PICTURES FROM MY CHILDHOOD



SERVING GOD AND ENJOYING HIS GIFTS –

AN ALBUM OF CHILDHOOD LESSONS

Samuel Ling

A SIMPLE, GOOD LIFE

I am extremely privileged to be in the fourth generation of full time Christian workers in my family. My father, the late Rev. John Ling, and my mother, Dr. Mary Ling (now living in Pennsauken, New Jersey), were teachers at Bethel Bible Seminary in Hong Kong (Dad: 1948-57, 1959-64; Mom: 1950-65). Located at 45-47 Grampian Road, Kowloon City, Bethel’s campus was surrounded by four walls. The front entrance was locked every evening at 10:30. At that time, the watchdogs (German shepherds) would be released from the kennel, and would not be returned until 6 in the morning. It was a safe, secluded corner of Hong Kong!

We lived a simple, happy life during the first fourteen years of my life. Outside the school (particularly the back wall on Inverness Road), refugees who fled the Communist revolution (1949) built their lean-to shacks against the wall. Not far away, the first stages of government housing (Lok Fu resettlement estates) went up in the late 1950s to house these refugees. We were keenly aware that we were the privileged who had a haven and a shelter!

My brother Moses and I learned many things from my parents. As my 50th birthday approaches in 2001, I want to share some of the lessons learned during the first fourteen years of my life, particularly with men and women who grew up in a generation very different from mine. For my childhood world was filled with simplicity, honesty, godliness and sacrificial service: but it was not devoid of wisdom, common sense, multicultural orientation, the humanities and an appreciation of all of God’s good gifts. I want to share some of these nuggets of wisdom. May the leaders of the 21st century “get wisdom” as the first priority in life.

“When I was my father’s son,

Tender and the only one in the sight of my mother,

He also taught me, and said to me:

‘Let your heart retain my words;

Keep my commands, and live.

Get wisdom! Get understanding!

Do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth.

Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you;

Love her, and she will keep you.

Wisdom is the principal thing;

Therefore get wisdom.

And in all your getting, get understanding.” (Proverbs 4:3-7)

SEEKING THE LORD’S LEADING:

PRAYER WORKS

My father moved from Zhejiang province, China to Hong Kong in 1948 to teach at Bethel. My mother was then invited by Bethel’s principal, Dr. Alice Lan, to go to Hong Kong as well. My mother knew about my fahter. She sought the Lord’s will while pondering about her future in the fall of 1949: she prayed that, if she received a letter from Hong Kong by December 31, 1949, she would know that that is where the Lord wanted her to go.

New Years’ Eve 1949 went by. During the first few days of January 1950, she received a letter from my father – postmarked December 31, 1949. By Chinese New Year’s Eve, my mother arrived in Kowloon’s railway station. My father invited her to dinner that evening.

The following is the sanitized version of their romance as we children heard it: Dad took mom out to dinner. He said, “My father is a minister.” She said, “My father is an engineer.” They ate, and went back to the seminary. Four days later they were engaged. The principal and the dean (Miss Vera Shen) thought that (this was 1950) it was unseemly for seminary teachers to engage in a romantic relationship. Thus they should get married soon. They did, right after the semester was over – on July 19, 1950.

While many Christians today would not seek the Lord’s guidance through signs (such as a postmark), many godly believers were sure of their decisions and the steps of their lives, becauses they earnestly sought the leading of the Lord. We were instructed by many Sunday School teachers and youth counselors, through my childhood years, to trust in the Lord and seek His will for all our decisions. Prayer works!

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

And lean not on your own understanding;

In all your ways acknowledge Him,

And He shall direct your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

HYGIENE, SEX AND HEALTH:

THE BODY IS IMPORTANT

Bethel’s students nicknamed my father “King of hygiene” (wei sheng da wang). While I played, as a toddler, in my playpen while the seminary community walked by in the courtyard, my father explicitly prohibited his colleagues and students to kiss me! (My wife often wonders, in light of the above, why I have such rough skin later in life!)

When I was old enough to go to school by myself, and given some pocket money, my brother Moses and I were instructed that we could only buy ice cream from The Dairy Farm and On Lok Yuen (i.e., all other brands were not clean enough!). Everyone had two pairs of chopsticks at the dinner table; one for personal use, one to pick up food from the middle of the table.

