Mom's baptism & Cynthia's mom's funeral service

June 12 (Sat.)

I heard about two songs —“the child of God”told by 美瑩 &  “One day”  from 聖教會大專團契陳政弘醫師＜蒙福人生＞ at大林教會.

Brother True-Voice called me while I was waiting to pick up John’s Dad at the HSR station.  He asked if we should give Mom the baptism the next Sat.  I asked Mom the next morning and she said “Yes”.  Praise the Lord.  I then called Brother True-Voice and we set the time as 10 a.m. of Sat. June 19.  I invited Huei-fen and she said she meant to attend a funeral at 10 that morning.  I proposed to maybe change the time of Mom’s baptism earlier in the morning or later in the afternoon.  After talking to Brother God’s Fragrance and later Brother True-Voice, the time for Mom’s baptism changed to 9:00.  It is hopefully to hold around a half hour, so Huei-fen and I (I told her that I “felt” like attending this funeral, which is strange since I did not know this sister at all ) could make it there at 10.

June 18 (Fri.)

The commencement (Graduation Day at Fu-Hsiao) in the morning

The Thank-You-Teacher party of Chongming Bilingual at 翰林茶館文化店

       Before I attended the party, I first rode the bike to Hsien-low Bookstore to look

for the of 歌譜 of “One Day”.  I asked the clerk to help me locate it and I asked for the album of “ the child of God”.  I felt it would be more meaningful to sing this song to them and their family than to buy them any gift on their graduation.  After Principal Zuou addressed to them, I invited Teacher Liza to sing “Amazing Grace” for them.  She didn’t feel like it and we were not invited anyway.

June 19 (Sat.)

Mom’s baptism: a baptism with a full house attendance and full of God’s amazing grace, glory and joy.  Hallelujah!!!!

Oddly enough, I was the one who couldn’t wait to leave after the baptism and who was the first to leave as well.  We rushed to get to 東門巴克禮紀念教會 and was around 10 min late.  Huei-fen rushed into the church while I drove her car to look for a parking place in the neighborhood.  The pastor was delivering the message 從短暫到永恆while I stepped in.  I did not have the time to change and was wearing a purple top and a pink floral pattern bag, which disturbed both the attendants and me as well.  I sat in the far side from the front and started to look at the program sheet with a thought to look for some trace to relate my being present at this funeral.  I failed to find anything especially meaningful to my attendance.  Obviously I did not know either this deceased sister 黃怡瑾or her husband耿伯文.  The only child耿忻 gave a PPT presentation of her mom’s life.  Still I did not get any trace of the meaning for my presence, but I was impressed with the daughter’s note of 你的暫別，縱使我百般不捨，還是請你允許我用微笑祝福你… At the end of the whole program, family first proceeded, followed by the people attended orderly to leave the church as well.  Since I was in the far side in the back, I was waiting longer for my turn and could watch the other people closely.  Amazingly I saw Bell, a sister who is in the English Bible Reading group held in my classroom every Monday afternoon after school, she happened to be in the choir at this funeral.  And I was so touched to see the brave smile the daughter,耿忻, had managed to wear on her face, to keep the promise as she had made with her mom.

Huei-fen was with the other faculty from Tainan Univ. outside the church.  I nodded at 宜惇 & 秀媚 and stayed near them.  The front window of the limo rolled down and 伯文 took off the sunglasses to bid us sincere “thank-you” while the limo was waiting to cross the street.  While I was among the middle-aged faculty of Tainan Univ. sharing with each other how and what God talks to each one of them through  怡瑾’s last stage of life and the funeral.  With a glimpse, I found a young face that looked familiar to me.  She seemed to be one of the students I have from Chongming Bilingual.   I turned around to her and checked it out with her.  She said yes and told me that she was there for her long-time friend and classmate Cynthia耿忻.  Then, amazing all the memories came back to my mind.  Cynthia was in the 3^rd grade class while God brought to Chongming Bilingual in the year of 2002.  I was the home room teacher of grade 2 and was also the subject teacher of grade 3, teaching them Chinese Social Studies and PE ( can you believe that I, who was hard of walking at times, was a PE teacher 8 years ago?)  Once, a girl came to me after the PE and said she forgot to bring back her jacket.  I told her to get down immediately to look for it.  She came back with the note that it was not there any more.  I got the number of the girl’s mom from her home room teacher and called the mom about the missing of the jacket.  Ms. Lu or Teacher Sandy gave me the number and told me the mom was a professor teaching at Tainan Univ.  The mom told me not to worry about it.  The Spirit inside me reminded me that I did know 怡瑾, simply in a non face-to-face way, through the phone.

Can you imagine a short phone call almost 8 years ago mean anything?  I could not.  But the awesome God we serve is the designer of our life picture and He knows what a jigsaw puzzle piece in our life picture means.  

I was looking for a song I heard from Good TV months ago.  I hummed the melody to my very dear sister in Christ美瑩, whom was physically victimized by 類風溼關節炎like劉俠since she was in her senior high school, like 耿忻 is now; whom has been , in my eyes, miraculously a victor in Christ.  美瑩 heard the melody and told me it seemed like that of “神的孩子”.  On my way to the Thanks-to-Teachers party of Chongming Bilingual on Friday night, I stopped at the Christian bookstore and purchased an album of “神的孩子”.  It is not the song I am looking for, but I love this new song as well.  

On my way to the 分區聚會at毛師母’s last night, I played the album in the car.  The song “神的孩子” reminded me of 耿忻, and I know God wanted me to pass this album and His great comfort to this girl with a brave smile on her mom’s funeral.

神的孩子

神的孩子，不要沮喪，舉目向上望

神在天上，不分晝夜，時時看顧你

雖遇艱難，雖有愁苦，仍在祂手裡

祂必叫萬事互相效力，使你福杯滿溢

不要看環境，不看自己

凡專心倚靠祂的必重新得力

每個禱告神都垂聽，千萬別放棄

永遠不要忘記，你要忠心走到底

神的孩子，不要沮喪，舉目向上望

神在天上，不分晝夜，時時看顧你

雖遇艱難，雖有愁苦，仍在祂手裡

祂必叫萬事互相效力，使你福杯滿溢

不要看環境，不看自己

凡耐心等候祂的必如鷹翱翔天際

神的孩子，在主愛中，得享祂安息

永遠不要忘記：你是神所愛孩子