He Gives Songs in the Night ―Church Participation and Life Adjustment of New Female Immigrants in Taiwan

• Main Authors: CHEN,YU-TZU, 陳玉慈
• Other Authors: KUN,I-CHUN
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/c4dnqp

碩士 === 國立暨南國際大學 === 東南亞學系 === 107 === We have studied seven new female immigrants in several churches. They have been struggling with depression, suicide, gambling and domestic violences in their lives for very long time. They felt their lives extremely lonely then, just like an endless night. However, with the light from the faith of their religion, they not only leave away the deep valleys, but also begin to help others. Through participant-observance and in-depth interview, we tried to present the outline to the participant–in-church and adaption-in-life for these new residences who commit themselves in their churches and the connection between these two factors under the environment of the folk religion in Taiwan. In addition, in order to present more complete outline of adaption-in-life and participant-in-church for new female immigrants, we visited two churches which have served new immigrants as well. In the conclusion of our research, we found that these interviewed new immigrant fellow sisters got caring to their feeling, practical assistance to lives and instruction on the faith from the “welfare” of churches. Through the caring from the “welfare (福利)”of churches, they started to know “gospel (福音)”, and their value has been alternated after knowing more about the “gospel (福音)”. Their thoughts on money, personal requirements and even the meaning to their lives have been changed, and they began to confront the issues for the life adaption with different views of point, then commit themselves in the churches. At the same time, to know more about God by the “gospel”, it gave them strength to face the stress from their mother-in-law due to the folk religion. They not only can keep the faith under such stress, but also influence their families in turn. The essential element to the virtuous cycle between the participant-in- church and adaption-in-life for our interviewees is about their faith and the relation between God and them. For the two churches we visited, although the characteristics for the preachers and the environment of the churches are so different that they presented different works about “welfare-gosple (雙福)”. But the concept behind these works is very close. The “welfare”and “gospel”is the other side of the coin to each other. The “welfare”is the appearance, the “gosple”is the heart. This point of view corresponds to the conclusion that the essential factor for the adaption-in-life among previous cited new immigrant fellow sisters is their faith.