Rev. Carl Hunker, the former president of Taiwan Baptist Theological Seminary, retired missionary and veteran Chinese church pastor, died Thursday, Jan. 7, just weeks short of his 100th birthday. The seminary will hold the memorial service for Hunker on February 1.
Rev. Hunker served in China and Taiwan with the International Mission Board. After retiring from the IMB he taught a Chinese Sunday School class at Emmanuel Baptist Church, Overland Park. This eventually grew into Emmanuel Chinese Baptist Church where he served for many years.
Hunter was baptized at 12. Later he took the theological training and pursued his Ph.D in Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He married his wife Jeanette Roebuck in October, 1943 and after two years they came to China bringing their son.
Arriving in Shanghai, they went to Suzhou to begin their ministry, following the American Southern Baptist Mission. He was learning Chinese when teaching English there. Though hard for him to Chinese, two years later he could teach lessons in Suzhounese, a branch of Wu Chinese. Because of Chinese civil war, his whole family moved to Philippines via Shanghai in 1948.
In 1952, they came to Taiwan and lived there more than 20 years, where he called "home". He taught when doing the pastoral ministry in Taiwan and he was the second president of Taiwan Baptist Theological Seminary in 1964.
The story about Hunter and his parents moved many Chinese. Hearing the news that his parents had to move into the home for the aged when he was serving in Taiwan, he and his family returned to US and lived with them for half a year. When they left US for Taiwan, his father pushed his mother in wheelchair to say farewell by the window. He knew it might be the last time he could see his mother and hoped he could meet his father when he was dying while unexpectedly, his father passed away just one month after his mother's death.
In 1982, suffering from pancreatic cancer, Jeanette returned to US to seek treatment. After having received over twenty times of radiation treatment, she was asked by the doctor what was her greatest hope. She answered, "I want to go back to Taiwan, where my home is." Back in Taiwan, she continued to serve orphans and disabled children and rested in peace in 1983.
The same year Hunker returned to Kansas, US with Jeanette's bone ashes. Later he took an part in the foundation of the Emmanuel Chinese Baptist Church and served Chinese as senior pastor from the late 1980's until his passing.
Joyce Lynn Maslin, Hunter's daughter, says inside her father there was a Chinese heart. When they miss "home" (China), they eat Chinese dishes.
