The Beginning of the Gospel: (1945-1950)
In 1947, Pastor Chen was a Han-tribe. By working for the government, she was sent to 信義county, 仁愛county in Nantou, and also 和平county in Taichung to propagandize the policy. With this opportunity, she started to spread the gospel to the villagers.
- Pastor Lo（羅文福）on March 15th, 1947
In the same year (1947) on March 15
th, Pastor Lo, while he served at the 埔里PCT, he brought the church’s members to 過坑, which now is 卡度 village to spread the gospel. During that period, 愛蘭 PCT also had been there to do medical-mission trip. By doing this, they started to share the gospel to the villagers.
In 1948, Elder Lin from 水里 PCT started to deliver the gospel to the villages of 地利, 雙龍, 人和, and 潭南. Praise be to God, in each one of these villages have their own churches now.
- Missionary Lillian R. Dickson（孫理蓮）in 1950
Missionary Lillian Dickson, she was originally from Minnesota. In 1950, She brought 3 of her Han-tribe disciples to 地利 village to deliver the gospel to the villagers through the Hymnal Evangelical Service.
- Pastor Hu（胡文池）on September, 1950
The same year 1950, Pastor Hu sent 張旺 and 田光明 from Eastern Taiwan to Nantou. As they were also Bunun, so whatever they said, people from villages would accept easily; wherever they went, people from villages would show their hospitalities and kindness to them.
The Beginning of the Church: (1950-1954)
- Pastor Hu sent the disciples on September, 1950
On September 1950, Pastor Hu sent 張旺 and 劉傳 to Nantou again. After 2 month, he sent other disciples 施景旗 and 黃順利 to 明德 village. Because of their talents for performance, people from village were overwhelmed by the happiness of the gospel. So that, people believed in Jesus in a very short time.
Because of the gospel effect at this period, people from the locals such as elder 司光明, Pastor 全日昇, Pastor 伍良茂, and Pastor 田文統 started responding the calling from God to deliver the salvation and gospel of Jesus Christ to the villages around theirs. And yet, they also received the calling of establishing the churches from God.
- Bible Study Conference in 1951
More and more people believed in Jesus Christ, more and more important the Bible shall be taught to the believers. So in 1951, Pastor Hu（胡文池）and Pastor Ro（駱先春）realized how important biblical foundation was, so they held a bible study conference in 水里PCT for 6 days in order to train them to walk and live according to the word of God.
- On Jan., local churches started and established in 信義, 豐丘, 新鄉, 羅娜, 久美, 望鄉, and 東埔.
- On Feb., local churches continuously started and established in 人倫, 雙龍, 青雲, 潭南, 過坑, and 武界.
The Process of Bunun Presbytery: (1954 till now)
- Regional Presbytery was established in August of 1954
In the wake of the churches established in the Bunun villages, people realized that we needed to have a comprehensive system to take care of these churches. To concern with the church’s needs, Taichung Presbytery was established the regional presbytery under the system of PCT, in order to take care of the aboriginal churches in 仁愛county and 信義county and also Taichung 大里county.
- Bunun Regional Presbytery was founded in April of 1959
After 5 years since the regional presbytery was established by Taichung PCT, churches in Bunun villages were separated from Taichung PCT and founded their own Presbytery in 信義 church on April, 1959. But once we separated from Taichung PCT, we were aware of running the Presbytery was a very difficult job. So, in the year of 1974, Bunun PCT re-joined to Taichung PCT to learn how to units the churches and how to operate and manage the system, ministries, and administrations.
- Central-Bunun Presbytery was founded in February of 1994
After several years from 1974, Bunun PCT had gone through many difficulties and yet finally in February of 1994, Central-Bunun PCT was established.
- Churches of nowadays in Central-Bunun PCT
After 25 years, now Central-Bunun PCT has extremely changed and expanded because of the grace of God. Now we have 25 churches spread out in Nantou, Taichung, and Yunlin. And also, we have totally 50 pastors. 7 of them are retired, 3 of them are missionaries overseas in Malaysia and Japan.
Ministries and visions:
Since the gospel had delivered to Bunun villages in Nantou 50 years ago, church has been expanded from 1 church to 25 churches, from 1 village to over 25 villages. But we deeply know that the gospel shall spread to all the places not just only in the villages. So, in our sincere prayers, we hope that we can plant a whole new church in the city. Now we already have started some churches in the cities such as 水里 county, 埔里county, 南投county, 台中大里county, and 雲林麥寮county. But in the future, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we will plant more churches in order to glorified the name of God.
As we know, we have more than 40 pastors in our presbytery, but we only have 25 churches are available for them. So, we hope churches which are stronger in finances will open for at least 2 pastors as a team to work together and to lead the church in developing the ministry by their own talents and gifts.
In the past, because the missionary delivered the gospel to our villages, so we could accept this salvation and believe in Jesus Christ our Lord. Now it is our time to bring the gospel to the nations. So far, we have started 3 different mission-fields ministries, which are Aynu-tribe in Hokkaido, Akha-tribe in Thailand, and Iban-tribe in Malaysia. We hope we can manage a mission trip to these places and hopefully by doing this we can light up someone’s heart and burden for the mission and then they can respond and fulfill the calling from God.
- Bunun Bible Translation and edition
After more than 50 years since we accepted the gospel, Bunun-tribe hasn’t finished their own bible translation yet. It is quite complicated because there are 5 branches in Bunun-tribe, and each branch has their own languages. So, it is hard to decide which sentence or languages we shall put into the bible phrases. Thanks, God, for His power and grace, as I know for now, it is in the final process and soon will be published. So, we still need your prayers for this work.
This is a very brief introduction about our ministries and history. We hope you guys enjoy the presentation.Thank you for caring about us and may God bless you all.