Not only was hygiene emphasized in the home; healthy living was taught by Dad and Mom. Fifty years ago, it was quite a revolution that they took the men and the women students aside (separately) and taught them physiology and the facts of life. I am sure that those sessions were appreciated! Even today, as Generation X and Generation Y are bombarded by sensual stimuli in the media, healthy, biblical teaching about the human body, dating and relationships is still sorely missing in many church circles. With the sexual revolution of the 1960s behind us, we have less, not more, healthy, biblical and true information about God’s creation of the human body and his design for us as men and women.

I am grateful that my parents were ahead of their time. By the time I was eleven, my father had taken my brother and me aside and told us, in the coming years, what physical changes would happen to our bodies.

The body is not dirty; God created it; if we misuse it, however, it is sin. We need to teach our children this – ahead of time.

“Flee sexual immorality.

Every sin that a man does is outside the body,

but he who commits sexual immorality

sins against his own body.

Or do you not know that your body is

the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,

whom you have from God,

and you are not your own?

For you were bought at a price;

therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit,

which are God’s” (I Corinthians 6:18-20).

GOOD FOOD:

A BROAD INTEREST IN LIFE

My parents lived on a very modest budget. Teaching made no one rich in those days, but we had free housing. My father would put his money into various envelopes. There was, of course, an envelope for grocery money. But there is an extra envelope – about HK $30—for fruit. There were countless comments made that, fruit is good for you. Often we would take evening walks into Kowloon City just to buy apples and oranges. The importance of a balanced diet was engrained into our minds very early!

My father was a native of Ningpo, Zhejiang province. He would make bean sauce (dou shi) on the roof top, and rice wine (jiu niang) at home. He had some very unconventional tastes for meals: sometimes we would come home for lunch, and instead of meat, vegetables and tofu, lunch would consist of sticky rice (no mi) with either red bean paste, or black sesame paste. My mother was not crazy about this sweet, one-course lunch, but my father pointed out that sticky rice is good for us. A lunch consisting only of one sweet item – but nutritious! My parents would also make “man tou” (steamed bread) and many other goodies.

Later when we came to the United States, I watched my father buy his juice machine, yogurt machine, sprouts maker, and plant a full vegetable garden. He subscribed to Prevention magazine. The point I want to make is not only that he was health conscious. He had an interest in his Father’s world! Bethel Seminary was a very strict, conservative place: we did not smoke, drink, play poker or mahjong, go to the movies, gamble or dance. But this did not mean that life was monotonous! My parents loved life, and food was one way this was shown.

Our heavenly Father created a wonderful world for us to enjoy. So let us receive good gifts with thankfulness!

“Here is what I have seen:

It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink,

and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils

under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him;

for it is his heritage” (Ecclesiastes 5:18).

COMMUNITY:

BE THOUGHTFUL OF OTHERS

Bethel was a small community with two single ladies at the helm: Dr. Alice Lan and Miss Vera Shen. There was the elderly pastor (Rev. Frank Ling), who preached with John Sung and others in the Bethel Evangelistic Band in the 1930s. Then there were about a dozen families who lived in seminary housing, like ours. We rubbed shoulders with each other on a daily basis. I can remember my mother, from time to time, taking dishes of food to Po-po Xiao Zhang (Grandma Principal) and Po-po Shen (Miss Vera, the dean). Many outside visitors would call on us, including leading pastors and Bible preachers such as Rev. Timothy Dzao and his family, Dr. and Mrs. John Pao, Dr. S. Y. King and others. Parents of the students, of course, would come and show appreciation or seek counsel. They all, in good Chinese form, brought candy or cookies.

There was a lot of give and take, and gifts lubricated relationships very effectively!

One day, my parents attended a “community affairs meeting.” The entire campus had only one telephone, and it was situated in the office, quite a walk from the apartments where we lived. The school decided to install intercom telephone sets, so that teachers and their families could be promptly summoned, should they receive an outside call.

Three intercoms were to be installed in an apartment building of 12 units. Whose apartments would they go to? Miss Lien, a senior single woman who taught music, lived with her elderly mother in Apartment 202. They had the least need for an intercom, for they hardly received any outside calls. But Miss Lien volunteered to have one of the three intercoms installed in her apartment.

My father came home from that meeting, and told us of Miss Lien’s noble example. We should learn to care for other people’s needs, not just our own. That little instruction that evening is still remembered by me today.

Another example of how we should be thoughtful of others, is how the radio should be played. (A radio in those days took about 2-3 minutes to warm up!) My father said that we should turn the radio to a volume level, so that someone in the next room could not hear it! This is probably unheard of today – but my father played his music very softly.

