5 Questions With...Elder Alan Fiol

Elder Alan Fiol

1. How did you first get involved with Friendship Presbyterian? Fifteen or so years ago, when my wife and I were serving at Christ's College in Guandu, we drove out to Friendship for worship.  It was a bit far to drive, so after about a year we switched to a closer church.  In 2011, when we moved to Taipei, we got back into FPC right away.  We're so blessed to be here!

2. What do you do when you're not working for the church? I teach music lessons and help my wife, who is a full-time Chinese teacher, on the home front with cooking and boring things like that.  Actually, not boring. For the most part, I enjoy it!  Also, when I'm not so busy with church work, I write music material for my teaching, as well as arrange and compose music.

3. What is something people might be surprised to know about you? Having grown up in the Himalayan mountains, I sometimes yearn for camping and hiking (even though I seldom actually get out in nature).  Maybe this is not such a "surprising" thing to hear, but I surprise myself sometimes when I remember this desire that is "sleeping" most of the time.

4. What do you find most challenging about being a Christian today? As a Christian parent, it is daunting navigating the pitfalls of modern society and knowing how to guide my children in this wide open and spiritually/intellectually void and confusing world.  For myself in my walk with Christ, I can too easily fall back to relying on myself rather than God.  I need constant reminding to go to the Lord in prayer and feast on His Word more, instead of depending on my ability to think my way through life.

5. What is your favorite book of the Bible? I guess it depends on what I'm reading at the moment.  I'm currently in Matthew, and am drawn by the beauty, truth, and strength of Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount.  Each time I come back to Romans, I feel like a thirsty man coming back to the bottomless well of life, limitless in its message of grace.  When I've been away from Genesis for a while, I begin feeling the pull back to this exciting beginnings-book of the Bible.

Coming and Going (and Joining)

At FPC, we are all about community groups. The essential work of the Church in the New Testament age in which we live is building up the house of God, the place where he makes his dwelling amongst his people. But whereas in the Old Testament the house of God was the tabernacle or the temple, in our time, it is us. Each believer is a “temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19). Each believer is a “living stone” to be used in building up God’s “spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5). “Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). This happens partly at our Sunday worship service, but even moreso in community groups, where we can know and love each other more personally.

But there is a particular challenge to community-group participation at FPC, and that is the transient nature of our congregation. Transience is a fairly typical feature of life in big cities the world over. People come to the city for education and internships, or to prove themselves in their field, or simply for a few years of excitement before “settling down” in the suburbs. Few of these pursuits lead to a long-term commitment to living in the city, to “putting down roots.”

This is by no means to look down on such choices. It is simply to point out that they can inhibit the impulse to commit to things like community groups, given the background knowledge that the faces in the group may be completely different in six months’ time.

The question that needs to be asked, though, is what is my criteria for commitment? How long does someone need to be around for me to commit to being at least partly involved in their life, and they in mine? Six months? Two years? Indefinitely? If I justify the withholding of myself due to transience, well, transience is based on time. So what is my time? At what point do I feel a person will be “there” long enough for me to commit to them?

Committing to a person or a group of people is never something to take lightly. As Christians, we seek to build our houses on rock, not sand. For the storms will come, taking people out of our lives whom we have cared for, and who may also care for us. It can just as easily happen without a storm, too, perhaps moreso. But if we are waiting for someone who can give us a lifetime guarantee of being forever “there” before we can invest in them even a little bit, we will find ourselves doing more waiting than investing.

And it is not just the Church that suffers:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

--C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

5 Questions With...Erika Ho

This month, we begin a new feature in the newsletter: “5 Questions With…”. This feature will offer brief profiles of FPC Elders, Deacons, staff, and, most importantly, members like you! So if you receive an e-mail from Director of Community Life Peter Brown with five questions for you, jump right in. We’re not looking for your deep, dark secrets—as sinners saved by grace, we already know the worst about each other! Just a few basic things that can serve as conversational appetizers.

Erika Ho

1. How did you first get involved with Friendship Presbyterian? I have a very good friend who has been living just around the corner near church. I had shared with her that I had been looking for an English-speaking church for a while but hadn’t been able to find one I felt could be my home church. She suggested Friendship since she would see many “white people” gathering at the entrance every Sunday! After attending the first few Sundays, an opportunity came up to participate in the 2015, “Waking up to Wonder” retreat. It was a great chance to know the church better and engage in community groups. I’ve been attending FPC regularly ever since.

2. What do you do when you're not working for the church? For the most part, I work in foreign market development for a company that manufactures industrial SSDs (Solid State Disks). If you’re interested in knowing what SSDs are, you can come find me for more details. I also spend a lot of time with my dog.

3. What is something people might be surprised to know about you? I get a lot of perplexed and confused looks when I tell people I grew up in Bolivia, mostly because they don’t know where Bolivia is, and it is not every day they meet someone from this country. If you’re interested in knowing more about Bolivia, you can also come find me. 

4. What do you find most challenging about being a Christian today? With the continuous growth and widespread use of gadgets, it is becoming increasingly difficult to disconnect and to get away from distractions. This poses a challenge for my growth as a Christian, as I can easily overlook what God is trying to communicate to me.

5. What is your favorite book of the Bible? It depends on the circumstances I’m in, but I often find encouragement in Philippians. Because it so simply and clearly reminds me of who I am and the reason why I push onward in the moments when I feel discouraged, overwhelmed, and lost in life. I am united with Christ and should take on his attitude (Phil. 2:5-7). And when it gets tough, I know that God will not give me more than I can handle (Phil. 4:13) because in everything He works for His good purpose (Phil. 2:13).