Island of influence

TAIPEI, Taiwan—Under the watchful gaze of Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the Republic of China, and four red, white, and blue Taiwan flags, government workers met in a conference room in the Executive Yuan building on a Tuesday afternoon to learn English through singing songs, praying, and reading Scripture.

The topic is family, and about 40 workers with government badges around their necks read through the story of Solomon and the two babies. As Amanda Law, a New Zealand teacher from Overseas Radio and Television (ORTV), explains that God provided families for humans to grow and experience His love, a middle-aged man asks in stilted English: “How do you prevent conflicts in families?”

It’s only by the incredible influence of 88-year-old ORTV founder Doris Brougham that an openly Christian organization can hold a Bible study in the same room where the executive branch of Taiwan’s government meets to hammer out deals. Nearly everyone in Taiwan has heard of Brougham, or Peng Meng-hui, as she’s taught English to everyone from public school children to government officials in the past 64 years. Yet the Seattle native never planned on coming to Taiwan, only arriving on the island after the Chinese civil war forced her out of China. She started the country’s first Christian radio program and TV show, receiving Taiwan’s highest civilian award—the Order of the Brilliant Star with Violet Grand Cordon. She’s even ministered to headhunters.

The fiery, white-haired Brougham can still be found breezily playing the trumpet during ORTV’s morning chapel or hugging Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou. During Chinese New Year, Brougham and ORTV’s gospel group Heavenly Melody performed at a gala hosted by Cher Wang, the owner of the cell phone company HTC.

On Brougham’s desk sits an orange and a note sent from Vice President Wu Den-yih, whose wife, Tsai Ling-yi, regularly comes for English lessons. Tsai is a Buddhist, and Brougham greets her with a big hug and jokingly asks, “Did you believe in Jesus yet?”

Around her office are signs of more humble beginnings: Photos tacked onto a corkboard show the smiling faces of aboriginals in the mountains of Hualien, Taiwan, whom she lived among, learning the language and sharing the gospel. In that first year, Brougham realized “that in order to reach people, you had to do something to get their attention. You have to connect, not just communicate.” So she decided to start a Christian radio program, an idea ridiculed by others at a time when Buddhists made up 99 percent of Taiwan’s population.

Yet the program was approved, and her show—which featured preaching and music—reached a diverse audience: “I would go around on the bike while the program was on, and people on the streets were listening [as well as] everyone in the temples.” She remembers one time a Buddhist nun called her over and secretly asked her where she could find a Bible.

At the time the United States provided the Nationalist government in Taiwan with financial aid, helping industrialize the agriculture-based island. With the increasing need to communicate with Americans, Gen. Chiang Kai-shek asked Brougham to teach English to his cabinet. She remembers biking down to the government offices to teach officials and recording the lessons for the radio. Listeners at home subscribed to the Studio Classroom magazine, which included transcripts of the radio program.

In the 1960s a new device, the television set, appeared on the island, and Brougham wanted to start a Christian TV show. There was only one channel, and TV producers had one slot for religious programming. Although she had to compete against better-funded Buddhists and Catholics, the producers chose Brougham’s show because of its musical content.

With televisions in short supply, people would gather wherever one was available. Crowding around the glowing screens in a temple full of incense smoke, they’d watch choirs singing “How Great Thou Art,” children playing in orchestras, and pastors preaching sermons. “How often can you preach in a Buddhist temple?” Brougham said. “God had a plan for that to happen.”

Brougham’s ministry grew to an English TV program, live English shows, Bible studies, evangelistic events, and concerts by Heavenly Melody. Soon Studio Classroom was taught in many of the public schools, and schools invited ORTV teachers to visit schools and even at times encouraged them to share their testimonies.

“The main thing is that a person doesn’t know what they’re going to do, but God knows,” Brougham said, glancing around at the bustling ORTV office building. “I never thought I was going to do all this.”

Today Christians make up about 10 percent of the population of Taipei, with church crosses etched into the city’s skyline. Foreigners teach English at cram schools, and other English TV programs offer competition for ORTV. As the needs and technology change, Brougham has learned to adapt to keep connecting with young people in order to tell them about Jesus. Today, Studio Classroom teachers film in front of a blue screen that the visual effects team superimposes with a spaceship-like news studio. Magazine articles include QR codes so readers can find extra online content.

Brougham still travels across the world with Heavenly Melody and runs the day-to-day operations at ORTV. Earlier this year she performed the trumpet in front of a crowd of 45,000 for a World Vision event in Kaohsiung. As for when she’ll take a step back from her work: “We’re retiring in heaven.”