Community is built as we think of others.

“Let each of you look out not only for his own interests,

but also for the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4, NKJV).

GETTING WISDOM:

A BROAD-BASED EDUCATION IN THE HUMANITIES

Bethel ran a Bible seminary, a high school on campus, and several elementary schools. It would be very easy for me and my brother Moses to enroll in these schools, saving my parents a great deal of expense. But my parents would not have anything of it. Dad said, it would be embarrassing, if we misbehaved or did not do well in school, for Uncles and Aunts (i..e, his colleagues) to point these things out to him. (Later in life, I discovered that church members also would hesitate to tell the pastor if his children were not up to par in conduct!) Thus, I never attended Bethel for one day.

I started kindergarten in Kang Le kindergarten, right next door to Bethel, before I was three. Then I transferred to Grampian kindergarten, at the southern end of our block, and went through the entire two-year curriculum. I can remember very little from those years, except that teachers (all women) were patient and kind, wore Chinese cheong-sam gowns, and that we sang songs during class, and played games in the little playground during recess. Soon it was time to go home for lunch, the end of the kindergarten day. As I took the short walk to and from kindergarten (with our maid accompanying), I would pass by a Buddhist elementary school, a three story apartment building for western Air Force officers, and other quiet apartment buildings (including one in which Dr. Peter Chow, now at China Evangelical Seminary, grew up – No. 31). Grampian Road was shady and quiet, and my early memories of it were pleasant and sweet.

My parents sent me to Pui To, a Baptist primary school at No. 37 Grampian Road. I remember receiving an excellent education in the English language, particularly from a Miss Choy, who taught us conversation (grade 3) and the parts speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.) for grade 6. As we recited “I am running,” we were to actually get up and run in our places. One day no one wanted to act out “I am lying” (on the floor!). In retrospect, it was such an advantage to attend a Chinese-language elementary school in which there were excellent English teachers!

I had very little exposure to the outside world. I did not understand, in Grade 5, why some of my fellow students (boys) would read the newspaper, and would be able to respond intelligently to questions on current affairs from Miss Chu (the late Mrs. Kapok Lee; Mr. Lee lives in Bayside, New York today). One day I walked with my father past the Kowloon Post Office on Salisbury Road (on the same site today stands the Hong Kong Space Museum), and I asked, “What is Russia?” My father immediately responded, “Shush! That’s the enemy!” Where did my interest in history and culture come from? That’s much later in life!

In grade 6 we all had to take the Secondary School Entrance Examinations, and to declare our preferred choices for secondary schools. With my parents’ input, I put down Queen Elizabeth School, the best (British) government school on the Kowloon side of the colony, as my first choice. The second choice went to Diocesan Boys’ School, an Anglican institution built on a hill, secluded from the noisy traffic of Kowloon. (My father was an Anglican minister’s son; my grandfather’s mother was an Anglican Bible woman.) They were both very fine schools. When the results were released late in spring 1962, I got into my first choice, QES.

QES turned out to be an excellent complement to Pui To. It was an English-language school; that is, all subjects were taught in English, except the subjects of Chinese literature and Chinese history. There were eight 40-minute periods a day, and we went to school five days a week (not six, like some of the other Chinese-language schools). The principal, Mr. Arthur Hinton, was a very honorable, respected as well as well-liked Englishman. Both he and the Senior Mistress (i.e., the lady vice-principal) were very civic-minded. They would take students to visit sanitoriums during the holidays, and would encourage students to volunteer for the Red Cross. We had a very solid curriculum: for grade 7 (Form 1 in British jargon) we studied English (including composition, dictation, grammar, and reading), Chinese, Chinese history, history, geography, arithmetic, algebra, geometry and general science. In addition, there was woodshop (which I loathed) and physical education (which I was terrible in). My favorite was probably music.

But that was not all. QES was very much ahead of most schools in Hong Kong in the early 1960s: she offered a variety of extracurricular activities. There was a club for every academic interest, and many sports alternatives. I joined the Christian Fellowship, and would often attend the after-lunch “Music Appreciation” sessions. During these 30-minute meetings, we would sit quietly, and listen as a 33 1/3 LP record of some work in classical music would be played. There was no commentary, but we all felt we learned a lot. Attendance, unfortunately, was often very sparse – 3 to 5 people.

