According to Taiwan's Overseas Radio and Television (ORTV), American missionary Dr. Doris Brougham, who was also known as Peng Meng-hui, died on August 6 at the age of 98 at MacKay Memorial Hospital in Tamsui, Taiwan, from multiple organ failure due to old age.
Brougham had served in Taiwan for 73 years. She founded the Heavenly Melody Singers, which is popular among Chinese Christians, as well as the Overseas Radio and Television organization and the English language teaching radio program Studio Classroom, both of which have had a significant impact on the Taiwanese people.
To honor Brougham, ORTV will hold the Doris Brougham Memorial Concert on September 20 in the Large Hall of the Taipei International Convention Center.
Dr. Simon Hung, chairman of ORTV, sighed with emotion as he said that after all these years of service in China, Brougham could finally reunite with her parents, with whom she parted on the Seattle pier 76 years ago. She had fulfilled her lifelong commitment to the Christian faith. Brougham was the most dedicated English teacher, and she had always been an unwavering missionary who never looked back.
Brougham was born in 1926 in Seattle, USA. At the age of 12, she decided to preach the Gospel in China. In 1948, Brougham, who was only 22 at the time, arrived in Shanghai, and in 1951 she went to Taiwan, where she began her ministry to the Taiwanese aborigines in Hualien.
In 1960, Brougham founded ORTV in Taipei, and in 1962, ORTV's English-language educational radio program Studio Classroom was launched. Through educational television programs and magazines, Studio Classroom has had a great influence on Taiwanese society.
In 1963, Brougham founded the Heavenly Melody Singers, the first Christian music group in Taiwan. The Heavenly Melody Singers produced many praise and worship albums, many of which are familiar to Chinese Christians, such as "Vision," "The Faith Journey," and "Flowers of the Field."
Now, Brougham has rested from her work in the Lord and will be buried at Yangmingshan in Taipei, a location that overlooks ORTV. The organization says on its website that "this is the testimony of the beginning and the most concrete realization of Brougham's love for the Chinese people."
- Translated by Joyce Leung
