Missionary Journeys tells the story of my parents, missionaries in China, through the lens of their extensive China correspondence, in the 1930s and 40s. They were carrying out mission work in northeastern Hakka region of Guangdong, Kwangtung at the time, their lives threatened by Kuo Ming Tang army elements and by Japanese army detachments and airplane bombings.
After WW2, the Chinese communist victory forced my parents and us children to return to Europe where my father became a parish minister in a French-Alsatian suburb of Basel, Switzerland. Besides his traditional responsibilities, father focused on disadvantaged youth, migrants, and on reconciliation with German parish across the Rhine, while mother took over the upkeep of the church and presbytery. A call from the Chinese parish in Tahiti found father spending the last eleven months of his life organizing and providing guidance to the parish, leaving behind an abundant correspondence. To let my siblings and myself finish our studies, Mother managed in northern Alsace a center for adults with special needs before retiring and passing away in Bern-Mittelland, Switzerland.
Not enough has been written about this war period of the Basel Mission (Swiss Christian Missionary Society) missionaries in China. These Journeys fill a gap about the China episode, the Alsatian ministries, and the Tahiti Hakka theological conflict. Divinity students, students of theology, history, anthropology, social sciences, and those interested in mission work in the world and protestant missiology will gain an invigorating insight into missionary life.
About the Author
Gabriel GF Bach was born in 1945 in Meizhou, Guangdong, China, of Basel Mission (Swiss Christian Missionary Society) missionary parents. With the Chinese communist conquest of China, the family returned to Europe in 1947.
He grew up in Huningue, Alsace, a town bordering Switzerland and Germany. He was raised in a bicultural social environment and a pietist Moravian family atmosphere. After graduating with a law degree from the Université de Strasbourg, France, he studied political science at Tulane University in New Orleans.
Gabriel is a Professor Emeritus at the Dallas College in Texas where he published articles on local government, in professional journals. His master's thesis is "The Political Thought of Sun Yat Sen", and his doctoral dissertation is "Alsatian Mayors of the 'Coin Frontalier' ".
He has traveled internationally, and while spending a summer of studies in Cameroon, was the guest of a leper medical campus managed by the American Presbyterian Church.