I remembered that I did very poorly trying to memorize the various counties of England, especially their geographical relationship to each other! I did enjoy Geography in Form 2 (grade 8), when we drew maps of the Southern Hemisphere (Australia, Africa, Latin America). Though I learned very little medieval and early modern European history due to laziness, I did remember going to the library one day, and copying page after page from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. That was a very good “first” experience in using reference works.

While Pui To had excellent English teachers, QES had very good Chinese teachers! (The latter, of course had excellent English teachers, including two unforgettable ladies: Miss McIlhenney from Ireland, and Miss Baptista from Portugal). Thus God gave me opportunities to build strong language foundations before coming to the United States at age 14.

That was not all. From time to time, my father wanted to supplement our education with other important things “which we would find helpful in life.” In additional to music (see below), I was sent one year to Mr. Titus Yu (who later taught theology in Berkeley, California), who spent many Saturday afternoons teaching me etymology as well as pronunciation systems in the English dictionary. It was quite a treat to take the bus from Kowloon City to Tsimshatsui to study etymology! Someone (Dad himself?) taught us how to use the abacus one summer while my brother and I were in elementary school. At QES I took up the violin one year under Miss Margaret Money, who also conducted the Hong Kong Youth Orchestra (I did very poorly; I was more interested in piano; but I made a good friend then, Mr. Joseph Leung, now in Darien, Illinois). Then for the final summer before sailing for America, I took extra lessons in classical Chinese from Mr. Abraham Mok (who now lives in Rowland Heights, California). I told Uncle Mok that I hated to memorize the texts, but would certainly be happy to give him the summary of the plot!

My childhood education, therefore, was well rounded. There was a lot of cross-training. For example, while we had to memorize Bible passages (e.g. Luke 2:8-14, Psalm 100, Psalm 103, etc.) for the Bible lessons at Pui To, we were required to write them out in full, using the Chinese brush! (My shirt sleeves would be all stained black from the Chinese ink). One day, for English composition, I wrote about a car tour I took into the countryside. I remembered that, for every paragraph of the essay, I ended with either a biblical verse or concept. The teacher, Mr. Alfred Ling (whose son, Rev. Samuel Ling, now serves at Mandarin Baptist Church, Alhambra, California), was a godly Christian and my father’s schoolmate at St. John’s University in Shanghai. I believed Mr. Ling gave me an A for the essay!

My history and geography lessons were reinforced, at my own initiative, as I tried to memorize the street route for every bus route operated by Kowloon Motor Bus Company (there were only fourteen routes), and to redesign the floor plan of the TST bus terminal—ferry complex. I also memorized the airline route map for British Overseas Airways Corporation, from Hong Kong to London. These were done in my spare time, while my brother Moses play basketball with David Mok and other teacher’s children in the Bethel playground.

The art of memory is a precious asset, and God sharpened this tool in my life at an early stage. Later I was to memorize things both important (dates in church history and Chinese history; doctrines and key Bible texts) as well as trivial (phone numbers).

God has created a great, wide world for us to explore. From an early age, our children need to be challenged to read, read widely, and to think deeply.

Daniel was among the Hebrew young men who were “gifted in all wisdom, possessing knowledge and quick to understand, who had ability to serve in the king’s palace, and whom they might teach the language and literature of the Chaldeans” (Daniel 1:4). Moses, Paul and other great men in the Bible had a good education in the letters and learning of this world—later to be complemented and transformed by training in the Word of God. To know God’s Word and to know God’s world – both are important for the equipping of God’s servant-leaders.

BECOMING BICULTURAL:

ENGLISH LANGUAGE, THINGS AMERICAN,

AND WESTERN CULTURE

As I said, Pui To gave me good English, and QES gave me both good English and Chinese. My mother taught English at Bethel High School, and since I did not do poorly in English, she would recruit me to grade some of the quizzes, tests and examinations. So by grade 5, I was grading grade 9 (Junior High 3) tests on grammar, spelling, punctuation and the like. It was a lot of fun, but I must not tell anyone what I was doing! Later in grades 10 and 11 (in Illinois), I looked up the Greek analytical lexicon for my father’s Greek studies at Wheaton Graduate School, because he did not have time for this tedious task while holding down three part-time jobs!

For one year I attended a Bible club which was primarily for missionary kids and the children of western expatriates living in Hong Kong. I remember Bible stories, kool-aid and cookies (unlike the things I ate at home), some handouts to take home, and the unusual smell of westerners (later I realized that they used Dial soap, which was not the favorite brand of Hong Kong’s Chinese people). Later during my QES years, I attended Kowloon Baptist Church, an English congregation which met behind Pui Ching Middle School. I remember my Sunday School teacher, a Mr. Whiting, who would pace back and forth lecturing to us, a handful of junior high boys. The pastor, an American southern Baptist, Pastor Thorp, was very kind.

