Integration in China

The School of Psychology at Fuller has organized fourteen trips to China over the past six years, and has developed a relationship with Chinese seminaries, psychological institutes, Universities and is currently working on partnering with programs in China to begin an Marriage and Family program there. Fuller students, alumnus/ae, and faculty have traveled to China to teach courses and give lectures at different seminaries and schools of psychology as well. 

Partnering with institutes in China has opened up exciting opportunities to study how therapy and counseling differ within the East Asian context as well as support the growing church in China in the critical areas of pastoral counseling. 

China trip report September 2009

Day 1

We arrived in Chengdu yesterday to unbearable heat and oppressive humidity. The three star hotel overlooks a rather muddy river and the urban expanse. We are a motley group of faculty and graduates of Fuller Theological Seminary. Ron Hammer teaches pastoral counseling there and Esther Liu is a doctoral candidate in pastoral theology. Nathan Chau is an M.Div graduate living in Hong Kong and Justin Yu is a Fuller MFT graduate. Elizabeth Chang, the wife of a pastor and recent SOP clinical psychology graduate, has been on our trips to China many times. Amy Arnold has been hospital chaplain for ten years. Charles Svendsen, a career interim pastor, will arrive in a week....(continue reading here)   

China trip report April 2009
Nestorians brought Christianity to China in the 7^th century. It was our privilege thirteen centuries later to meet believers in vibrant Christian communities, students in seminaries engaged in fervent study of the Bible, and pastors in congregations who make incredible sacrifices for their congregants. Truly, the Western church has much to learn from these Chinese Christians. In the picture below, Pastor Gu (on the right) left her seminary training to help a church in the earthquake devastated city of Mianzhu.

After 13 trips to China in the last six years, this was clearly the most complicated so far. We traveled to five cities with a team of 14 people and gave more than forty presentations. We almost missed one flight and usually spent two hours a day in a van commuting to seminaries. We met together regularly before leaving for China, giving each other feedback on presentations. We translated all presentations into Chinese and had simultaneous translation for many presentations. We were ready. But in the end the success of the trip lay in the people we met and grew to love..... (continue reading here) 

On one of the visits at a Chinese Seminary the Fuller team was introduced to a businessman who took the team to see his recovery center for deaf children. In the picture above, the children are fascinated with Dr. Al Dueck's beard.