Our Future Is Either Rapture or Martyrdom
The departure of my eldest brother fulfilled the consecration made at the students-and-scholars training in New Jersey: our future is either rapture or martyrdom.
In March 2015, when the northeastern United States was buried under several feet of snow, my eldest brother still came, with his sick body, together with Brother Yu Jielin (余潔麟)—who shared the same illness—to visit Brother Zhu Yongyi (朱永毅) in New York.
Through the fellowship concerning the purchase of the Peniel campsite, the sweet fellowship between Brother Zhu and the church in New York and the co-workers and the churches was restored.
In the evening my eldest brother and I returned together to rest at our home in New Jersey. Only then did I learn that, because of the large amount of medication he had taken over the years after his kidney transplant, the flesh around his gums grew the wrong way, so that it was often bitten and bled without stopping. At night his mouth held blood without ceasing, and he simply could not sleep peacefully; yet the next day he continued to serve, pressing on boldly (in fact his gallbladder had already been removed because of cancer).
In his youth he was as strong as an ox, an athlete; yet in these years he pressed on shepherding with a sick body, visiting the churches without resting—his hand was broken, his foot was lame, he slept poorly and ate poorly; only his mind was good, his will strong, and his spirit's power vigorous. Of course there were setbacks in coordination, all the bitterness and sweetness, yet he never gave up, never left, but pressed on courageously.
In him were fulfilled 2 Corinthians 4:7-10: But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us; we are pressed on every side but not constricted; unable to find a way out but not utterly without a way out; … cast down but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. And he also worked together with God through the Lord's all-fitting life, as testified in 2 Corinthians 6:4-10: in everything commending ourselves as ministers of God, in much endurance, … in labors, in watchings, in fastings; in pureness, … in long-suffering, in kindness, in a holy spirit, in unfeigned love, in the word of truth, … through glory and dishonor, through evil report and good report; … as dying, … and behold, we live; as being disciplined and yet not being put to death; as made sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor yet enriching many; as having nothing and yet possessing all things.