Western culture was re-inforced also in the Bethel curriculum. Bethel offered a required course in its high school classes which was not in the uniform curriculum designed by the Hong Kong government. It was called World History, and it used a thick, hardbound text (in English). My mother told me that this course was added to the curriculum for the students to practice their English (Bethel was not an English-language school). Thus as I graded the papers of my mother’s students, I would learn names such as Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great and Shakespeare.

While Bethel was strict and conservative (no drinking, dancing, gambling or going to the movies), it was filled with little goodies from western culture. Often the seminary students were treated to movie sessions – in retrospect, those must be American culture films borrowed from the U.S. Information Service, because it was through these films that I learned about the space race, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Empire State Building. For child evangelism campaigns (which I attended), we would watch Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck films before the preaching. And as little treats to children, Grandma Principal (Miss Lan) would give out postage stamps, mostly from America.

I started studying piano at age 4. I was envious of the children of my parents’ colleagues (Rev. and Mrs. Charles Ho, who later served with the American Baptists in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) who all played the piano, so I nagged my parents to let me play. Dad and Mom convinced Rev. Jeremy Law (his widow Elsie still serves faithfully today in Seattle, Washington) to teach me. So I began, with John Thompson’s curriculum.

Piano gave me more than the gift of music. It was a westernizing influence. From the pages of John Thompson’s music books, I learned about black slaves, the Old South, and “Home on the Range.” Somehow the wonders of rural America in the 19th century were imprinted in this young mind of mine. Later in my piano career, I learned about Bach and Handel, Mozart and Beethoven, Chopin and Schubert – giants in the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods. I took part in music examinations and competitions: and the adjudicator was always a British musician. The highest prize in Hong Kong was the Sir Thomas Armstrong scholarship, awarded to an outstanding young person to study at the Royal Conservatories of Music. My studies in piano and music theory had a distinctly western (British) orientation.

The foods we ate at home were also very western. In addition to my father’s Chinese favorites, we enjoyed Quaker Oats, Del Monte canned sardines and peaches, Sunkist oranges, delicious red apples from the U.S., chocolates from Holland (Carroll) and England (Cadbury’s), ham and cheese from Switzerland, Denmark and Australia. Thus the names and sceneries from western countries, which we learned in school, were very much a part of our daily lives. My father studied in the U.S. (Garrett for one semester, Wheaton for three) from 1957 to 1959. When he returned, he began a westernizing campaign at home: he dismissed our maid because we could not afford her wages any more; we built a double sink and I started washing clothes; we baked cake, made fudge and jello, and ate blue cheese and blue cheese dressing (in 1960, that was radical and unheard of!).

My bicultural orientation, therefore, was part of my childhood exposure to things both western and Chinese, both spiritual and secular. While there is no Jew or Greek in Christ (Galatians 3:28), God does call his people “out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Revelation 6:9). Paul’s commitment was “I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (I Corinthians 9:18). A multicultural exposure, therefore, is a precious gift from the Lord of all tribes and nations.

TRUTH AND DIVERSITY IN THE CHURCH:

INDIGENOUS THEOLOGY AND

ECUMENICAL APPRECIATION

I was raised in a godly, fundamentalist tradition. Catholics were heretics, and baptism was by immersion only. People who smoked were unsaved by definition, and (though I did not understand any of it) dispensationalist eschatology was the correct interpretation of the end times. We were constantly admonished to live holy lives. As a matter of fact the Graduation Anthem, sung every year in July at the seminary’s commencement exercises, was a Bethel Hymns number; the chorus began with the words “Holiness Unto the Lord.”

This other-worldly orientation, however, did not prevent Dad from instilling in us a broader appreciation for other traditions, and for lessons from church history. Dad was an Anglican. He became interested in the works of Watchman Nee while at St. John’s University, and taught for Rev. Timothy Lin (First Chinese Baptist Church, Los Angeles) after World War II in Hangzhou before going to Hong Kong. Thus for all his adult years he was a conservative evangelical, or a fundamentalist. But he never despised his Anglican past, and would tell us that there were many good things in the Anglican church. He took us once to Christ Church, Anglican (Kowloon Tong) and once to St. Andrew’s in Tsimshatsui. While going to catch the Peak Tram, we would walk past St. John’s Cathedral. I remember nothing at all from those two worship services at Christ and St. Andrew’s, but I did remember that there were good things in the Common Book of Prayer. Decades later, I would open this book and imbibed from the treasures of the medieval church as well as the Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican traditions.

