After the visit of Church of Pakistan in China, the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) has also sent in a six-person delegation to visit the church in Shaanxi, Xi'an Red Ribbon Association and the Shaanxi Bible School for a three day visit starting on May 21 to 23.
The UCA was founded in 1977 and included the Methodist Church of Australasia, the Presbyterian Church of Australia and the Congregational Union of Australia, allowing UCA to become an international church organization and the largest social service institution in Australia. The UCA currently has 20,000 members with experties in elderly care, medical care, nursing and youth care.
The UCA delegation included President Stuart McMillan, who is visiting the country for the first time under the invitation of the CCC&TSPM since McMillan took office in 2015. It is the hope of both McMillan and UCA that the three-day visit would assist in building cooperation in social service, theological education and Christian adaptation to society in both Australia and China. President McMillan also recalled that UCA has several friendly visits in China and vice versa since Bishop K.H. Ting visited UCA in 1984.
The Australian delegation has also visited churches in Jiangsu, Henan, Shanghai, Anhui and seminaries like Nanjing Union Theological Seminary and the Zhenjiang Theological Seminary. In China's end, the elderly care ministries of CCC&TSPM, the respective churches of Shaanxi, Henan, Jiangsu and Shanghai, plus the East China Theological College and the Zhejiang Theological Seminary also sent their delegates in Australia.
