make yogurt to support themselves. We allow them to sell it after our Sunday 9:00 a.m. Mass here, in packs of six. The docs recommended that I take yogurt daily for my low calcium, so I buy one pack myself each Sunday, though they wish to give it to me. Recently, the husband father, a Catholic, left his family for another woman, so his wife and children are in a pitiful situation. Please join us in praying for reconciliation for them.

February 16th will be our Chinese New Year, so I wish all of you and your families a very happy and prosperous YEAR of the RABBIT and may God bless and keep you all close to Himself and to one another. You are daily in my prayers. Keep me in yours.