Dad had many friends in the ministry. These included illustrious leaders such as Rev. Wu Ming-chieh of the Lutheran church in Hong Kong. I was taught that, while the Lutheran minister had his back to the congregation while leading worship (which was different from our tradition), there were also many good things in the Lutheran tradition. Later my father would write home from America (1957-59, and 1964-65) and tell us of the wonderful folk in the American Baptist church he served in Aurora, Illinois – sterling examples of faithfulness, kindness and down-home generosity. We even learned something from the 7th Day Adventists! The famous shirtmaker, Crocodile, was owned by a SDA man, and his stores would close at sundown Friday and reopen at sundown Saturday. (Today Crocodile is no longer controlled by that family.) It was an example of Sabbath-keeping, and my father pointed this out to us while we did window shopping in Mongkok, Kowloon in the 1960s.

For the holidays, we would sometimes visit Tao Fong Shan in Shatin. Dad told us that it was once a place were Buddhist monks, after being converted to Christianity, would stay. There was a porcelain workshop there, and chinaware as well as paintings would tell Bible stories through Chinese art. The concept of “indigenous theology” was vividly illustrated in my young mind, while I never heard of the term until college years.

Another example of “indigenous theology” happened at Bethel. All teachers had limited income, and giving red envelopes of “lucky money” to all the children on campus became quite a burden for most. One year, Po-po Principal and Miss Versa Shen decided that they were to break with centuries of Chinese tradition. They would give Nestle’s (or was it Cadbury’s) chocolate bars to the children for Chinese New Year instead of money. Very conveniently, in those days chocolate bars came in red-and-gold wrapping. Most teachers followed suit. That year the children did not amass a fortune, but had a Chinese version of Halloween! We collected all kinds of gold coins (with milk chocolate inside), and red-and-gold wrapped chocolate bars.

The lesson learned was not lost on me. The point was not only that “lucky money” cost all the families a lot of extra expense; it was also somehow “un-Christian.” Christians should not think that, by giving money to children, they would gain some : fortune in life. We were forbidden to say “Kung Hee Fat Choy” during the Chinese New Year holidays as a form of greeting, because it meant “I wish you would get rich this year.” Instead, we were to say “Kung Hee, Kung Hee,” which only meant “I wish you joy, respectfully.” I remembered Miss Chu (Mrs. Kapok Lee) in grade 5 at Pui To, who greeted the class on the day after the Chinese New Year’s holidays: “Sun Nin Fai Lok” (Happy New Year). There was no “Kung Fee Fat Choy,” and of course no pupil dared ask her for lucky money!

Throughout my 14 years in Hong Kong, our family would receive many wedding invitations, and cards to invite us to other special occasions. Most of them began with the Chinese characters, “jin ding,” which meant, “we have designated such as such a date.” The invitation card would continue to give the dates (in both the Chinese lunar calendar and in the western calendar), and the names of the bride and groom. One day, an invitation card came (as usual, in red and gold). But the beginning characters were “jin zhan.” Dad told us that “zhan” was somehow a superstitious concept, while “ding” was neutral.

While in the world, Christians are not to be of the world. While preaching the gospel, Christians are to teach and apply God’s Word to all of culture. Any attempt at building an indigenous Chinese church need to be totally free from accommodation and syncretism. These principles were vividly taught in a natural way while I was young. Thank God!

There is great diversity in the Body of Christ. Our hearts should be large enough to appreciate what all God’s servants are doing: “What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ in preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice” (Philippians 1:18). This does not imply doctrinal laxity, however: “If anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:9). Both principles were embraced by Paul. Both need to be embraced by us. How to discern? Role models and examples go a long way, and I thank God for the ones I learned early in life.

TITHING, STEWARDSHP AND GENEROSITY:

HONORING GOD,

CARING FOR THE UNFORTUNATE

Dad and Mom were on a very limited, fixed income. All expenses were accounted for by envelopes. But they had enough “fruit money” (HK $30 per month), and enough to send me to a good school (HK $32 per month in 1962) and to a good piano teacher (HK $80 at its peak, in 1965). I never enjoyed the monthly moment when I had to ask Dad for piano tuition, because he would go to his desk, open an envelope from the top right-hand drawer, and said to me, “See, that is all the money we have.” But it was an important lesson to learn: money is hard earned, but good food, good health and a good education (among other things) are important.

