Tainan resident Ruth Brown and her husband Lin Cheng-hui (
The 488-ping (1,613m2) parcel of land alone is valued at an estimated NT$100 million.
Samaritans
PHOTO: HUANG WEN-HUANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Over the years, Brown, 88, and her husband have donated land worth more than NT$400 million in the Tainan area to build churches and daycare centers. The new service center for the elderly caps off Brown's 57 years of service to the people of Tainan.
In 1944, 25-year-old Ruth Brown, a trained nurse, became a missionary and left her home in Texas for China to work with people suffering from Hansen's disease, also known as leprosy.
Six years later, she was expelled from the officially atheist new China and came to Taiwan.
Hansen's disease was so feared in Taiwan at the time that medical professionals who worked with patients suffering from the disease were often ostracized.
Huang Te-cheng (黃德成), executive director of the Tainan YMCA Social Welfare Foundation, said that families with members suffering from Hansen's disease were ashamed and would not let them leave home. Brown often had to go to patients' homes to persuade their relatives to let them be treated.
In 1950, Brown opened the first home for Hansen's disease sufferers from Yunlin, Chiayi, and Tainan counties.
Fear and ignorance
Fear and ignorance forced Brown to locate the home on the outskirts of Tainan City, in an area then largely given over to fish ponds.
Frightened by Brown's disfigured patients, local residents referred to the home as "the filthy hospital."
Brown's response was to move into the home and live with the patients.
Her courage and dedication attracted the attention of local landowner Lin, who eventually married the nurse from Texas.
After their marriage, Lin built the Linan Presbyterian Church on land that he donated.
He also supported Brown's work at the home for Hansen's disease patients until 1975, when the last patients were transferred to a specialized dermatology clinic at the new Sin Lau Hospital in Madou.
Brown also ran a center for victims of childhood polio, a serious health problem in Taiwan until the early 1970s.
With construction on the new service center at their old home about to begin, Brown and her husband have moved to a modest apartment in a nearby high rise.
Over the last six decades, Tainan's health care needs have changed as Taiwan has developed from a poor agricultural country into an aging post-industrial society.
What has not changed is Brown and Lin's generosity in serving those needs, Huang said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique