Dear you all,
Hope this email will find you all doing well upon a tiring but wonderful visit to SJU last weekend. Though the note is coming late, my most sincere greeting to you all is sent via this message. Not only your presences were making SJU Anniversary so much different, but also your kind sharing to us all meant so much to me and the team. I personally & deeply appreciated the opportunity to meeting you all, for being able to witness your graceful and kind cultivation from St. John’s University in Shanghai. For the time being of serving on the position of International Exchange Section at SJU, the experience of spending the last weekend with you all was the most thrilling one I have had since I started taking the position 8 months ago. I thank you all so much for the kindness and generosity you shared us, and also gave me a window to see how prominent that a student could be possibly benefited from a good quality of education.
God has been so wonderful and merciful on SJU and me in the past two weeks. Before your arrivals, I barely knew much about SJUAA, not only the one in Taiwan, but also those overseas SJUAA members. On May 3rd, a fellowship interview was scheduled and given by the United Board, which the fellowship program was initiated and established by St. John’s University in Shanghai and other universities almost a century ago. Upon the completion of the interview, Dr. Abortez (the UB interviewer, from Hong Kong Chinese University) detailed us a lot of the great history of St. John’s University back in the early 20th century. On May 6th, an invited speech was given by Mr. Hu, Chi-Wei (胡志偉學長), a graduate of St. John’s High School, which it was exactly one day before meeting you all. On his informative speech, Mr. Hu was vividly describing most substantial details how SJU in Shanghai started in 1879, and closed in 1952. Those incidents helped me be able to envision the glorious legend of St. John’s University. One day later on May 7th, you all came into my eyes with such a graceful manner and the kindest smiles. To be honest with you all, I felt so much excited at the airport which I finally got the chance to witness elegant demeanors of all yours. The glory of St. John’s University in Shanghai is now not a past to me, but also a vivid example of an excellent quality of education at a prestigious university back in China and in the 1900s.
As myself having a great passion in education, I hope I could be able to comely describe how deeply I have been so much touched by you all. The memory of those 3 days we spent together was surely a great inspiration and encouragement to me. Now I have a stronger belief of a good education benefiting our future generations. The influence you got from St. John’s University is surely precious and priceless. I will try hard to pass on the spirit and impact to our next generations as serving on my college faculty position.
Though the assignment made us all very much tired, I must say it that I am the lucky one than most of my colleagues at SJU which I have the opportunities of meeting people and experiencing exciting events. To me, a great deal of learning from this assignment is surely hard to be verbalized and weighted.
God will keep His Great Promise to blessing SJU, and shall let the beautiful spirit of St. John’s pass on. A wish of having you all visit us again in a near future. Thank you again for your presences to make the 43rd SJU Anniversary so much memorable.
Sincerely yours,
Helena Yeh
ps. a CD with all the pictures taken during this 3-day event will be sent to you very soon. Also a DVD with the ceremony video-taping on May 8th is now under processing and will be made by one of SJU administrative units. We will send a copy to each one of you who attended the 43rd SJU Anniversary.