While we had limited funds, we were more fortunate than many. I was one of the few students who brought HK $32 every month to school. Many classmates were on half or full scholarships. They would take the bus from Tsuen Wan and Yuen Long, or the train from Tai Po and Fan Ling. For a while, a neighboring student offered a ride for me to go to school. Thus many of my schoolmates would make fun of me, calling me “rich people’s kid.” While it was far from the truth, it reminded me that I was privileged and fortunate.

In 1960 Dad and Mom had to send our maid away, because we could not afford her any more (she wanted HK $100/month). We began washing our own dishes and clothes. But both Dad and Mom taught classes, and Bethel had switched to a two-school system: the morning shift began early, and ended around 1 pm; then the afternoon shift would begin right away. So there was little time to wash the vegetables and prepare for dinner.

There were always a few students at Bethel who came from families with very little means, and somehow their names would end up in the dinner table conversation. So from year to year, we would have a student from Bethel High School (usually a girl), who would pop into our apartment and hurriedly wash the vegetables, do the laundry, and would eat a meal a day with us. Later my brother and I would understand that Dad and Mom paid for the student’s tuition, and would give her some money for textbooks and stationery supplies. Dad and Mom would help others in need, without letting us know; it would be decades later, while I pastored a church in Chicago, that I would meet one of the beneficiaries of their generosity.

Those dinner conversations revealed that Dad and Mom’s colleagues – the Uncles and Aunts in the apartment building – were doing similar things helping needy students. It was second nature to us.

Around 1960, China’s “Great Leap Forward” campaign failed; thousands of people fled to the China-Hong Kong border to avoid starvation. Eventually they were sent back. During that period, my parents sent packages of food to their families in China. The British colonial government and the Chinese government agreed to a plan, which, in retrospect, proves to be a profitable scheme for both: packages of food sent to China could not exceed 2 lbs. So we would order oil, flour and sugar, and had little tins made to put the food in. Every month, I would help Dad go to the Kowloon City post office to mail these packages. (Later Dad confessed that he put some milk powder into the flour; this helped his brothers and sisters and their families get some nutrition into their diet!) As we walked down Carpenter Road, passing the old Walled City, Dad would tell me that he was like Joseph of Genesis: he was spared in the free world, in order to save the lives of his brothers and sisters.

Memories of those 2-pound tins – mountains of them, in grocery stores, in tin-making shops, and at the post office – are still real to me. So is the principle: We are privileged like Joseph. God can bring a lot of good out of evil. The question is: Are we good stewards of our resources?

After we arrived in America in 1965, Dad told us another story. Mr. Wilkie Kao was a businessman (now retired living in Minnesota), and he and his family used to live across the street, at No. 48 Grampian Road. Dad was a St. John’s schoolmate with Mr. Kao’s brother, Dr. Kao. When Dad was getting ready to leave Hong Kong, he went to say goodbye with Uncle Wilkie Kao. Mr. Kao conducted his business from a desk in the living room. He opened a drawer, and took out several hundred dollars, and gave it to Dad.

Dad’s point was: this Christian businessman friend was ready with resources to help someone in need. He was prepared. Later I was to learn Ephesians 4:28: “Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.”

At age 8, I began receiving an allowance. As I remember, the initial amount was HK $2. Of course, 20 cents went into the offering bag in Sunday School. Later in high school days, the allowance went up to HK $30, to take care of ferry and bus rides to the piano teacher (on the Hong Kong side) and the like. $3, of course, went to offerings in Sunday School and church. Giving God the first 10% of our income was “second nature,” so later in life my wife and Idid not have to struggle with this principle. We taught it to young people in our part time ministry in New York (1976-78), and we modeled it during our church planting years (1980-85). The result: we were able to, like our parents did, witness the growth and maturing of many servants of God, and the blooming of many ministries in Christ’s kingdom.

John Wesley’s approach to money was: “Earn as much as you can, save as much as you can, and give away as much as you can.” It is a wonderful way to live!

“Give, and it will be given to you:

good measure, pressed down, shaken together,

and running over will be put into your bosom.

For with the same measure that you use,

It will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:38)

“For God loves a cheerful giver.

