Your Tracks Drip with Fatness
The Pastures of the Wilderness Overflow
The first time I met Brother Paul Wu was at the International Chinese-speaking Conference in 1998 (then called the "New Spring Chinese-speaking Conference"), thirty-five days after I was saved. The church in Cerritos received us, the saints who came from Franklin, New Jersey. At that time, how I admired these brothers who had grown up in the church life and had been perfected: Paul Wu, Jiang Huai, Zhang Leshan, Chen Zequan, and others. I truly hoped from my heart that I could follow the brothers' pattern, live the church life well, and serve the church. From then on, there were always several opportunities each year to see Brother Wu, and I seized the opportunities to bring my questions and learn from the brothers.
By the winter training of 2002, I again saw Brother Wu at the church in Cerritos. At that time I was struggling over whether to lay down my job to serve; Brother Wu had just recovered from a serious illness. He told me that if I was going to serve, I should seize the opportunity to serve, and not be like him, waiting until I was "knocked crooked in the mouth and eyes" by the Lord Jesus before serving. That sentence touched me greatly, and it was from that time that I began to prepare to lay down my job to serve.
When I laid down my job and began to take part in the simplified-character literature service and the spreading of the ministry, I saw even more the serving pattern of the Taiwan Gospel Book Room and Brother Wu's leading. Over these years, the direct encouragement, help, and support that Brother Wu and the brothers gave us cannot be described by the two words "thank you." We benefit for our whole life, and continue to benefit, and the grace reaches the saints throughout the earth who read simplified characters.
In the course of the Chinese-speaking campus service, besides the co-worker brothers in North America, such as Brother Yu Jielin (余潔麟), Brother Zhang Guanghui (張光惠), Brother Bai Xinlai (白信來), and Brother Wu Fulin (吳福臨), Brother Wu and Brother Lin even more brought the brothers in Taiwan to help and support us with all their might, so that we—who were saved only after taking up jobs in North America—could have the opportunity to be perfected, to learn under the brothers' covering, to function a little, and to experience some transformation. These helps and supports will be remembered by the Lord into eternity.
In these years of service, Brother Wu and the brothers in Taiwan made an even deeper impression on us in their help with the purchase of meeting halls and with concrete service. He and the brothers truly, in love and in the Body, set a beautiful pattern for us. The churches and the saints thank the brothers in the Lord. The one phrase "no problem" became Brother Wu's standard word of encouragement, comforting the hearts of so many saints.
In the course of fellowshipping about going to serve at the church in New York City, the encouragement and help of Brother Wu and Brother Yu brought about the final decision to go to serve in New York; and when the service in New York began, Brother Wu and Brother Yu, in early March 2015, both in weak and sick condition, came in the severe cold and snowy weather of New York to the church in New York City to visit Brother Zhu Yongyi (朱永毅) and the brothers in New York.
That was the first time I saw Brother Wu come out of the airport in a wheelchair; my feeling of gratitude is beyond words. Their trip of nearly ten days, for the full recovery of the church in New York City and for the fellowship of the Body, poured out their lives and did their part. It was also the fellowship of that trip that helped us finally decide the matter of purchasing the "Peniel blending center." In the past five years, the church in New York City has not only enjoyed the brothers' direct help but has also brought in many visiting fellowships.
Especially with the brothers' help, the first international conference in the thirty-four-year history of the church in New York City was accomplished: the Memorial Day conference of 2017. The brothers in New York City, encouraged by Brother Yu, also went in three groups, thirty-six brothers in all, to Taiwan to visit and learn, personally witnessing and observing up close, in fine detail, the grace received by the churches in Taiwan under the brothers' leading. These learnings, for the grace and blessing the church in New York City has received in these years, are beyond recounting.
"And when Jacob finished commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed and expired and was gathered to his peoples." (Gen. 49:33)