Thoughts of Interviewing Minister Huang

Lu,Yu-Suan

Counseling is a viewpoint which penetrates in school education and is one service in modern school system.  This service helps individual to be well-adapted, promotes development, and assists the school education.  (Lee Dong-Bai, 1987, page 10)  Currently, besides education purposes, counseling can also apply to leading prisoners to a righteous path. 

After Minister Huang came back from the US, he has been working on prison counseling.  He helped prisoners with religion to lead them on the right direction, so they would never be sent to jail again.  Minister Huang usually gives prisoners a Bible, teaches them Christianity and how to be good people. 

According to Minister Huang, he used to encounter difficulties while counseling prisoners.  Once, a prisoner did not accept his counsels and said to him, “Don’t counsel me. Counsel others.”  He begged Minister Huang to let him go.  However, Minister Huang replied with even temper, “The counseling police officer asked me to counsel you.  I didn’t just come by myself, and I can’t let you go.”  During the counseling process, Minister Huang told prisoners again and again the principles of being a good person and told them not to do anything wrong which our society and the law would not allow because of personal impulse. 

There is a saying, “Suffer from one’s own actions.”  Everyone needs to take the responsibility of the results from his or her own behaviors.  Minister Huang told us that think before doing anything if this is right or wrong.  Would anyone hurt because of your behavior?  If not, then you can do it. 

Someone has said this, “Who said that jails were the nests of the Devil?  As long as angels are there, the Devil would leave.”  If everyone can always care about and be compassionate to prisoners, they will be moved and change their wrong behaviors in the past. 

I think people should be taught not to do wrong things in their childhood.  There is a saying, “Never do evil things because they are little.  Never ignore doing good things because they are little.”  There is a Taiwanese saying, “Those who steal bowls in childhood will steal cows when they grow up.”  All these sayings are telling us being decent in behaviors when we are little.  When we make mistakes, we have to correct them immediately.  Never let wrong behaviors be our habits, if so, it will be very difficult to correct.  Therefore, Minister Huang established Youth Academy to take in delinquent juveniles to counsel them with love and care and lead them to the righteous.