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you,

That you, always having all sufficiency in all things,

May have an abundance for every good work.” (II Corinthians 9:7b, 8)

GODLINESS AND SERVICE:

TO BE “MISSIONARIES IN AFRICA”

Dad and Mom, to my knowledge, did not “share the gospel” with us to elicit a decision to accept Jesus Christ as personal Savior. But they did pray together, on their knees, every day. Actually they did not refer to the gospel as “fu yin” at all; when they talked about people who did not have Christ, the term they used was: “they did not understand the truth” (in Shanghai: fe dong do li). From the very term “dao li” (truth), I gained an understanding of the gospel: it was God’s truth, which instructed us how to live godly lives. This is a very helpful foundation to build on.

At age 9, John Peter Chow, my father’s seminary student (who later served for a number of years in San Jose, California), taught us a Sunday School lesson on John 3. He told us to open our hearts and ask Jesus to come in. So when I went back to our apartment, I asked Jesus to come into my heart – that was late morning, the 3rd Sunday in October, 1960.

No bells rang; the earth did not shake under my feet. But I did what I was told to do, in obedience.

The Christian life was not a legalist code of things to do or not do (though we knew not to drink, smoke, gamble, dance, etc.). Rather, it was simply lived out in goodness, honesty, good work, and a genuine love for Jesus Christ. Such love for Christ can be seen in generosity and caring for each other, and caring for the less fortunate. It could also be seen from the way people preached.

Mrs. Florence Hui (now in Brooklyn, New York) was a high school student then; her maiden name was Wong Hang, and she dated Hui Tong Li (now her husband, Rev. Mark Hui in Brooklyn). Florence was the devotions leader in the youth fellowship (which I attended, 1962-65). Every Saturday evening we would sing from the Alliance Press’ Youth Hymns I (Books 1-4), later nicknamed by many as “Lam ching sing” (the blue youth hymns). I knew the soprano, alto, tenor and bass parts to so many of these songs simply by repetition! After singspiration, Florence would do a time of sharing. And she would often weep. From her sharing, I understood what it means to seek a relationship with Christ characterized by obedience, commitment, and willingness to go wherever Christ sends us.

I had a good friend, Cheung Tsin Wong. While Mark Hui led the fellowship and Florence was the devotions leader, Cheung Tsin Wong would be the general affairs person. On numerous occasions I would go to the fellowship office (!) and watch him copy stencils and print songs for the group. A stencil was a square, transparent piece of wax-like substance; using a stylus, each Chinese character needed to be handwritten against a stone tablet. Then, using a brush and a screen, one copy would be made at a time. My friend was diligent, and never complained about the work. Many Saturday evenings, after fellowship, we would lean against a balcony railing on the 2nd floor, and say to one another, “We should be missionaries in Africa.” The other person would resonate: “Yea, we should.” We didn’t know much about missions then – all we knew was that we wanted to be “missionaries in Africa”: that is, to share Christ somehow, somewhere.

In August 1965 I attended two summer conferences. First, it was the youth conference of Amoy Christian Church. (I did not realize that my father preached for that church, located on Tin Kwong Road in Kowloon, every month for years!) During that week I befriended a brother named Wong Pak Ting, and we wept in repentance over our sins. It was quite a landmark in my life.

Two weeks later, I attended the evening sessions of Hong Kong Keswick Convention, held at the Kowloon Tong Alliance Church. The speaker was Dr. Torrey Johnson from the United States, one of the founder of Youth For Christ. For five evenings I sat in the audience, the only young person in a sea of grey hairs. On the final evening (August 27, 1965), I went forward and prayed with a counselor to “clear my spiritual accounts” with God.

After prayer I walked to the front doors of Kowloon Tong Alliance Church. Dr. Johnson was still there, and noticing this young boy, he prayed a prayer over me: “Lord, if it be your will, make this boy a missionary.” That night, I went home sleepless. By sunset, I dedicated my life to full time ministry. Three weeks later, we sailed on the U.S.S. President Cleveland for the United States.

CONCLUSION

For fourteen years, I imbibed in a godly tradition: filled with God’s good gifts (food, the English language, humanities, music, western culture), bestowed in a quiet, stable environment.

Thank God for his indescribable grace!

February 12, 1999

Rev. Samuel Ling (Ph.D. Temple University) is president of China Horizon, a ministry of apologetics and mentoring based in Pasadena, California. He is visiting profesosor of missions at Westminster Theological Seminary in California, scholar-in-residence at Logos Evangelical Seminary (of the Evangelical Formosan Church), and adjunct professor of missions at Covenant Theological Seminary.

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